Courses that were ahead of their times? - What happened?

[Peter Pallotta]

Did they survive? 

What did being ahead of their times look like?

Thanks
Peter

[Phil_the_Author]

Lido

RIP...

[Jim Sweeney]

Desmond Muirhead "arty" courses, with mermaids and shark jaw bunkers, etc. Still in operation but not much architectural interest beyond curiosity.

How about that one on Hilton Head done with an early CAD program resulting in geometrically shaped bunkers, hillocks, and etc. Same result as Muirhead's experiments- curiosity but otherwise no great interest.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Laddie

If you forget to teach the young how to play golf but concentrate on cartball or any of the modern rubbish which just scrambles their little brains. Who will then take over the mantel of proper course design?

But you just will not be advised, seeking assistance from technology leaving behind tried and trusty methods and you end up with the Castle Course – all at sea and need modifying after all that money was spent on building the monstrosity.

Your biggest problem is of course as you all already know Old Tom is no longer around to help you overcome your teething problems.

So Laddie take responsibility for your own actions and leave us alone here as we still have many old courses to play at our leisure – that is play real golf on real courses.

And a good day to you my little spurrenless Laddie  


Melvyn

[Mac Plumart]

Mevlyn...you know I love you, but who the heck are you talking to in your last post?     Who is this mythical "Laddie" you refer to?

Nevertheless, I think you might be making a great point.  Perhaps no course that lasts can be ahead of its time because the tried and true principles of great golf don't rely on any new fangled ideas.  Rather they simply rely on using good land on which a good course is designed by good people who also take Stewardship over the land and make sensible golf related decisions.  Do this and time and time again you should get a course that stands the test of time.

Peter...what course was ahead of its time?  Man, I don't know.  But perhaps many a gem was handed to people who didn't know what they had and/or didn't have the competence to run it well and over time it fell into disrepair, was altered by ignorant greens commitees or architects, and/or disappeared all together.

Just a thought.

[David_Tepper]

You could argue that Pete Dye's courses at Hilton Head and TPC Sawgrass were ahead of their time. Both have obviously turned out to be very successful.

Hilton Head was compact & rather narrow, with small tees and greens, which was certainly not the style in vogue when the course was built. I suppose you argue Hilton Head was a throwback to an earlier time.

TPC Sawgrass was built specifically to host professional tournaments and designed with mounding for spectators to view the action.   

   

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

Pete has often said that he studied everything RTJ did, and tried to do the opposite.  No big greens, tees, etc. for HT.

I would say NGLA (all holes must be good), Lido (big construction is ok) and maybe Van Cortlant Park (first muni?) could all be considered ahead of their time.  Does anyone know what the first housing integration, resort, landfill, mountain, and/or upscale public courses might have been, in the US or elsewhere?

[RSLivingston_III]

I think we are seeing this right now. Courses challenging convention that we don't know where they will end up, except the economy should prove the decider rather than the players.
I would bet anything that meet that criteria during the Golden Age got sideswiped by the Depression.

[Bradley Anderson]

In 1914 Old Elm was ahead of its time, and it didn't change too much over the years.

No cost was spared in its design, construction, seeding, and care.

H.S. Colt designed it in collaboration with Donald Ross. Ross then stayed to build it in 1913. I think some of Ross's sculpting shows up in the contours. It really is one of the greatest collaborations in all of golf course architecture, and no one has subsequently come to remodel anything - except the first green which was moved back when the old elm tree for which the club was named eventually died. Then I think it was Bill Diddel who relocated the first green 100 yards or so back, now making the opening hole a par 5.

Reginald Beale, the top seedsman in the world was involved with grassing, though to what degree I am not certain.

The fairways were irrigated entirely.

Every low spot, green, and bunker were tiled to dry the course out in the spring and keep it dry after rainfall. The original tile is still there all these years later and functioning. (I know because I made repairs to some of it when I worked there in the 80's)

All the bunkers were built along with the entire course in one project. The golf course was not tweaked over time.

Piper reports a decade or so later that the greens are the purest bent of any seeded greens he has seen, and there is no poa in them owing to the club's persistence in hand weeding it out of the greens. They were, and remain today, one of the few entire (except for #1 green) collections of original greens that were grown to pure bent from seed. Country Club of Detroit was in that same league but those greens were destroyed when the club later moved.

Even the club house was written up as being a model of modern engineering with simple comforts - and that hasn't changed much either.

I think the reason why Old Elm has been under the radar is because it is so exclusive.

[Bradley Anderson]

I think Old Elm was also one of the first men only clubs.

[Ronald Montesano]

This is a tough thread to post on...I'm really grinding the gears here to make a thoughtful and worthy contribution.  When we say "ahead of their time," does that automatically reject what was happening at the time?  Next, in whose mind were the existing courses "behind the times," necessitating courses "ahead of their time"?  Finally, does this have anything to do with that song in "Joseph," titled "Ahead of My Time"?

OK, back to the golf.  I'll nominate reclaimed-land courses as being ahead of their time.  Beginning with a couple of quarry courses, Merion and CC Buffalo(Ross), then jumping way ahead to Pete Dye Golf Club, Old Works, Widow's Walk and many others, these were courses that took less-than-prime land and made miracles.  This is still going on today and is one of golf's great contributions to society.

Next, I'll suggest that the jury is still out on Mike Strantz-style courses...in order for Strantz to be situated properly in the pantheon, he'll need an imitator or two to come along and cite him as their inspiration.  After Tobacco Road and Tot Hill Farm, I was prepared to deify him.  After Royal New Kent and Stonehouse, I backed off.  I'll need to revisit True Blue and see MPCC, Bull's Bay and Caledonia before I can truly opine on his place.

I may have more, but it's not coming at the present time.  Back later.

[mike_beene]

the Old Course was ahead of it's time. also,were Murfields returning nines ahead of their time?

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks - some good answers. It's a big topic; I'm not sure exactly what I meant by even starting it, so I just left the questions simple. But I can think of books and music and art that were (at least slightly) ahead of their times, and that then went on to shape the future of those art-forms. But I can't think of too many courses that fit that description (partly because I simply don't know enough). Is this art-craft of gca different from all others in this regard? Is it essentially conservative? Are golfers essentially conservative in this regard? In the back of my mind when I thought of this thread was not a golf course but a golf hole - the 4th at Woking, that Paton changed by adding the bunkers in the middle of the fairway and that, I think, many of the members hated; but that Simpson studied all day long and shaped his thoughts about gca moving forward.  Anyway, I can't add anything of value to this thread so I hope others keep chiming in.

Peter

[RJ_Daley]

Sand Hills GC was ahead of its time.  A course in the middle of nowhere, flyover country, that took advantage of the incredible natural terrain, and was built with the most minimal of construction methods to yield maximum golf. The effort required a pioneer developer of sorts with faith that it would work. The follow up of BallyNeal, Barnbougle Dunes, Bandon Resorts, Dismal River, Prairie Club, and Cabot Links all have that remote location, strong developer figure, search for perfect terrain and sandy base to yield the best possible golf.

[Warwick Loton]

Every low spot, green, and bunker were tiled to dry the course out in the spring and keep it dry after rainfall. The original tile is still there all these years later and functioning. (I know because I made repairs to some of it when I worked there in the 80's)

Bradley,

Thanks for the Old Oak run-down.

Could you please explain what you mean by "tiled"? (sorry if I'm being slow here)

[Bradley Anderson]

Warwick

Drainage tile. And I should clarify that there was nothing unusual about drainage tile in those days, but that Old Elm laid a tremendous amount of tile.

[Matthew Rose]

How about that one on Hilton Head done with an early CAD program resulting in geometrically shaped bunkers, hillocks, and etc. Same result as Muirhead's experiments- curiosity but otherwise no great interest.

The Bob Cupp course at Palmetto Hall Plantation.

I had a chance to play this a few years after it opened.... someone highly advised against us and tossed us onto the Arthur Hills course instead....which everyone absolutely hated. I wish I'd stuck to my guns and played the Cupp, if for no other reason than the gimmick factor. I'd be damned if I can remember anything about the Hills course.

[Tom_Doak]

RJ:

The part about Sand Hills that was way ahead of its time was the fact that it cost so little to build and was done with no real debt.  Those are the numbers which are breaking so many courses today.  You can always cut back on maintenance, but you can't cut back on debt payments unless the bank is too busy looking the other way, and that won't last forever.

Peter:

I only know of one golf course that was built (and marketed!) to be "twenty years ahead of its time".  It has struggled since it opened, ten years ago.  It might be re-done, or they might wait another ten years and see if it is suddenly in the right place.

[RJ_Daley]

In that low cost to build-no debt model, Wild Horse was an intrastate stock offering, and was built on subscription shares with no debt.  The subsequent lot sales around the course insured that they would do it debt free.  It was incredibly low cost to build. 

To toot my own horn a bit, I had the exact same model back in 1992, and if the subscription would have sold out, it also would have been unique on that score.  But, the intrastate capitalization was not the first time it was attempted.  So, I don't think it was necessarily ahead of its time, just not the traditional way to do it.  Our project was low cost construction vision, but not the incredibly low cost that can be achieved with the sand hill cost of land, and ease of construction model.  Ours would have needed much more infrastructure, drainage and the like.

Seeing what other projects succumbed to in terms of maintenance and debt that were contemporary with ours in 1992, even if we had filled the subscription, I'm not so sure it wasn't a better outcome for me personally.  But, I'll never know for sure... 

So which course are you referring to, TD?  High Pointe was more than 10 years ago now, wasn't it?  St Andrews Beach?  Or, somebody elses course design?

[Tom_Doak]

RJ:

I was referring to someone else's design, which I'd rather not name on this thread.