...under In My Opinion.
Michael Whitaker was kind enough to invite me to his South Carolina course
rater dinner one evening last summer to discuss various ways that people look at
and review courses. I started and ended my little talk with a story on
Joshua Crane. Afterwards, a gentleman said it was the best nap he had in
some years
Must have been my delivery (!) as Joshua Crane has to
rank among the most compelling figures in the history of golf
course architecture. Hence, it is with particular delight that we post this
piece by Bob Crosby as it sheds more light on this controversial figure than has been done before.
We all know Crane's name though unfortunately, the caricature of him as
someone who invented a one dimensional way of analyzing golf courses is the
most prevalent reason why. Sadly, history has defined him by his
initial scoring system, in part because it garnered so much attention - and
infamy - at the time.
This isn't fair and indeed, Bob carefully points out that the reason Crane
is worthy of study today is because of his thoughts on design philosophy,
which were the underpinning of his scoring system. As Bob explains, 'If golf courses were to
function as venues for true sporting competitions, Crane thought it important that the
linkage between golf shots and their outcomes be as rational and predictable
as possible. Why, Crane asked, shouldn't concerns with competitive equity
that were so important in other sports apply with equal force to golf?' With
that in mind, his ranking of fourteen courses had Muirfield at the top and -
correctly so given his system - Prestwick, Westward Ho!, North Berwick and
and finally The Old Course as the worst of the fourteen
courses rated.
That is what most people know Re: Crane. Essentially, he was the
forbearer of the flawed Golf Digest ranking system (just kidding!) and
people who don't know better dismiss him. However, Bob shatters the myth of
Crane as being a one off course ranking loon. Rather he locates Crane in a long tradition
of golf architecture that gives a primary role to things like "fairness" and competitive equity.
Bob then distinguishes that tradition from ideas about strategic golf
architecture advocated by MacKenzie and Behr, who saw Crane's ideas as
representing a theory of golf design that they disagreed with
profoundly.
Bob is quick to point out what a phenomenal mind Crane possessed and that he
was a magnificent debater. Furthermore, Bob notes that 'The detail that went
into Crane's course evaluations is mind-boggling. Equally mind-boggling were the
elaborate weighting formulae used to assign values to each measured feature.
Those values were then tallied to generate an overall "objective" rating
percentage for a course, which percentage indicated the degree to which the
course fell short of Crane's ideal for design, conditioning and other
matters.'
Though he personally moved away from the rigid nature of his own
scoring system over time, Crane helped ignite what can justly be considered
the single most honest debate on golf course architecture in history. Other
participants in the media included several of the all-time heavy weights:
Alister MacKenzie, Max Behr, Harry Colt, A.C.M. Croome and Bernard Darwin.
(Colt was in a particularly tough position as Crane praised his alterations
at Muirfield).
Bob chronicles the points of view the various parties and writes, 'Crane's
controversial course rankings were reported in all of the major golf
periodicals on both sides of the Atlantic and they triggered a number of battles. Those battles have
much to teach us.' It is IMPOSSIBLE to overstate this point as without honest debate, golf course
architecture stagnates as we saw for decades after World War II.
Thus, Crane played an amazingly vital role in stirring debate on golf course
architecture. His opinions and thoughts changed over the years, yet he
always brilliantly articulated his stances. As such, he was a
formidable adversary and a crucial foil against other great minds.
Ultimately, it is fair to conclude, everyone, as well as the sport,
benefited from these exchanges.
Today, we post Part I of Bob's 45 page plus treatise on Crane. His hundreds
of hours of research are evident and tomorrow and Thursday we will post the remaining three parts.
Given Bob's own scholarly mind, orderly presentation and tight writing prose,
there is no single better person to study and write about Crane. This is my
very favorite sort of thing to post and it is one of the most enlightening
pieces on golf course architecture that I've ever had the pleasure to read.
Cheers,
P.S. In reading it, please see how our heroes argued back then - yes, it
could get personal but there was much to learn in following the flow of the
debate. Hopefully, one day they'll say the same about this Discussion Group
