What was the "design intent"?

[Mark_Fine]

After spending a day with Wayne Morrisson playing Lehigh and reviewing some amazing old Flynn drawings, I'm becoming more convinced then ever that the most important thing you can do when trying to "restore" a golf course is attempting to recapture the architect's "design intent" for the golf course!  And furthermore, you have to realize that the design intent might not even be what he originally envisioned!  

Even if you have an aerial of the course on the day it opened, it might not be worth much "from a restoration standpoint" as the architect may have constantly tinkered with the design (as as many are known to have done), some making significant changes.   Flynn for example, is known to have even built courses with few if any bunkers only to add them years later after he studied how they were played!  What good would an opening day aerial do for you?  

Furthermore, we all know architects and construction crews are known to have made design changes "in the field" that differ from the drawings (assuming there were some)!  How is one to know what should be/was really there?  

Determining "the design intent" and trying to recreate this is probably the best you can do.  It's easy to see why there is so much debate!

Mark

[Dave_Miller]

Mark:
That is why keeping records is so important. On the restoration at Charles River we were fortunate to have Paul Murphy spend more than just hours but months of research through old files, libraries, newspaper articles, old green committee meeting minutes etc.,etc.  
This can provide a way to determine when changes were made and also why they were made.  In this way the design intent can be determined.  
As an example if a bunker is not original as determined from an opening day aerial but was built at some future date does anyone know why.  Could it have been that it was deferred from the beginning or did a later reason develop to require it.  
It can be very hard to determine the design intent if all you have is the original drawings.
Fairways and greens,
Dave    

[Ran Morrissett]

Interestingly enough, if you followed Ross's design intent, many of his bunkers that are 20-40 yards shy of greens would never be restored as the advent of the aerial game has undermined (in many cases) Ross's original design intent in placing them there.

So, Mark, what would you do in those cases? Restore them or not?

Cheers,

[Mark_Fine]

Not easy Dave is it!  I still believe a lot of what gets decided (as far as the restoration goes) is a matter of someone's intrepretation of all that data.  

Ran,
Course playing conditions would have to be part of that answer.  If the course is to be kept firm (especially the approaches) it makes the decision a lot easier to keep them.  
#10's bunker at Lehigh is a good example!  Ask Wayne Morrison if that bunker should have been kept and how much fun playing over it is    He hit a massive drive but was left with a delicate 110 yard shot over that bunker to a front pin!  Only way to get it close was to hit it short and trickle it on!  A high soft right to the hole was not an option as the ball runs right to the back of the green.  
Mark

[George Bahto]

Mark: I have a lot of Raynor "concept" drawings - the ones he turned in to the clubs in the beginning - "this is what I would like to do on your course"

Well, so many of these concepts were different from what finally hit the ground course because perhaps the club didn't want it that hard or did not want to spend the additional money it would cost to do the full-blown concept,  many more reasons, I;m sure.

Architects have this same problem today   -   -   what they would like to build and what is finally built!

I'm restoring bunkers at Essex County CC here in NJ - they had elimated about 40 bunkers Raynor/Banks originally wanted to put on the course  .......   and they also made them (Raynor/Banks) use more than a half dozen greens of Tillie's old course that was there to save even more money.

also

I have a set of drawings that Raynor drew for the CC of Fairfield - incredible layout - even a Cape hole out on an island in the lagoon!  Oliver Gould Jennings (founder of CCF and partner with J D Rockefeller -  Standard Oil) ..... Jennings thought the original plan was entirely too difficult for them so he had SR go back and make another routing and cut back on the difficulty.  That was one of Raynor's initial courses and of course he probably proposed something very special and very duifficult, reflective of Lido which he was building at the time.

Interestingly, the shapes of the lagoon at CC of F and the lagoon at Lido were almost identical .........  and there was a similar landfill operation needed at CC of F which of course was modeled after what was being done at the Lido site.

[Dave_Miller]

Ran:
Not to be at odds with our leader but I believe you need to give more info than just saying the 20 - 40 yard greens would not work with the aerial game.  
Ross greens could adjust for some of this and also what is behind the bunker could challenge this.
Case in point. No. 14 at Charles River.  The original left bunker was short of the green by about 20 yds.  In 1979 it was moved up against the green.  In the restoration, in 1997, it was replaced to the original location.  Well, I would rather put it back to against the green.  Aerial game or not, if you make it over the bunker but don't make the green you have a more difficult shot, from the rough,  than if you are in the bunker, even with the steep face, than we didi when the bunker was against the green.
Ran please give us some more detailed info.
Fairways and Greens,

Dave

[TEPaul]

I think there's a very interesting theme in what George Bahto mentioned above about certain courses cutting back on "concepts" (design intent!?) for reasons of economics or too much difficulty!

This is why I believe there's much that's interesting to be found in the architecture of the courses that were conceived, designed and built as so-called "championship courses", some of the primary ones emanating from the architects of the "Philadelphia School" or "Pennsylvania School"!

The interesting and probably significant thing about the "Philadelphia School" of "Pennsylvania School" is at least four of its five or six architects were the so-called "amateurs" that often did not have to cut back or tone down their creations--certainly led by Crump and Fownes and probably Wilson and likely Thomas and Tillinghast too. One doesn't have to look too far to notice the "championship architectural" strength of much of Flynn's work either!

In other words nobody was telling many of them they couldn't do what they wanted to do!

[George Bahto]

Tom: that was the difference between SR and Macdonald - CB could stick out his palm to his friends for more money - or fund it himself (as he did at National) while Raynor had to go out there and turn a profit.

[Mike_Cirba]

Thankfully, due to the work of researchers and authors, much has been learned over recent decades, often in the architects own words, to determine true "design intent".

You have people like Geoff Shackelford and his book on George Thomas, Rick Wolffe, et.al. with Tillinghast, Brad Klein (and Ron Whitten, I believe) unearthing Ross, Doak with Mackenzie, Bahto coming with Macdonald, Raynor, Banks, and other fellows like Wayne Morrison putting together research (and forthcoming book(s) on Flynn.  I'm sure I've missed some, as well, such as Travis, Thompson, and the future book on Maxwell.

Old drawings, aerials, pictures, etc., are all invaluable for sure.  But, any course looking to do a true restoration and seeking to determine the real "design intent" would be well-advised to first seek to understand what the creator of their course believed philosophically and generally about design concepts, features, and the building of courses.  

They will be far ahead of the game, I believe, if they start the process with careful study of these recently published books.

[Ran Morrissett]

Dave,

I wasn't very clear  and I didn't say that the bunkers 20-40 yards short of the Ross greens didn't work but rather that they had lost much of their original purpose i.e. especially before irrigation, the golfer needed to just carry those bunkers with his brassie and the ball would scoot up onto the green.

Thus, I wasn't referring to a bunker cut into a side of a hill like the one on the par three 14th at Charles River - that bunker never had anything to do with a ground game approach. And I wasn't refering to a bunker like the one at 10 at Lehigh which still has relevance because of the downhill slope just past it that feeds onto the green.

Rather, I was refering to the countless bunkers that Ross built on flat terrain on par four holes that are 20-40 yards short of the green. Such bunkers are highlighted in the Ross course profiles on this site, with a good one being the first picture in the Wilmington course profile. That mean looking bunker would have been much more in play for the good golfer back when Ross placed it there; today it would hardly even register with your ace golfers like local Walker Taylor as he hits in his short iron to this 405 yard hole.

This is exactly why I maintain that seeing Ross's mid 1940s re-do of Oakland Hills is so important - it would offer the best guidance as to how Ross would have bunkered/defended his courses against the aerial game.

Cheers,

[Ed_Baker]

An interesting sidebar to the Rivers restoration, we REMOVED as many bunkers as we REDISCOVERED(is that a word?).

Largely due to Paul Murphys research we were able to determine WHY bunkers were added and filled in, the minutes of BOG and Green Committee meetings were fairly comprehensive.

Example: Two bunkers to the left of the 13th green were added as a"safety" against hooked approaches that may have bounced on to the 14th tee(according to the green committee minutes from 1936). These bunkers existed for 60 years. During the restoration Ron Prichard pointed out that the area was clearly designed as a collection area and old photos showed that the original green footprint closely bordered the falloff. After the bunkers were installed the mowing pattern of the green changed dramatically receding(shrinking) away from the bunkers. The bunkers were shallower than the other green side bunkers and clearly out of character with the course, now this never occured to any of us until the restoration research began, hell I played those bunkers all my life and never gave them a thought.

The result of removing those bunkers and restoring the original green footprint is a diabolically difficult chip from rough instead of a simple bunker play where it was easy to spin and stop the ball, the hole is much better now, yet we thought it was o.k. for 60 years with amatuer architecture right under our noses and we hadn't a clue.

The final talley was 5 "member added" bunkers removed and 5 "original Ross" bunkers rediscovered and restored, the playability enhancment is startling.

One "rediscovered" bunker almost caused a fist fight in the middle of the 6th fairway on a cold March afternoon, do you remember that one DAVE?

[Dave_Miller]

Bake:
How could I ever forget.  But it was a cold, windy, March Sunday morning. Murph called us to the 6th hole and interrupted Church plans for all.  
We made up for by acting very un-Christianlike to each other.  
Thank the Lord Michael Drake found the original bunker.
Cheers
Dave

[TEPaul]

I'm quite certain that MacDonald, MacKenzie, Ross and many of the other old designers would say that any bunker that almost caused a fist fight on a cold windy, March Sunday morning was probably an excellent bunker.

Or conversely (Mackenzie or MacDonald said) a bunker that enjoys universal endorsment is probably not worth the space it takes up!!

[mike_malone]

 People who want to change a course  in their own way will often say the original "design intent" is impossible to discern so forget about it.Those who believe they understand this intent feel pressure to be clear in their arguments so they can convince enough people of recommened changes.This leads to a simplification that is  usually wrong.
  Unfortunately all art is difficult to explain.Good analysis of "design intent"involves the use of as much primary material as possible.Examples are aerials,original plans,minutes,writings and interviews.
  At our course we have the original plans,aerials of the year of construction,aerials from 9 and 11 years later,and some writings of Flynn.These enable interested people to "divine" the "design intent".It is helpful to have  a few people to view the same material and particularly helpful to hear from someone expert in other works of the designer.This way we can see our biases and grow in our insight.
 THE REALITY IS THAT WE NEVER ACHIEVE PERFECT KNOWLEDGE OF INTENT.This is unfortunate when we are trying to convince people.
 However,it is great to have the original plans,the early aerials,and slightly later aerials all in one place at one time.If one observes with an open mind they just might  find the holy grail

[Mark_Fine]

Mayday,
Good to see you chime in!  I really enjoyed our round together at Lehigh!  I look forward to the next one!  Could have discussed those Flynn drawings, etc. all afternoon.  To have that data is amazing!  

Your points are well taken and echo most of my thoughts!  Restoration is not easy and clearly controversial!
Mark

[TEPaul]

What's really being meant here by "design intent"?

For starters many of those old courses from yesteryear have a fairly basic "design intent" that is not very hard to determine. For starters almost all those old courses were designed with the intent of using the ground game far more than is being used today, so we all know how to return that factor of "desigin intent"!

You can certainly look at old aerials and figure out how that ground game factor played into the architecture you're looking at on aerials, plans and such. It's really not all that hard to figure out how today's aerial game can be used on these old courses as an alternative option that may not have been all that much conceived of by the likes of a William Flynn.

I'd be happy to post Flynn's hole by hole description of exactly how various golfers should play each hole on his original Pines nine at Seaview. There's no guessing game about it--he explains in detail the design intent and how to play each hole for a spectrum of golfers, citing the positioning of bunkering, distances, ball positions what have you!

And what he said on that nine probably isn't all that radically different on the next course he did. What's meant by "design intent" to me is not that hard to figure out--it basically very commonsensical! This stuff isn't exactly rocket science!

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
I tend to agree with you!  Why is it then that so many old courses don't get it right when going through restoration?  Is it because the modern game has obsoleted the original intentions?  As Pete Dye alluded to, "We are fools to think the game will ever go back to greens rolling 5 or 6 on the stimp and lush green grass giving way to browned out inconsistent fairways and rough.  Nor will we revert back to a golf ball that doesn't make 6600 yard courses pitch and putt."
Mark

[TEPaul]

Mark:

You're right--Pete too--there won't be any going back to many of the things of yesteryear like the agronomics! If you read any club's minutes agronomics was generally a real problem to them anyway--worms, etc all kinds of problems they didn't want and we don't need!

The aerial game today certainly has changed things dramatically from the way things were and conceived of back then.

But still my feeling is that we should bring back the ground game just the way they conceived of it and designed for it and just leave the courses at that. With the sophisticated agronomics and irrigation ability today that's very easy to do if clubs commit to it.

In my opinon the modern age aerial game can be dealt with very easily on these old courses by speeding them up "through the green" but to make that aerial game interesting and challenging these clubs have to get the kind of FIRMNESS ON THEIR GREENS (not necessarily super speed but FIRMNESS) that makes the aerial game a bit dicey!! That's the absolute key to me! If these old courses can do that some of these modern aerial golfers are going to start looking for ground game options as much for defense as anything else.

I call this particular maintenance mix on these old courses (fast "Through the green" and greens that barely "dent") the "ideal maintenance meld"!

If you have that you very well may have these old courses playing like they used to and even more--playing with a modern aerial option too--something they really never had before certainly not like today--so then you might say you have the "best of both worlds"!

[Ken_Cotner]

Ran,

I think the old Rossian bunkers 20-40 yards short of the green still work well.  Beating a dead horse, this was recently done at Myers Park in Charlotte, and the results are terrific IMHO.  I'm not sure whether the course is playing firm or soft now, but those bunkers sure create some doubt in the player's mind!

KC

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Again, we are on the same page.  In my opinion, however, "firm approaches" are far more important to bringing back the ground game than firm greens!  If approaches are kept soft, forget it, the ground game is lost!  

You want shot options, keep the approaches firm!!!!!  This is an area that is very underrated and should be a focal point for the maintenance practices of classic courses!  
Mark

[mike_malone]

I can think of an example of the ground game designed at Rolling Green.The seventh hole is only 488 par 5 and has elevated tee as well.So,it is fairly easy  to hit in two.Flynn could have put the green 30 yds. farther back,but chose to place it right at the bottom of a small hill that creates a fun runup shot.
 I have thought that we should create fairway length grass around the right side and 15 yds. from back of green.This would recreate the ground challenge. Balls hit on ground would roll over green and 15 yds. into rough instead of  just to the back of the gree. But people tell me it was not intended by Flynn.This is where it gets interesting.
 We need to update the design intent to "what would Flynn do TODAY to respond to changes in technology and agronomy?"
 This is why i recommend a collaborative effort with primary materials to get it right.It certainly is not hard to look at materials and replicate,but the challenge is make modern day changes that are consistent with the design intent

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark Fine,

The culprit with respect to soft approaches is often the green irrigation system.

When systems were put in, little thought was given to the impact the sprinkler heads would have on the golf course outside of the green margins.

Bunkers and approaches suffered most.

The cost to alter the watering pattern/system is often an impediment to correcting the condition.

Location, throw radius, volume, wind, topography all factor into soft approaches.  These factors have to be looked at individually and collectively, and a solution drawn up and implemented.

Unless a club understands the problem, desires to correct the situation, and is willing to spend the time and money,
I don't see the conditions changing.

It's a great off season project.

[Tom_Doak]

I was looking for the recent thread on this topic but instead the search led me to one from 19 years ago -- started by the same guy!   


I was looking because I read this quote from Donald Ross yesterday in Aleck Bauer's book and it reminded me of the discussion:


     "For instance, they do not lay out a links across the water by rule of thumb with the idea of having the drive such a distance, the second shot such a distance, the approach such a distance and so on, even mentioning clubs that shall be used for each shot.  When he lays out the hole, the constructor casts his eye over the country and gets the idea of what he considers a golf hole in his brain, lays it out that way and then says to the player:  'There's the golf hole, play it any way you please.'  . . . "


     "For the British [theory] surely has the real spirit of golf in it when it says that the way to reach a hole is by using the clubs and by taking the route which will get the player to the green in his own way, which should be better for him than anybody else's way.  So that the golf holes on the best links in Scotland and England have several different ways of playing them and because they do not present just one and the only way to everybody, the interest in the game increases with the diversity of its problems."




So did Donald Ross really want players to hit a 5-iron into certain greens?  Or is that just projection from people trying to graft their own idea of merit onto his work?




Also -- Mike Malone -- have your ideas changed significantly since your 6/26/2002 post just above Mr. Mucci's?

[Niall C]

That's a very interesting quote from Donald Ross and kind of articulates something I've been thinking about but finding it hard to express and it is to do with prescribed landing areas and shot distances. If Ross or any of the other ODG's were alive today would they be building courses with half a dozen tees per hole with 100 plus yards between the front and back tees just so everyone could hit a nominated landing area ? Would they pander to such an idea and would they litter their designs with forced carries or would they design their hazards in such a way so that a rabbit could circumnavigate them with a putter while the tiger goes for glory ?


Niall

[Thomas Dai]

I was looking because I read this quote from Donald Ross yesterday in Aleck Bauer's book and it reminded me of the discussion:

     "For instance, they do not lay out a links across the water by rule of thumb with the idea of having the drive such a distance, the second shot such a distance, the approach such a distance and so on, even mentioning clubs that shall be used for each shot.  When he lays out the hole, the constructor casts his eye over the country and gets the idea of what he considers a golf hole in his brain, lays it out that way and then says to the player:  'There's the golf hole, play it any way you please.'  . . . "

     "For the British [theory] surely has the real spirit of golf in it when it says that the way to reach a hole is by using the clubs and by taking the route which will get the player to the green in his own way, which should be better for him than anybody else's way.  So that the golf holes on the best links in Scotland and England have several different ways of playing them and because they do not present just one and the only way to everybody, the interest in the game increases with the diversity of its problems."

Two delightful paragraphs (despite the references to British, Scotland and England!). Thank you Tom for drawing them to our attention.
Atb