Will Doak grumble if Old Mac is viewed as his best work?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Should Tom be viewed in the same light that CBM was viewed when he took the best holes/principles from the UK and imported them to the U.S, and improved on them ?

Pat

I think I broadly agree with your post but would question the point you made above.

Did CBM actually improve on the originals ?


YES

I ask that never having played the course (NGLA) and based only on a contemporary account of the course as mentioned in my earlier post.

Ran,

The answer to your question is "YES"

[Bill Brightly]

I won't presume to know what Tom Doak is thinking, what will please him, and what will make him grumble.  However, in my view he would have every right to be upset if Old Mac is regarded as his best course.

With his previous courses, he always had the option "do what CBM would have done."  He could have built alps, redan, biarritz, etc. on every course, but he didn't.  Presumably, this is because he thought that the uniqueness of the land provided the opportunity to build better holes.  With OM, he was constrained.  He had to find the template holes on the property and build around those.  This suggests to me that Old Macdonald although a fun concept is not the best course that he otherwise would have built on the property.  

He has said that CBM's historical precedent allowed him to take risks he otherwise could not have justified.  Additionally, he might say that the inspiration of CBM came through and allowed him to build a better course than he otherwise would have.  However, I don't buy that these benefits could possibly outweigh the constraint of having to design as CBM would have and having to find template holes on the property.  

Let's assume that Pacific Dunes is in his mind the best course he could have built with the property.  Then, with OM, he is instructed not to build what he thinks is the best course.  Rather, he is instructed to build as CBM would have.  If it turns out that everyone like the latter over the former (or 75% of them prefer it) it's kind of a slam.  Someone as talented as Tom Doak doesn't need those kind of instructions, and they might restrict him from building even better, more original, and more imaginative holes.

I'm sure OM is a great course, and I can't wait to play it.  But I have a hard time believing that it's better than the counterfactual course that would have been built if Keiser had told Doak and Urbina to build the best possible course on the property.        

Anthony,

I have always disagreed with the premise that using template FEATURES "constrains" and takes away from the "best course possible" on a given site. To the contrary, I believe using a tried and tested CLASSIC features greatly increases the chances of holes that are great and will stand the test of time.

Tom can answer for himself, but I don't think he wanted to be slotted into the MacRaynor school. I think he had his own well-defined ideas of how to build great, fun golf courses. (And having played a number of his courses, I think building courses that are FUN to play is his greatest strength.) But I don't think he would say building in the MacRaynor style would, BY DEFINITION, would ensure a lesser course, just a different course.

[Mike Sweeney]

why is a dead architect's design philospohy showing up Tom's so badly?

I think the jury is still a long way from deciding on Old Mac.

Of all the people that have called Ran to speak of its greatness, I would guess that the majority have probably played National and a few others in MacRaynorBanks family.

Now what happens when the real golfers come after the chosen that have played the course? 95+% will have never seen a MacRaynorBanks course. How many ocean views does Tom's course have versus OldMac?

I stood on the 9th tee at Yale today during the NCAA regional championships and overheard one of the Dads following his son say to the team coach, "Where is the clown nose and windmill?" when he saw the 9th at Yale for the first time. The Dad looked like a golfer, had a son who played golf at the NCAA Division 1 level, but clearly Ran is not going to give him a login to GCA.com.  

Bandon is a public golf course, so let's wait for the public golfers to chime in!

[Bill Brightly]

Mike,

I think that is an excellent point: How will the public react to Old Mac? National and almost every other Macdonald course is VERY private. How will the retail golfer react to Macdonald's style? (And this does not include GCA geeks like us who come in with pretty well-defined opinions.)

My bet is they will love the style, but you are right, we  really need to wait for a few years.

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike,

I think that is an excellent point: How will the public react to Old Mac? National and almost every other Macdonald course is VERY private. How will the retail golfer react to Macdonald's style? (And this does not include GCA geeks like us who come in with pretty well-defined opinions.)

My bet is they will love the style, but you are right, we  really need to wait for a few years.

Bill

I think The Knoll is in my top 5 and certainly is in my top 10 of ALL courses in New Jersey (if they did not force you to take those damn carts but I digress). Why are there not long lines to play it??

[Andy Troeger]

I think the jury is still a long way from deciding on Old Mac.

Of all the people that have called Ran to speak of its greatness, I would guess that the majority have probably played National and a few others in MacRaynorBanks family.

Now what happens when the real golfers come after the chosen that have played the course? 95+% will have never seen a MacRaynorBanks course. How many ocean views does Tom's course have versus OldMac?

Agreed. All of this makes for interesting discussion, but time will tell. I'm looking forward to deciding for myself though!

[Mike Hendren]

Ran,
I think your sample size of men of sound virtue may be skewed.  Assuming these are the particpants of the recent Bandon trip, one must remember this is the type crowd that eats this stuff up.  I know several people who would gladly play a "souless" hole than an alps..too unfair.

Dammit Dale - it is precisely these type of posts that will out us Hillbillies as cognoscenti wanna be's.

You must phrase such comments this way:  "When does the 'greatest modern golf course in the world' (hereafter GMGCITW) officially open?"

P. T. Barnum could have taken marketing lessons from Mr. Keiser.

Pass the Koo-Aid.

Bogey

[Terry Lavin]

Well if he does grumble, I might have to invoke the "Norm Weiner Rule" that I use on golfers who complain about a perfectly good shot. I make them do it over.

I suppose there is a small possibility that Tom would be chagrined if a "replica" or "homage" course was viewed as his best, but I rather doubt that he'd get all that offended.  Let's face it, Tom is one of the best architects in the land, but he's also our best critic.  A critic can take criticism and he ought to be able to handle praise, even if he might privately prefer a different design.  

I do appreciate the thread, because the early enthusiasm for Old Mac (which I helped foment) may well wind up being a bit premature.  It is new, it is fresh and it is exciting, but a golf course is an organic thing and I think it will take time to see just how well it is received in a year or so.  I don't anticipate that people will start liking it a lot less, but once some of the initial romance fades, I'll be very interested in hearing everybody's take after a fair amount of play.  The caddies at Bandon are a good source for this sort of stuff, because they not only have their own views, based on watching the guests play and playing themselves, but they also get to accumulate the anecdotal information that one necessarily gains in that occupation.  How many replay rounds will be dedicated to Old Mac?  Will the rounds at Pac Dunes suffer or will Bandon Trails wind up being the poor stepsister on the property?

Of all of the unresolved issues that are out there, I'm sure the one that Tom Doak frets the least is whether he'd like his fans to prefer a different design as his best.

After all, he's nowhere near retirement, and the next new new course might just be better!

[Bill Brightly]

Mike,

I think that is an excellent point: How will the public react to Old Mac? National and almost every other Macdonald course is VERY private. How will the retail golfer react to Macdonald's style? (And this does not include GCA geeks like us who come in with pretty well-defined opinions.)

My bet is they will love the style, but you are right, we  really need to wait for a few years.

Bill
 
I think The Knoll is in my top 5 and certainly is in my top 10 of ALL courses in New Jersey (if they did not force you to take those damn carts but I digress). Why are there not long lines to play it??es.

Mike, The Knoll is Banks course, and as as much as I like his work (I belong to a Banks club...) Macdonald was a far better architect.  

Secondly, the Knoll is a town-owned public course. There is no way you can compare the conditioning to elite private courses or top-end destination courses like Bandon.

[Mike Sweeney]

I'm sure the one that Tom Doak frets the least is whether he'd like his fans to prefer a different design as his best.

Terry,

Are you serious??

I'm not in a mood to post Doak-scale ratings of my most recent courses.  To rate my own courses, I need to get some distance on them first ... when you build them you're naturally excited about the possibilities, and it's harder to see how they have actually turned out.

To spooky:  I don't have any idea what you mean by Cape Kidnappers not "cutting the cheese."  (That expression has nothing to do with golf architecture in its American usage!)  That's one place you have to see for yourself.

To Mike, Scott, or anyone else who gave Stonewall a 5 1/2:  may I humbly suggest that the course must have kicked your ass.  Try, try again.

The consensus view of my best work in the U.S., according to GOLFWEEK (since they are the only magazine to go so low with their rankings ), is as follows:  Pacific Dunes, then Lost Dunes, Stonewall I, Apache Stronghold [before it was held back by its conditioning], and Beechtree, I think.  My own rankings are pretty similar.  I'm pretty sure that when the dust settles, both Australian projects AND Cape Kidnappers will be in my personal top six.  For a couple of years, anyway.

Last but not least:  I only know of three people who have hit it around Cape Kidnappers and Barnbougle, besides myself.  Big Pete might be biased in his rankings because he has money in one of them.
 

[Peter Pallotta]

Just a sidebar - I've only seen pictures of OM, but the technical achievement of making a course that hasn't officially opened yet seem like it's been there for a 100 years is remarkable. Some of it is purely technical, i.e. having the know-how to blend the new into the surrounds; but some of it must have to do with the design, i.e. with the fact that the architect's mind-set was focused on inspirations that were, well, a 100 years old.

Peter  

[Tom_Doak]

Ran:

Either way, I win.  But yes, I might well grumble.

I might grumble because I would like to think there are more people out there who appreciate a truly original design, than a design inspired by some other design.  You and I have had a version of that argument before, when talking about Seth Raynor's work.  I think that as a body of work, his is overrated, because they are all cut from the same cloth ... but I haven't figured out how you hold that against any course in particular.

I do know based on the recent response that a lot of people like to fall back on what they know.  Too many will love Old Mac because they can show off their "Architecture 202" knowledge of what a Biarritz hole is, while they can't quite explain Bandon Trails or Pacific Dunes in the same way.  [And I can assure you that we did do some graduate-level design and construction work out there, but it's not anything that many people have noticed yet.]  Mike Keiser would call that a retail success.

But Mike is trying to stack the deck a bit.  He asked the Macdonald clubs how they rated Old Macdonald compared to the other Bandon courses, and they voted it #1.  What he SHOULD have asked them is how they rated Old Macdonald versus their own home club ... knowing that all three courses in Bandon are rated higher than any of the real Macdonald courses except for National and Chicago Golf.  THEN we would have found out where Old Mac really stands.

[Steve Lang]

 
Ran,

I can only imagine you next needing the pre or mid-match psyops of asking TD who spent more time on site.. him or Jim Urbina?  

Perhaps the most fitting question really is, as George Bahto told me: "would CBM and his man Raynor approve?  YES!"  Ms Sheila and I both see OM as the reason to return to Bandon, and we really liked the other courses.. old or new classic is good, being public is very good!

You know.. a gca has to deal with whatever he finds on the land he’s given..


You telling me that Doak/Urbina don’t take inspiration from what they see and then use model features?  Is this lost or found or modeled?


When you first get to see the ocean at PD.. or are leaving it, it’s a love hate feeling.. how you gonna beat that?


You know, its just a bunch of fairways of dreams.. there are some times and places on OM when its just the holes and you..



Well, I guess time will tell whether it was a good idea or not..

[Jaeger Kovich]

I just want to point out that just because Old Mac uses template holes doesn't make it any less of an original piece of design.

A few have made comments on the name of Renaissance Golf. Let us not forget that the greatest renaissance artists recycled the same subject (analogy for template holes), most often stories from the bible (National school), to create their own masterpieces. Was Michaelangelo the first  to put the story of David and Goliath into marble? No, not even close. But does that make it any less original? Nope. Was Donatello's version of David not long after any less original, or less of a masterpiece? Nope.

What makes Old Mac an original and a masterpiece is the method/process for which the work was carried out in, not the subject matter. Tom has been very careful in his explanation of how he went about designing/building this course, and there is good reason for it.

So... Will Doak grumble if Old Mac is viewed as his best work?... Probably a little bit, but that is what makes him one of the best... but I guess he just answered that question 2 posts ahead of me!

[Tom_Doak]

Jaeger:

Good response.  But, I must confess that in my brief forays into grand European art museums [most recently, El Prado], I do tire of seeing the tenth interpretation of the same scene by different artists.

[John Moore II]

Jaeger:

Good response.  But, I must confess that in my brief forays into grand European art museums [most recently, El Prado], I do tire of seeing the tenth interpretation of the same scene by different artists.

But does looking at the masterpieces bore? Certainly looking at the less than great interpretations bore, but do the real, true masterpieces by the best? Probably not.

Tom, this might be a nearly impossible question to answer, but I'll ask anyway. Given that site, and unlimited creative ability to do exactly what YOU wanted, would/could it have turned out better?

[Alex Miller]

One other question, Mr. Doak:

Of the 4 sites at Bandon, which one would you have chosen to rout a golf course on had you been offered any of the projects? Which one has the best land in your eye?

(Sorry if it's been asked (and answered) before  )

[Tom_Doak]

John K. Moore:  Honestly, I have no idea how to answer your question.  I never looked at the site for Old Macdonald without thinking about the Macdonald holes.  Occasionally, I would see a feature that I was sad we didn't use for anything significant, such as some cool rippling ground just in front of the 9th tee, and wonder what we might have done with that if we hadn't been trying to fit in the templates, but that's as far as I got.  What I would say is that I doubt the course would be getting as much attention this month if it was just another Doak course opening in Bandon, but that doesn't necessarily mean this version is better.


Alex Miller:  No, that question hasn't been asked by anyone recently, but I still think I got the pick of the litter with the site for Pacific Dunes.  It's got great clifftops, great inland terrain, and great vegetation.

[John Moore II]

Tom-I figured that was an impossible question I asked, with no real answer. But I asked anyway. Thanks for the detailed response.

[Brett_Morrissy]

As TD mentioned the Architecture 202 factor: I am sure that to the GCA educated, old Mac will provide endless and ongoing interest and stimulation with less ocean views adding the sizzle and that perhaps the spectacular nature of Pac Dunes cliff top ocean vistas – which CLEARLY appeal more to the retail golfer would see this the most preferred and the course getting the most repeat plays... These vistas are assumed from photos, etc as I haven’t seen them in the flesh, I get to see them both in 53 more sleeps, along with the other two.

I think Tom’s down under courses can perhaps also offer some interesting angles here: Kidnappers is spectacular visually in the extreme, Barnbougle is spectacular with ocean and massive dunes, and particularly to the ‘retail’ golfer, StAB is less spectacular, with no sea views you left with visual stimulation from the golf holes themselves and the settings in which they have been designed. When you add to these three courses, their great fundamentals of routing and construction (TD words), along with strategically challenging and stimulating golf holes, if these elements are of an equal (ish) nature, then the spectacular wins majority of the time. If you then want to add the FUN angle to the criteria – then Barnbougle wins hands down – can this perhaps also be considered in this discussion – which if OM & PD will be the most FUN to play? Perhaps OM picks up another point?

I had a friend just return from Kidnappers, playing it on my recommendation, he thought it compared poorly to Barnbougle & StAB. “Retail” golfers that I have taken to both Barnbougle & St Andrews beach, Barnbougle wins hands down. Many seem to ‘miss’ the great design elements of StAB.(and find StAB a tougher walk)

So, Ran, I am not fussed if Mr Doak grumbles, he can do whatever he likes, as long as he still presented with opportunities to build the wonderful golf courses for us. No matter how his latest work is received, perhaps he will find solace in Pac Dunes remaining the most popular to the golfer at Bandon that is there for the amazing variety of golf on offer, and Mr Keiser’s visionary resort.

Brett

[Brett_Morrissy]

perhaps those that have played both - the 15 calls to Ran, can answer which one is the "steak" and which one is the "sizzle"? 

[Kevin Pallier]

Should Tom be viewed in the same light that CBM was viewed when he took the best holes/principles from the UK and imported them to the U.S, and improved on them ?

Pat

I'd be keen to hear which holes you think CBM improved on ?


Ran

I think the fact that Doak/Urbina have put their own slant on "the templates" in such a natural setting and that is what makes OM "work" for me. Like CBM at NGLA they have been able to fit the holes to the land and they deserve a hell of a lot of credit for that. I've seen gimmicky copies of original designs and for mine OM is anything but gimmicky.

[Joe Bentham]

"It is just an opinion"

[Ulrich Mayring]

Seeing that Tom Doak always stresses the importance of the whole team, wouldn't it then be possible that he simply had a better team this time around? Certainly his associates (and he himself) would have learned a lot and, presumably, gotten better over the last decade or so. Maybe some important men left him since Pac Dunes, I don't know about that, but doesn't Jim Urbina have some longevity?

If Tom Doak is a good manager and boss (and from what I hear he is) I would fully expect that the Renaissance company is generally more capable today than 10 years ago. And then add the collaborators for this project, who may also have contributed an idea or two.

Ulrich

[Melvyn Morrow]

I have heard through the Grapevine that Tom Doak best work was done when he was caddying
at St Andrews in the 1980’s.  Waiting for confirmation from some of his old clients, well those who survived into the 21st Century.

It’s rumoured that this is where he decided on using a team. I am advised by a source close to the great man that he seldom carried or ventured out on to the course preferring to deal with all the financial matters indoors. His team did the work outside  – no change there I am also reliably informed.

Clearly his stay in St Andrews was most constructive and informative having paid dividends from which we (that is all golfers) have had the good fortune to also benefit from. Although I am not certain what happened to that original team. Some say they are still Caddying at St Andrews, some pensioned off to the old Caddy workhouse, but at least we know that the ‘T’ in Team is going from strength to strength.
                                     
Some say this is the earliest photo of Tom from his caddying days, ‘the give us a job looks’ he nurtured in those days to generate sales apparently has still not deserted him, although he does not look a day older.  That I presume is all down to the sea air while he walk TOC on Sundays

Well done Tom.

Melvyn