[JESII]

How does a restoration architect evaluate an original intent?

Are you trying to replicate the actual shots hit?

Are you trying to maintain (or restore) scoring difficulties as a primary objective?

What is the modus operendi?

This is a question I wanted to ask Ron Prichard the other night but I felt there was a little too much behind the curtains and didn't want to divert

[Kris Spence]

 The intent behind a short cross bunker on a blind tee shot might be to direct the player to a desirable angle or narrow a visual profile creating deception off the tee.

The intent of aligning a green to one side of the landing area or the other is to establish a preferred angle that may be more receptive or provide multiple shot options from the side the green is angled toward.

The intent of a bunker between a green and the next tee may provide protection to the tee and in some cases challenge recovery shots or low running approaches along the best line.

The intent of a bunker directly between the tee and green on 4 par will defend the shortest route or bend the hole creating side to side movement, variety, angle etc.

These are only a few examples of the way a golden era architect may express intent or suggest to the golfer a way to think.

On the flip side the modern architect may shape a beautiful hill side into a boring flat fairway with perfectly symetrical support mounds because golfers like flat lies and lots of movement in the rough, or they may bunker the outside of a dogleg to prevent  poorly played shots from going farther off line.  Or they may "frame" the hole with bunkers and landscaping that dont affect the strategy of the hole but look great in the GD/GW photos when they win the awards.

All examples of the architects intent.

[Ian Andrew]

How does a restoration architect evaluate an original intent?

You can’t without a letter or note that describes it for you. Often you are forced by circumstance (usually altered or new holes) to try an "interpret" what you have. I generally try to restore things back to the way they were – and people may criticize this – but I don’t care. The question that always comes is about moving one or two bunkers (I don't move them) or adding one or two (which I have done). When do you do this and how is it done is all up to interpretation of the holes that you are working with and what you find in the original information about the holes.

The enjoyable ones are where you have a plan, aerial or photos and you try adapt the original hole concept onto a completely new hole someone else has built. This is not restoration, but a way to try and bring the course back into one consistent character or style.

Are you trying to replicate the actual shots hit?

I don't unless I can move tees back. But that doesn't mean I dismiss others from doing so - that is simply my choice. I like to leave things alone since 90% of the memberships have not seen any benefit from technology.

Are you trying to maintain (or restore) scoring difficulties as a primary objective?

No - generally I don't care how courses resist par as long as they are interesting to play. There are few exceptions - but they are extremely rare. An example is there were many opportunities to go back and add length to Highlands Links. There is not one longer tee on the plan. Why should there be - it's was designed to be fun - not hard.

What is the modus operendi?

Every project requires a different approach, just as every architect’s work is different. Some are restorative, others need work, some memberships love their history, and others don’t care and want modernization. Each job requires a different approach.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ian,

What about a Ouija board or a seance?  I think both could be of use.

[Adam Clayman]

If hindsight is 20/20 anyone who has had the schooling and is willing to leave their ego at the door should be able to deceifer intent to near certainty without the help of a ouiji board. Shouldn't they?

[Tom_Doak]

Adam:

Actually, no.  Some courses are subtle and some by-gone ideas are way beyond comprehension today.

I'll give you just one.  Camargo had a couple of medium to short par-4 holes which had fairway bunkers set into natural slopes, 165 to 200 yards off the tee -- where a good modern player would never think about them.  The green committee wanted to "move" those bunkers more into the driving zone, but I resisted, because I knew we couldn't build a fairway bunker on the flat, high ground that was in keeping with the rest of the construction.  However, that answer wasn't enough for the green committee -- I needed something more.

Eventually, it dawned on me.  Both holes in question were slight doglegs, with the bunker on the inside.  The 165-yard bunker was on a 340-yard hole, and the 200-yard bunker on a 400-yard hole -- which meant that THE MEMBER WHO COULD JUST BARELY REACH THOSE GREENS IN TWO, had to flirt with the bunkers in order to do it.  So the bunkers were entirely relevant to a certain class of player who happens to be well represented in the membership at Camargo.

But I never would have figured that out if I hadn't been struggling for a reason not to mess with the course.  And I'm convinced there are a lot of other things like that in older designs, that are being messed up in all these recent restorations.

Because unfortunately, sometimes the architect's intent is to make money doing restorations.  Present company excepted, of course.

[JMEvensky]

Ian,

What about a Ouija board or a seance?  I think both could be of use.

A guy once told me the reason he and others on a Green Committee had altered a hole was because it was the "original intent" of the architect who had been dead for 30 years.

I asked who else was at the seance.I doubt if he's figured it out yet.

[Bradley Anderson]

Adam:

And I'm convinced there are a lot of other things like that in older designs, that are being messed up in all these recent restorations.

Because unfortunately, sometimes the architect's intent is to make money doing restorations.  Present company excepted, of course.

Tom,

Are you saying that there are architects who are moving bunkers to places that the original architect did not intend for a bunker to be, and then calling that "restoration"?

[Tom_Doak]

Bradley, yes.

All restoration is a matter of interpretation ... and even major renovations of courses are now sold as "restorations," because it's more politically correct.  But once you start moving bunkers around, where do you stop?  You can rationalize anything if you try hard enough.  And often, you find that architects are overlaying their own modern concepts on top of a classic design whose architect didn't ever employ that concept.

Public enemy #1 in that regard is the target bunker.  Most architects in the 1920's didn't build target bunkers ... I've never read anything by Ross or Tillinghast or MacKenzie which mentioned putting a bunker through the target area to aim at off the tee.  [I'm sure there are a few bunkers through the fairway you could find here or there, but they might have been placed for a different purpose.]  But, I've seen a lot of target bunkers via renovations.

[Matt_Ward]

Tom D:

You said ...

"... to a certain class of player who happens to be well represented in the membership at Camargo."

Would you build such features -- either from a new course standpoint or an existing one -- simply for low handicap types if they dominated a club's membership and if so would such an inclusion be to the detriment of those who are not low handicap players?

In sum - how would you address marching orders similar to the ones Tille received when creating Winged Foot ?

[Peter Pallotta]

Jim - if there was ever a question/thread that should be left to the experts, this is the one (and thanks, gents for your posts so far). But here's my thought anyway:

The clearest and most important expression of the original architect's fundamental intent is the way he routed the golf course.  

If that routing is still intact, or (if altered) there are historical records to indicate what it used to be, I'd imagine that all the crucial clues about  what the original architect wanted the course to be and how he wanted it to play are right there in the ground, waiting for an insightful and sympathetic eye to see or discover them.

Then it would just be about making allowances for the distance the ball travels today, in some case.

But I think I'm in the minority here, in that I wouldn't care very much if bunkers, for example, got their 'original' shape back or not.

Peter
  

[Jed Peters]

Tom D:

You said ...

"... to a certain class of player who happens to be well represented in the membership at Camargo."

Would you build such features -- either from a new course standpoint or an existing one -- simply for low handicap types if they dominated a club's membership and if so would such an inclusion be to the detriment of those who are not low handicap players?

In sum - how would you address marching orders similar to the ones Tille received when creating Winged Foot ?

Didn't he address this at Sebonack?

[TEPaul]

"How does a restoration architect evaluate an original intent?"


Sully:

There're a lot of good answers so far primarily to do with strategies, psychologies and the ramifications of how architecture (in this case an original designers "intent") effects golf.

But let's not forget a large part of a good restoration architect's modus operandi also has to do with restoring an original architect's "style" or "look" or "aesthetic" or whatever term in that vein one wants to use.

[JESII]

Tom,

I think replicating "the style" likely has alot to do with reviews after the job is complete, but Kris, Ian and Tom have given really insightful answers as to what they go through in attempting to determine just what to do...their planning stage.

My primary thought here is how restoration projects evolve in the context of todays game of golf.  Many people here those words "todays game of golf" and think about 320 yard drives and spinning wedges into greens, but Ian discussing a "FUN" experience at Highland Links and Tom's comment about the membership representation at Camargo that do actually deal with bunkers in the 160 - 200 yard range is great stuff for me.

I battle with many on here about the equipment issue for just those reasons...I see it as a non-issue (or at least a minor issue...our thoughts should be more on creating/recreating a fun experience on the golf course.

[Adam Clayman]

So Tom, You're saying it's not easy even when it's staring you in the face?

[Bradley Anderson]

Bradley, yes.

All restoration is a matter of interpretation ... and even major renovations of courses are now sold as "restorations," because it's more politically correct. 

That is very wrong to say that something is a restoration when it is not. I suppose when this is done, there is discussion about how this or that change will "restore the golf hole to its originial shot values" etc.

This issue of interpretation puzzles me. If we have drawings and photos of bunkers in specific places, then putting them back would not be interpretive but rather restoration. Or am I missing something here?

[mike_malone]

 The easy part is to just see through design plans and photos what was actually done. I can't even win those arguments!!!!

[JESII]

Mayday,

How do you know what the architect wanted to do TO YOU?

[Ian Andrew]

That is very wrong to say that something is a restoration when it is not. I suppose when this is done, there is discussion about how this or that change will "restore the golf hole to its originial shot values" etc.

that is called marketing - whether right or wrong - that is how many projects are sold to the membership.

This issue of interpretation puzzles me. If we have drawings and photos of bunkers in specific places, then putting them back would not be interpretive but rather restoration. Or am I missing something here?

We rarely have everything we need - so people like Kris and Tom have to make their best decision based upon what they do have - therefore "interpretation" is required despite the overall goal of restoration.

I had most of the bunkers in photo for St. George's but a few had to be determined through the 1939 aerial - even that is interpretation becasue I have no 3-d view of the complexes.

[Bradley Anderson]

Thank you Ian and Tom for answering those questions.

I am sure all of this is further complicated by the fact that most of the older golf courses have been remodeled by three or four different architects over time.

[Jim_Coleman]

    Those who claim to know the architect's original intent 50 years later are borderline insane.  (I'm trying to be kind, Mike.)  I started a thread a couple of years ago in which I argued that trying to determine the architect's original intent is pure hogwash.  My example - Pete Dye and his rework on Teeth of the Dog.  Thirty years after he built it, Pete added bunkers, removed bunkers, added trees, removed trees, added massive length (100 yards on one par 4), even totally recontoured a green.  If this had been done by any other architect, that architect would have been skewered here for violating the architect's original intent.  Obviously, such an argument would be hogwash.
    You can criticize reworks to your heart's content.  You may or may not like Augusta's rough, new trees and new length.  But don't argue that they violate McKenzie's intent.  First, you have no clue.  And second, it's irrelevant.  Either the changes are good or not.  That's the only relevant issue.

[Tom_Doak]

Jim Coleman:

We don't know if the wide fairways at Augusta were MacKenzie's (or Jones's) original intent?  Jones sure wrote enough about how important they were.

Whether changes are "good" is entirely subjective, so if that's the only relevant issue, then there are no right answers at all.  Whether changes coincide with what the architect built in the first place, is not subjective, although as Ian says, we never have PERFECT information to work from.

[Kalen Braley]

According to my friend here....dead men don't talk!! 

[Jim_Coleman]

Tom:
   I guess I believe that there are no right answers.  I also believe that golf course architecture is art.  Although art is purely subjective, there are great artists and not so great artists.  And pretty much everyone knows one from the other.  (There's a reason a Picasso brings more than a Smith; and there's a reason Doak gets more than, say, Jennings.)  My only beef is, please don't tell me it's a good redo because it's consistent with the architect's original intent.  Tell me it's good because it's good; and, if you can, tell my why.

[mike_malone]

Jim,

    If you only restrict your statements about "intent" to what was actually designed and built you should be on solid ground. A simple example would be if no bunkers were designed or built or added when other things were changed one can safely say no bunkers were intended.

  Whether original intent is worthwhile or not is a different argument.

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