Quote from: DMoriarty on August 15, 2009, 02:13:25 PM
The discussion got a bit off topic and I meant no offense to Andy or anyone else. I am very critical of Black Rock but I view the point as a much broader one. For a long time many have assumed that so called mountain courses had to fight the land with holes spooned out or terraced into the landscape. Beautiful and brilliant surroundings made up for courses that had little to do with the land and were often insulated from the beautiful surrounds by giant grass berms. This has always been ironic to me; our courses in the most beautiful, pristine, unique and natural settings were often the most manufactured, with dime a dozen prefab holes that would fit in anywhere regardless of the surrounds.
But a course like Rock Creek really ought to raise the bar and explode our past expectations by demonstrating that such sacrifices are not only unnecessary, they are antithetical to what golf architecture at its best can be. Crazy rolls and wild mountain settings may present difficult challenges, but they also offer tremendous opportunities for a talented design team to do something incredible by creating a golf course where the golfer is engaged with the surrounds rather than just hurried and distant spectator glancing at the landscape while zipping by on a cart path as if it were a interstate highway.
"Most thoughtful post I've seen on here in awhile."
God-dang-it George Pazin, you've got a pretty good point there---that is quite the thoughtful post. It's by Moriarty is it? Damn, I may have to actually rethink the guy, at least in like a mountain context. Let me get back to you on that in a couple of weeks.
