Feature Interview with Joe Passov is posted

[Ran Morrissett]

There are many ways to learn about courses and golf architecture. Access to quality books, magazines and web sites is at an all time high. Personally, I have learned the most from people who travel a lot as they tend to be both inquisitive and open-minded, both key attributes for continually expanding one's knowledge base. And no one travels more than Travelin' Joe Passov of GOLF Magazine. In question 14, he notes that he sees approximately 120  different courses a year. Yes, that averages to 10 courses a month! Despite the blistering pace, he can always articulate the pros/cons of what he sees, as witnessed in his detailed answers in this month's Feature Interview.
 
Joe is the perfect guy to run GOLF Magazine's World Top 100 as he by-passes the trophy collectors in lieu of finding those with a geniune passion in architecture to populate the World Top 100 panel. He discusses a variety of related subjects, including which courses came in #101 to 110 in the 2011 edition released last month. Having been a panelist for all three major publications, he is uniquely qualified to comment on the differences of the three rating systems. His direct, to-the-point answers in this regard are a particular highlight of this month's Feature Interview.
 
After reading his responses, a profile emerges of a non-judgmental man with a zest for seeing new things. He likes fun golf, which can frequently best be found on brown, fast running fairways. An unlucky bounce into a bunker is unlikely to phase Travelin' Joe, that's for sure. Indeed, there is a sense that if a course is too straightforward, it risks not holding his attention. For those wanting to see the next great things, Joe is first off the mark with courses like Kukuiula and Stoneforest International.
 
Overall, just a fascinating read packed with information about golf around the world. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
 
Cheers,

[Mac Plumart]

That was one of my favorite feature interviews.  Thanks, Ran.  Good stuff!

[PCCraig]

Really interesting, thanks for conducting and posting Ran. Is Joe a member of GCA yet?

Some quotes which caught my attention:

I like Doak, Coore, Hanse and the old dead guys as much as anybody, but I don’t want anybody prejudging a course merely because it’s been designed by Fazio, Nicklaus or Jones.

The best panelists should want to see the second-tier tracks as well, as well as those by lesser known designers. In 2011, we had 464 courses on the ballot, up from 408 in 2009. We require a minimum of 10 evaluations for a course to be eligible.

I appreciate the interest in "second-tier" courses, but how many of a world total of 464 are really "second tier?" 364? I like though, that 10% of the total panel must vote on a course for it to be eligible though.

At the end of the day (as Greg Norman likes to say), most of these courses don’t change that dramatically, even with a proper restoration.

Interesting...

[Jud_T]

. How does Medinah manage to cling to the top 25 (and higher) year after year, when it fails the “Design Variety” and “Memorability” tests? As a championship test, its credentials are impeccable. As a golf course you yearn to go back and play again—no. So why is that “great?”

uh oh.

[Jim Colton]

Great interview and insight to Golf's process versus the other publications. I would've to have seen a question about Rock Creek, just to find out how far outside the Top 100 U.S. is in currently (and/or how many votes it has).

[Jim Nugent]

I'd really like to hear more about the Chinese courses Joe talked about.

 

[Ryan Farrow]

Jim, what do you want to know?

I met Joe a few times while in China... he’s great fun to have a round with and likes to talk about the nuances of architecture, and loaded with stories...   I would say the Travelin' Joe moniker fits him to a tee.

[Joel_Stewart]

I'd really like to hear more about the Chinese courses Joe talked about.

Take a look at this thread on Stone Forest. Remarkable photos.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,47551.0.html

[Robert Thompson]

I'd say this was an insightful interview for a message board often obsessed with ratings.

[Greg Ohlendorf]

Ran,

Great interview with a really genuine guy. Joe is really passionate about what he does. I have had the opportunity to play several rounds with him and if one ever gets the chance, don't pass it up.

Greg

[Jason Topp]

Nice interview choice Ran.  I like reading Joe's material in the magazine and find it a refreshing and different perspective on the subject.  I often disagree with his recommendations he makes in the travel section but clearly they are made from a broad base of knowledge.

[Tom_Doak]

By extreme coincidence, my brother and I played with Joe and a friend of his at Spyglass Hill ... in 1980.

When I saw him at Cape Kidnappers a couple of years ago, he asked if I remembered.  I was a sophomore in college then, and guess I told him all about how I was going to be a golf course architect someday.  I don't think he believed me at the time!

I do wish he'd get to Rock Creek one day.

[Jim Franklin]

Great interview and insight to Golf's process versus the other publications. I would've to have seen a question about Rock Creek, just to find out how far outside the Top 100 U.S. is in currently (and/or how many votes it has).

Agreed. I hope he gets there next year. I can't believe 10 GM guys have not been there yet. Good interview though.

[Bill Seitz]

I'd say this was an insightful interview for a message board often obsessed with ratings.

I'd agree.  I thought the interview was very interesting and very well done.  I'm not a panelist myself, but I thought the insight into the "special occasion" course vs. "everyday" course was especially interesting, and a nice tie back to the earlier part of the interview where he contrasted Bel Air with the Nicklaus course at PGA West.  

This makes me wonder the extent to which courses ought to be judged not only on the standard merits of the course, but on how well the course fulfills its mission.  I suppose the hard part may be determining what exactly that mission is.  Some people like to be beaten into submission on a short golf trip, but like to go back to their more playable home course when the trip is over.  I get as much enjoyment out of playing a course like the Kampen Course at Purdue (very difficult) as I get playing Ravisloe (much easier).  But I could play Ravisloe every day, whereas I can only take so much of Kampen.  For me, they serve different purposes and I like them for different reasons.  But should they be judged equally on how "good" they are, or how well they achieve what the owner and architect intended?

Thanks for a great interview, Ran.

[Tom_Doak]

I'd say this was an insightful interview for a message board often obsessed with ratings.

I'd agree.  I thought the interview was very interesting and very well done.  I'm not a panelist myself, but I thought the insight into the "special occasion" course vs. "everyday" course was especially interesting, and a nice tie back to the earlier part of the interview where he contrasted Bel Air with the Nicklaus course at PGA West.  

This makes me wonder the extent to which courses ought to be judged not only on the standard merits of the course, but on how well the course fulfills its mission.  I suppose the hard part may be determining what exactly that mission is.  Some people like to be beaten into submission on a short golf trip, but like to go back to their more playable home course when the trip is over.  I get as much enjoyment out of playing a course like the Kampen Course at Purdue (very difficult) as I get playing Ravisloe (much easier).  But I could play Ravisloe every day, whereas I can only take so much of Kampen.  For me, they serve different purposes and I like them for different reasons.  But should they be judged equally on how "good" they are, or how well they achieve what the owner and architect intended?

Thanks for a great interview, Ran.

Bill:

I don't know how you could really judge courses by how well they fulfill their mission, when most people really are only guessing what the intended mission was.  I suppose the mission of Pebble Beach was to make the Monterey Peninsula into coveted real estate -- in which case, they succeeded spectacularly -- but I'm not sure that makes it a better course than some others.

Still, the contrast between "special occasion" courses and "everyday" courses is a marked one.  As far as I know, none of the rating systems address it directly -- but certainly, in recent years, the Best New results have favored the mega-scale, special occasion courses.

[Bill Seitz]

Bill:

I don't know how you could really judge courses by how well they fulfill their mission, when most people really are only guessing what the intended mission was.  I suppose the mission of Pebble Beach was to make the Monterey Peninsula into coveted real estate -- in which case, they succeeded spectacularly -- but I'm not sure that makes it a better course than some others.

Still, the contrast between "special occasion" courses and "everyday" courses is a marked one.  As far as I know, none of the rating systems address it directly -- but certainly, in recent years, the Best New results have favored the mega-scale, special occasion courses.

Tom, I think that makes sense, and I agree, it's tougher to distinguish intentions on golf courses (especially older courses) than it may be with other products.  I guess what I'm trying to get it is how much of the panelists' opinion should be based on his personal preference vs. his judgment of whether an architect achieved what the architect intended, even if that style doesn't appeal to the panelist.  I'll admit, I have a hard time coming up with a good example, so maybe this is just a concept that doesn't apply to golf course rankings as well as it would to, say, movie or music reviews.  I may not care for a certain genre of music, but should a review take into account my opinion of the genre, or should I evaluate whether the artist produced a good representative of the genre?

If 'Architect X' designs a style of golf course that I don't care for, should I base my evaluation on the fact that I don't care for the style?  Or, recognizing that I don't personally care for many of the design elements, should I base the evaluation on 'Architect X's' achievement in producing a course that well represents that style, at least as part of my criteria?  I apologize if my point is completely incoherent, which it may very well be. 

[SL_Solow]

Bill;  The question you raise goes to the art of criticism.  How much the personal preferences of the critic impact the review is always a question.  I submit that personal preferences always come into play and we value the critic for his ability to evaluate the product.  if his preferences are too different from ours, we tend to discount those reviews.  In this case, we are not reviewing the architects ability to complete his task, we are evaluating the golf course.  Thus the importance of a good site.  We can all identify courses that have outstanding sites where the architecture might have been better but where the course is pretty good.  Similarly there are some wonderful architectural jobs where the site limitations kept the course from being truly great.  Unless we are trying to rate the architects performance, none of this matters for the ratings.  We can certainly discuss how much better or worse a course could have been but its rating as a course is the real issue.

By the way, I also enjoyed the interview.

[Sean_A]

I thought this was an interesting intreview and a bit different from nearly all of the previous interviews.  Thanks Ran. 

SLS

I spose I look at "what could have been" a bit differently.  As a layman with no stake in any results, if I can see where a property was taken full advantage of I would certainly give the course some benefit if there is any doubt.  Conversely, if I see a course on terrific land and the archie didn't come up with a full range of holes and all its variety (originality/outside the box), I will not give it the benfit of any doubt.  That said, as a layman, I don't often spot difference makers in this regard, but when I do it strikes me harder than a pane of glass.  I reckon this is partly why, as you suggest, that for the most part all we should be looking at is the finished product because few people know the brief.  In other words, perhaps too much criticism (both positive and negative) centers around archies rather than what is actually in the ground. 

So far as sorting out styles, isn't this more of a gut impression for the most part?  Sure there are some courses which lean heavily in the penal or strategic directions, but much more often than not, all courses are mix and most fall in the centre(ish) of the spectrum.  If its an aesthetics issue, this can be sorted right away with a straight forward opinion.  To me, this is far less important because a reader can conduct successful research to discover what a course looks like much more easily than discovering how a course plays. 

Ciao 

[Mike_Young]

Met Joe once and is a genuine nice guy.  I do think the GCA guys need to know that the word is much of his take on things is influenced by JK.  Seems his sister is married to JK brother or vice versa so he has a direct pipeline.  At least that's what I'm told.

[Tom_Doak]

Bill;  The question you raise goes to the art of criticism.  How much the personal preferences of the critic impact the review is always a question.  I submit that personal preferences always come into play and we value the critic for his ability to evaluate the product.  if his preferences are too different from ours, we tend to discount those reviews.  In this case, we are not reviewing the architects ability to complete his task, we are evaluating the golf course.  Thus the importance of a good site.  We can all identify courses that have outstanding sites where the architecture might have been better but where the course is pretty good.  Similarly there are some wonderful architectural jobs where the site limitations kept the course from being truly great.  Unless we are trying to rate the architects performance, none of this matters for the ratings.  We can certainly discuss how much better or worse a course could have been but its rating as a course is the real issue.

By the way, I also enjoyed the interview.

Shelly:

I've said before that I don't see how most people can really rate what the golf course architect did.  But, I think the point of Bill Seitz's post [and it's a very good one] is that not everybody would agree that all "golf courses" ought to be judged to the same set of standards, and that there would be profound disagreement among panelists for the magazines as to what is the central function of a great golf course.  Is it all about "shot values" -- a term I use advisedly since I don't think many golfers understand the concept for any player but themselves -- or "fairness" [to whom?], or does scenery play a big part in what's great?  [It would be hard to argue it doesn't, since the percentage of oceanfront courses in the top 100 must be 50 times the percentage of oceanfront courses in the world altogether.]


I think Bill's point about movie criticism is also on point.  Some critics just don't like certain genres or certain actors ... and if you hate horror movies, then it would be hard for you to give a reasonable critique of one.  By the same token, if you did find someone who was a very neutral judge of all styles, as Joe claims to be looking for, would you trust someone with so little passion for the art? 

The few people I know who I would say are the most neutral -- and Ron Whitten is one -- frequently come out with reviews that are hard for me to believe, which causes me to wonder how much of what they're saying is politics instead of their actual reaction to the work.  I'd much rather have 100 passionate people who don't necessarily agree about anything, who are open about what their biases are, and let the chips fall where they may.  [That's why I never had a problem with someone like Matt Ward -- as one-dimensional as he sometimes was, he had a viewpoint to expound on, and it was never about politics.]

[Bill Seitz]

Shelly:

I've said before that I don't see how most people can really rate what the golf course architect did.  But, I think the point of Bill Seitz's post [and it's a very good one] is that not everybody would agree that all "golf courses" ought to be judged to the same set of standards, and that there would be profound disagreement among panelists for the magazines as to what is the central function of a great golf course.  Is it all about "shot values" -- a term I use advisedly since I don't think many golfers understand the concept for any player but themselves -- or "fairness" [to whom?], or does scenery play a big part in what's great?  [It would be hard to argue it doesn't, since the percentage of oceanfront courses in the top 100 must be 50 times the percentage of oceanfront courses in the world altogether.]

I think this gets towards Joe's comment about Golf's (perceived or genuine) lack of accountability.  Presumably, if panelists are given a list of criteria upon which to make their judgments, it can criticized as being formulaic, but at the very least, the reader has a point of reference from which to make his own judgments.  I would think that the larger the number of panelists, the more formulaic the system needs to be.  One person can tell you why he finds a particular course great or weak.  It's a lot harder to synthesize why a couple hundred people thought a course was great or weak without asking each one of them individually, as they could have a wide variety of rationales while still reaching the same conclusions.  To that end, it's to Joe's credit that he's kept the number of panelists at a fairly reasonable number.  The larger the number of panelists, the better it is to adhere to a particular formula.  On the other hand, golf is such a visceral experience, is it really fair to take the emotion out of the process by just pumping numbers into a formula?  

I think Bill's point about movie criticism is also on point.  Some critics just don't like certain genres or certain actors ... and if you hate horror movies, then it would be hard for you to give a reasonable critique of one.  By the same token, if you did find someone who was a very neutral judge of all styles, as Joe claims to be looking for, would you trust someone with so little passion for the art?  

OK, so maybe I wasn't as incoherent as I thought.  In addition to golf, two of my other areas of interest are music (indie rock, primarily) and beer.  If I don't like IPAs as a particular style of beer, can I really make an honest assessment of the quality of one IPA over another?  I think the concepts discussed here more easily relate to those than to golf, but it's just something I've been thinking about.  

[Tom_Doak]

I think this gets towards Joe's comment about Golf's (perceived or genuine) lack of accountability.  Presumably, if panelists are given a list of criteria upon which to make their judgments, it can criticized as being formulaic, but at the very least, the reader has a point of reference from which to make his own judgments.  I would think that the larger the number of panelists, the more formulaic the system needs to be.  One person can tell you why he finds a particular course great or weak.  It's a lot harder to synthesize why a couple hundred people thought a course was great or weak without asking each one of them individually, as they could have a wide variety of rationales while still reaching the same conclusions.  To that end, it's to Joe's credit that he's kept the number of panelists at a fairly reasonable number.  The larger the number of panelists, the better it is to adhere to a particular formula.  On the other hand, golf is such a visceral experience, is it really fair to take the emotion out of the process by just pumping numbers into a formula? 
 

Bill:

The point of all this is, who writes the formula?

GOLF Magazine has no real formula, because when I started running the thing in 1983, I didn't want to write one.  I thought it would be pretty silly for me to write a formula to tell all those panelists [at the time, a who's who of the golf business] to follow.  Meanwhile, GOLFWEEK has critieria which they don't really use; and GOLF DIGEST keeps tweaking a formula that THEIR PUBLISHER wrote almost 40 years ago.

Letting one person write the formula is the last thing you want; and even if you do, like GOLF DIGEST did, their panelists go back and fudge their responses based on their gut reaction to the course, instead of just going with the formula.

In the end, the results of these rankings live and die with the experience and credibility of the panelists.  GOLF Magazine has been the clearest at making no bones about that.

[George Pazin]

Nice interview. I've been wondering if Travelin' Joe was actually someone on golfclubatlas, since many of the favored courses on here are featured (or at least it seems that way).

OK, so maybe I wasn't as incoherent as I thought.  In addition to golf, two of my other areas of interest are music (indie rock, primarily) and beer.  If I don't like IPAs as a particular style of beer, can I really make an honest assessment of the quality of one IPA over another.  I think the concepts discussed here more easily relate to those than to golf, but it's just something I've been thinking about. 

At least you're honest enough with yourself to admit you have biases of some sort. Too many feel they can set those aside, yet when you read their thoughts or see their votes, it's clear they cannot. Seems most follow the "I can be objective, others cannot" line of thinking. I don't kid myself, at least not in that way.

[Sean_A]

Do folks really think there is as much variety in golf courses as there is in beer styles, types of cheese etc?  I don't think it is even close.  A golf course for the most part is a golf course.  There is far more similar about courses than not.  I couldn't say the same for beer or cheese.  My bottom line is always that any two courses can be compared if the person is doing the comparing is bright.  If you somebody says two courses are so different that comparing them is apples and oranges, then they are either lazy and/or don't really understand the courses they are talking about.

Ciao 

[Tom_Doak]

Do folks really think there is as much variety in golf courses as there is in beer styles, types of cheese etc?  I don't think it is even close.  A golf course for the most part is a golf course.  There is far more similar about courses than not.  I couldn't say the same for beer or cheese.  My bottom line is always that any two courses can be compared if the person is doing the comparing is bright.  If you somebody says two courses are so different that comparing them is apples and oranges, then they are either lazy and/or don't really understand the courses they are talking about.

Ciao 

Sean:

Of course you can compare any two courses ... the problem is that an honest comparison would draw conclusions that one course is superior in some respects, while the other course has the edge in other aspects of the game.  It's going from that to a black-or-white "which is better" that's the contentious part.