Exercise: What is beauty? Please read Original Post before posting

[Tony Ristola]

Greetings Y'all:

Without looking at anyone else's post... (no cheating, no looking for answers or inspiration at the back of the book  ... WHAT IS/ARE YOUR DEFINITION(s) OF BEAUTY IN GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTURE?

Let your inhibitions go... there is no right or wrong answer.

NO Debating the definitions either... and let's try to not to look at what others have posted for at least week or so.

Here's to hoping

If the thread slides, I'll bump it up.

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlefolk,

For me beauty in golf architecture is when the architecture, on a particular hole, swallows me up.  In so doing it allows me to traverse a piece of ground where I am divorced from reality. The mundane world disappears and is forgotten. I am given the opportunity to enter a world where reality is suspended and an almost transcendental state is entered into.

So where does this happen? The linkslands of Scotland. An evening on Carnoustie with egg-shell blue skies and dunes keening with seabirds and whispering wind in the grass. An afternoon at Balcomie,  Crail where the yellow gorse, blue skies and wind-whipped seas provided an almost surreal experience.
This beauty could only be experienced because I was on a "green" surrounded by wonderful golf course architecture.

Why does this happen? I actually do not know but there is something about the landscape, even when sculpted to some extent by man, that just steals my soul!

Cheers Colin

[Ally Mcintosh]

Low sun creating shadows on the short grass contours of irregular links land...

[Ronald Montesano]

Having not scrolled down, I'll have a run:

Beauty in golf course architecture includes a connection between holes so that I never stop once to inquire where I'm going or why I'm going that way. This might be confused with practicality or logic, but for me, finding the practical/logical way is beautiful. This includes both traversing green to subsequent tee as well as the playing of each golfing hole.

[Melvyn Morrow]

The Silence of the Lambs  -  No mechanical noise, no shouting of distances or drunken dick-heads, time to think and consider the navel of the golfing world before proceeding to the next Tee. Oh for that traditional links course where the true nature of the game is allowed its freedom.

The Lord of Hosts awaits upon the 19th where ones cup can freely run over celebrating the commitment of man working with himself and Nature.
 

[Mac Plumart]

Tony...

To me beauty in regards to a golf course is a multi-faceted thing.  And it has very little to do with how something appeals to my eyeballs.  Rather it appeals to my spirit.

First off, and most importantly, I need an interesting round of golf.  I need variety in challenges, moments of temptation (some luring me to take a risk that I logically know that I can not make on a routine basis), and I need options (this is key to the highlighting the moments of temptation).

Now, if I get this first bucket of wishes...I'm a happy camper on a golf course.  But this doesn't mean a course is beautiful.

I really like what Behr had to say about this topic, "...in the prosecution of design, if the architect correctly uses the forces of nature to express them and succeeds at hiding his hand..." then he has created something beautiful.

I like this a lot.  But to me you need to the first list of items checked off (challenges, temptation, options) and the second.  Otherwise you have either a shallow and vapid golf courses (beauty with no interest) or a mechanical check list driven golf course with jarringly artificial man-made features.

But that is just me.

[Mac Plumart]

Gentlefolk,

For me beauty in golf architecture is when the architecture, on a particular hole, swallows me up.  In so doing it allows me to traverse a piece of ground where I am divorced from reality. The mundane world disappears and is forgotten. I am given the opportunity to enter a world where reality is suspended and an almost transcendental state is entered into.

So where does this happen? The linkslands of Scotland. An evening on Carnoustie with egg-shell blue skies and dunes keening with seabirds and whispering wind in the grass. An afternoon at Balcomie,  Crail where the yellow gorse, blue skies and wind-whipped seas provided an almost surreal experience.
This beauty could only be experienced because I was on a "green" surrounded by wonderful golf course architecture.

Why does this happen? I actually do not know but there is something about the landscape, even when sculpted to some extent by man, that just steals my soul!

Cheers Colin

Okay...I did what Tony said and posted without looking ahead.  Then I went back a read what others have said.  The above post is excellent.  IMO.

EDIT...Shoot, I've read the other now too.  Great stuff!!

[Bill_McBride]

I define great architecture as that which makes the absolute best use of natural features in a most natural way, interacting throughout the routing in a variety of ways. 

For examples I'll offer Mackenzie's use of the creeks at the Valley Club and the barranca at Pasatiempo. 

[Mike_Trenham]

Why the hangup on definitions Tony, that may be my idea of Beauty...

Seeing a great number of holes all at once

Rumpled ground on flat or hilly terrain

Different colors of plants that create definition, I have always liked the look of dormant bermuda with overseeded fairways

Bunkers that have a similar look yet each is unique

Skyline greens

Features you believe could be natural even when you know they are not

Water that moves, streams, rivers, oceans (not fountains or waterfalls)

[Ed Brzezowski]

Like a great book or a good play. Opens and grabs your interest at once. Rises and falls as plot twists are presented, allows you to think of what is going to happen next and then presents a few surprises. Holds your interest to the last line/putt.

[Mike_Young]

IMHO, it would be a flow, confluence or indigenous melting of the existing site....

[Jud_T]

Balls bouncing all over the place on firm fescue fairways and greens draped over natural contours that have a timeless, no GPS or CAD drawing could possibly replicate Mother Nature feel...

[Tom Yost]

For me, beauty is a golf hole that fits into and takes advantage of the features of the natural setting.

[Peter Pallotta]

Truth is Beauty, Beauty is Truth.

The land has its own truth - which I think of as its reality.  The game also has its truth - its demands.

The magic trick in gca is melding the reality of the land with the demands of the game, in a way that diminishes neither and highlights both.

Peter  

[Tom_Doak]

Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

For me, beauty in golf course architecture is the beauty of three-dimensional space.

It can be in the overall topography of a property ... or in the undulations of a fairway or a green ... or in the sweep of a bunker.  It can be in the space created by a border of trees, or long grasses, or surrounding dunes.  It can even be in how the routing moves through space.  Light and shadow can also play a part.  It is about how the golf hole fits into the landscape, and sometimes how it relates to the background, as well.

It can be man-made, or natural, though in most instances I prefer that it looks natural.

I do remember a good quote on this subject from an old article by Mr. Wind ... I think it was in the foreword to The World Atlas of Golf.  I'll try to remember to look it up tomorrow.

[William_G]

for me the beauty of golf and golf architecture is "NATURE" and "NATURAL"

the beauty of nature is that words don't matter, it's all about the golf

it's a throwback to days before the industrializtion of the world and modern man

the beauty of "NATURE" is primal to golf and golf architecture

(but I like Shadowcreek, and I do walk there...) call it ying/yang

part of golf for me has always been to get out...

which leads to the acronym of.... GetOutLeaveFamily, LOL

[Mac Plumart]

It is about how the golf hole fits into the landscape, and sometimes how it relates to the background, as well.


Tom, for what it is worth, this is one of your defining characteristics as an architect in my mind.

The most obvious thing about your work are your routings, naturalism, and your greens.  But the most subtle, but nevertheless important, aspect of your work that I've picked up on is your ability to highlight images, views, and landscapes that loom in the background of golf holes.  It leaves a subtle and subconcious vibe that puts a great sense of place with your courses.

Again...take it for what it is worth...probably not to much, coming from me.

[Benny Hillard]

For me it's the courses that dissolve boundaries between natural and man made.

Anything that allows the golfer to be engulfed in the experience of playing the game.

[Tom_Doak]

Tony:

Here's the quote I was going to remember to look for the other day; it's from Herbert Warren Wind's essay at the front of the original WORLD ATLAS OF GOLF:

"In golf, because of the nature of the game, a beautiful hole is not one that has a lovely stream flowing across it.  It is a hole that has a lovely stream flowing across it at the right place.  It would be wrong to deny that a golf course benefits from a charming setting, but a beautiful golf course is one whose beauty is as functional as L'Enfant's Washington and Haussmann's Paris."

[Bill Brightly]

Fun, challenging, option-filled playing field for golf that fits naturally with the land.

Good land movement and creative use of that movement.

Huge bonus points for ocean sites.

[JESII]

Tony,

For me it can be pretty simple.

1 - Connection to other holes - the anti-isolationalist.
2 - Simple flowing lines of gradual slope
3 - Understated maintenance look

[Jackson C]

Rolling, bumpy fairways with elevation change on some holes.  Some sand in the form or dunes or natural looking bunkers in play.
Prefer the shade of brown over green.  Enjoy seeing natural laying greens, with run ups and chipping areas, including some that appear to be exposed to the elements.
Some vista views so you can see the lay of the land, surrounding holes, and as a bonus, the ocean.
No water, other than the ocean or a burn on a hole or two.

[Jason Topp]

A sense of being in nature rather than a garden.

[Tim Gavrich]

The feeling of rising excitement or joy during or after the experience of a shot or entire course.  If it has moved you positively, it's beautiful.

[Garland Bayley]

"the greatest courses and the greatest holes are those which want knowing." Bernard Darwin

At the opposite end of the scale.

"The course that is absolutely honest and plain sailing, where the stranger is never bamboozled, is insipid." Bernard Darwin

So beauty in golf course architecture is anti-insipid. Perhaps this says a lot about the preferences of many of the members of this website have a certain preference for a group of designers and their courses, and find insipid some of the typical work of tour pros.