[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,

In both writing and actual work on the ground, I see lots of examples of them making golf courses more fair in a design sense.  Case in point is bunkers.  With the exception of CBM, Ross, Mac, Flynn, etc. built pretty shallow bunkers, at least much softer than the pits in Scotland.  I trust that their actual work reflected their thoughts on golf course design as much as their writings.

Yeah, sure, you could argue that the 4' deep bunkers were only because of clay soils, etc. and not what they wanted to build.  But, they each built on sand and then still built moderate depth bunkers for the most part.  Look at the sandy site of CPC for Mac.  Those bunkers were equal part art, hazard and definition. The soils would allow far deeper bunkers if he wanted.

 It came out great and I presume the Doc knew what he was doing........

[Melvyn Morrow]

Jeff

Them pits in Scotland are actually bunkers,  not this fair easy rubbish that’s scattered around these days, you know the type, the shallow hard sand bunkers that are supposed to be defined as hazard.

Easy, fair, bloody rubbish, when will you remember its golf we are meant to be talking about.

If there ever was a time when a proper induction was required into how to play the game, now is the time before the game is lost forever. Even the architects are forgetting the basics.

Perhaps the Doc did not actually know it all after all.

Melvyn

[DMoriarty]

Jeff Brauer,

1.  You admit that your questions were loaded, but then you criticize us for not answering them, call us amateur architects, and accuse us of spouting off and ranting and raving?  Nice.  

As for my answers to your questions, as I said I would view those issues as  having more to do with routing than post-routing.  Plus, I am not an "amateur architect," so I'd leave it to a professional.  But a professional whose understanding and approach was more copacetic with the truly great minds of golf architecture.  I certainly wouldn't trust anyone who was constantly minimizing and trivializing their accomplishments, or claiming the greats were approaching golf course design much the same as those who produced so much of the schlock work of the past 70 years.    


2.  You ask for examples of well hit shots careening well off center and I gave you some.  Your response is to ask for different examples?  I don't get it?   You seem to be trying to finesse your response to leave out some of the fundamental leaders of the era by placing an arbitrary date on the examples.  For example, you claim Low was "really a bit earlier?"  Low was "really a bit earlier" than what, exactly?   His ideas formed the foundation for what of what would become strategic golf course design of more than one of the golden aged thinkers.  Mackenzie was heavily influenced, as was Macdonald.  If memory serves, Colt was too.   What could be a better example than NGLA or the writings of CBM, published in the late 1930's?  

But if you want more examples, go look at Crystal Downs where there are various examples of holes where the ball can be kicked into less desirable location by ground slope, and even some examples where a perfectly placed ball in the middle of a fairway may leave the golfer with a hanging lie.  Or go look at the 8th at Prairie Dunes.  Go to Merion and imagine wide fairways and you will see some of the same things, where a straight ball will bound away from play unless perfectly placed and perhaps even a little lucky.  Plus, while perhaps less obvious, the golden age has many holes where playing straight down the middle disadvantaged the cautious player.

3.  Jeff Brauer wrote:

As I said, one way to play a hole is fair.  Two ways is strategic.  No ways is just goofy!

You've turned the issue into one of absurdity.  This statement isn't about fairness, it is about the mere possibility of completing a hole.  If your point is that the old designers focus on "fairness" by trying to design holes that golfers might eventually finish, then you've no real point at all.    

______________________________________________

Niall,

Just to be clear, I think it was CBM who said the part about getting out with a good shot in any direction. While CBM references Low, I dont recall whether Low actually said that.  He may have, I just don't know.  I know Low did write that there is hardly such a thing as an unfair bunker, but was writing in the context of placement.  By his descriptions of his score after having hit into a certain centerline bunker, he may not have been able to extricate himself in a single shot.   He was an advocate of fierce bunkers, not fair ones.  From  Concerning Golf:

Bunkers, if they be good bunkers, and bunkers of strong character, refuse to be disregarded, and insist on asserting themselves; they do not mind being avoided, but they decline to be ignored. That little bunker on the seventeenth green at St. Andrews, that group of rushes on the fourteenth green at Hoylake, that "trap" bunker at the third green at North Berwick, these hazards are not to be laughed at or lightly lofted, they must be negotiated with nicety and avoided with avidity. If the "Strath" bunker could recite the words it has heard and tell of the sights it has seen, there would be much food for fun and philosophy. No bunker sees so much of the game as the " pot " on the green, and though its position is a sore one,, it has many a laugh at labouring man. It is well, then, not to laugh at "the bunker in the green," for in the end the laugh may be against us.

One can see by his examples that he is not advocating for easy bunkers in the name of fairness.

As importantly, I believe you may be taking the comment out of context, and that is my fault for not providing the correct context.  Some had apparently been complaining that severe bunkers were too penal in nature and were thus "unfair."  They apparently expected that one ought to be able to hit a full shot out of them in the direction of the ultimate target.   Macdonald countered that by turning to Low, and commenting that bunkers were intended to be hazards and that there was no such thing as an unfair bunker so long as the golfer could somehow extricate himself from the bunker with a good shot in any direction, even if the golfer had to hit it sideways or backwards.   So again, he is advocating for difficult bunkers.  I hardly see this as a nod to fairness.  More a nod to the practicality of allowing the golfer to eventually finish the hole.

H.J. Whigham addressed a similar concern in reference to the last hole at Garden City.  Again, notice the emphasis on the strategic value of the difficult bunker.

A great many American players have criticised the new bunkers at the last hole at Garden City as being far too difficult. That is partly because they have never learned to play out of deep bunkers — the shot really is not difficult if the sand is soft — and partly because they overlook entirely the moral aspect of the game. A shallow patch of sand is the worst kind of hazard for a short hole. It does not affect the nerves of the player on the tee to any extent. If the worst comes to the worst and he goes into the sand he has still a good chance of a three after making a bad tee shot. But with the deep bunkers staring him in the face, he knows  that a mistake will be disastrous, if not fatal. The moral effect of the bunker is, therefore, twice or three times as great, and that is exactly what makes the difference between good golf and poor golf.

Again, "fairness" is really not part of the equation.

[DMoriarty]

Jim,

That is a good point.  One thing it shows is that over time designers diverged on these issues. And definitely many of the supposed golden age did not favor hazards where one had to play out sideways.  But it wasn't necessarily a changing view of fairness that was driving the divergence.

Also Jim, I think Wilson was talking about the very best players being able to play out with a longer club, not everyone else.  Depending upon their skill they might still have to hit out sideways with a short club.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Bunkers, let’s not forget guys were not raked in the early days making the bunker a double edged sword, first by falling foul of it by landing within its confines then the un-raked state of the sand. Now just what was fair about that?

Melvyn

[Jeff_Brauer]

Melvyn,

Wow.  I guess you know better than Mac what makes a great course, eh?

Seriously, if we are talking about golf, its a GAME, not some right wing religious retribution thing!

In the context of a GAME or SPORT or COMPETITION VENUE, please tell me what ten feet deep bunkers do for you (in general, I am certainly open to occaisional exceptions for variety)

If moderate, I believe they enhance the game, particularly match play, if they are recoverable.  They allow a mistake to be redeemed and corrected.  In stroke play, if they cost a stroke, the match changes but is still in play.  If someone takes 3 or 4 to get out, or has to end the match, how does that make golf a better GAME or SPORT?  Seriously?

Please lead me to the writings or revelations that lead you to believe that golf needs to necessarily be as fun as say, crossing the west in wagons fearful of Indian raids, or taking a voyage on the Titanic.  I have heard your opinions for quite a while, and while I disagree, believe you are entitled to them.  I just don't recall where they came from, other than "that's the way Old Tom Morris did it".  

If that is the case, I guess that we can say that maybe Old Tom has been overruled by a few generations of golfers and architects who, through a century of experience, believe golf is better when a bit less of a test of survival, endurance, etc. that you seem to want it to be.

Its actually interesting to imagine just how much thought those old pros actually put into design, too.  Were the bunkers small pits because of sheep, because they could only dig so much?  Or did they ever really write that they thought bunkers should be that way?  They really didn't have the options to do more, did they?  Of course, I am just gasbagging it on that, all speculation.  But, interesting speculation.

Thanks in advance.

David,

Everyone knows that you will take any chance to argue with most anyone and especially me, trying to always tell the world how little I know about architecture.  I answered your questions civilly, but have no real interest in engaging in your typical agrumentative style.  Really, if your point is to just make me sound silly, rather than discuss an interesting architectural topic, I believe we would be better off without your participation.  

But hey, your points are all valid. Well maybe not the one about feature design being accomplished during routing.  Sure, we consider it, but in the end, on most typical properties, some holes suggest features strongly while others don't, and usually there are a few holes where the ground presents some problems to solve in feature design.  The bulk of feature design happens after routing.    Routings don't always work out where every hole is absolutely perfect. Its just not a black and white thing.  Just the way it is.

Re-reading your comprehensive quotes from Low and Whigham, I think its fair to say that even if the architects were writing or lamenting the softening of bunkers, its clear that golfers of the era were already sounding like golfers of today!  We seem to agree that bunkers got softer towards the end of the Golden Age, and I presumed the architects started to think better of really tough bunkers.  Maybe I am wrong, but I don't know where you presume that it wasn't fairness that drove the issue.  What then?  Practicality (or speed of play, accomodating lesser players even if they had a different thought on tournament design?)

As to the Golden Age, I sometimes thing we think of the Golden Age as a 30 minute TV show, not a 30 years long era, where things were much different later than earlier.  Since you want dates, I would say 1929 design had evolved a lot since 1910.  I see it in the overall writings and work of those guys the seeds of modern, softer architecture that follows.  You choose to focus on CBM, who was mostly earlier, and then Raynor, who just copied, and no doubt he was perhaps one of the more severe designers of the early part of the Golden Age.  I was focusing on works of the late 20's just before the end.

As I said, please give me your definition unfair if you want to continue.  I have no problem with hanging lies, or the center of a fw being strategically worse than than the edge.  That is strategy. And yes, in general, I believe most folks define unfair as not being able to get a good shot into a reasonable target area. I don't think most define strategic advantages as unfair, although, some pros think that every shot should be able to access the pin and that they should never have to play to the middle of the green- EVER.  I disagree with that notion.

I have played CD, with Tom Doak, no less, and he has pointed out all the little nuances that you mention.  With the exception of 17, which apparently some question as unfair, yes the fw's have roll and contour that affect play.  I never called that unfair, but did give an example in which the gca might face a choice to soften a contour to allow shots to stay in the fw.

Again, maybe rather than perhaps talking around each other, you might narrow down what you think most golfers call "unfair."  Maybe we aren't really saying that much different.  As I said before, I see lots of guys here ranting about theory, but hesitant to make a call on a very specific situation.  If you don't want to answer as what you would do as a gca in those three scenarios, then please tell us how you feel about playing each of the holes described if they were designed with the first options listed, and your shots had no chance of holding the fw, no chance of holding the green?  

[JESII]

Jim,

That is a good point.  One thing it shows is that over time designers diverged on these issues. And definitely many of the supposed golden age did not favor hazards where one had to play out sideways.  But it wasn't necessarily a changing view of fairness that was driving the divergence.

Also Jim, I think Wilson was talking about the very best players being able to play out with a longer club, not everyone else.  Depending upon their skill they might still have to hit out sideways with a short club.

I wouldn't disagree with that based on my memory of the article.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Jeff

Please show me where I said 'that's the way Old Tom Morris did it".  As for the Doc is or was he not human and therefore like the rest of us open to ........

As for what the old dead guys did, seems you do not know much about what Old Tom did or did not do, so perhaps you need to do some research before digging yourself deeper into bunkers.

I voice my opinions for what they are worth, not Old Tom's thoughts, but I do know much of what went on in his day.

Had you forgotten that bunkers were not raked in the early days making the sand trap more of a hazard?

Melvyn

[JESII]

David,

Not sure if this is a diversion or consistent with this thread, but isn't it good architecture to provide opportunities for players to try to reach just beyond their capabilities? Isn't that question...the dilemna...of knowing your own limitations and staying within them the golfers responsibility just as it's the architects responsibility to have you reach beyond your limitations?

[DMoriarty]

If that is the case, I guess that we can say that maybe Old Tom has been overruled by a few generations of golfers and architects who, through a century of experience, believe golf is better when a bit less of a test of survival, endurance, etc. that you seem to want it to be.

Really?  A few generations of golfers and architects think that the modern courses are better than those of Old Tom's era?  This seems a pretty outlandish statement to me.  What courses built between 1940 and 1990 are better than The Old Course?  Better that Prestwick? Better than North Berwick?  For that matter, which courses built since 1920 are definitely better?

Its actually interesting to imagine just how much thought those old pros actually put into design, too.  Were the bunkers small pits because of sheep, because they could only dig so much?  Or did they ever really write that they thought bunkers should be that way?  They really didn't have the options to do more, did they?  Of course, I am just gasbagging it on that, all speculation.  But, interesting speculation.

I think Melvyn has provided some long and very informative posts on just how much design went into some of these courses, including even TOC.  Perhaps you should do some reading and searching before you start "gasbagging" on the topic.

As for the rest of your post, you are changing your tune.   Your claim was that "all of the Golden Age guys wrote about creating more design fairness" and you presented it as if the Golden Age was a response to the unfairness of the previous dark ages.  This is wrong and drastically misrepresents the creation and fundamentals of we call the Golden Age.   You lumped the whole era together, not me.  

And you can try to write it all of to me being argumentative, but you are the one who made the outlandish claim, the one who demanded that Bob Crosby and I "read the damn books" and the one who is throwing this personal crap in here about how you don't like my approach. In the mean time, I've provided you with a number of quotes and examples, yet you haven't come up with a thing to back up your speculation other than more generalizations and more speculation.

As for your new time frame, CBM was still involved in design well into the 1920's.  As for you writing off Raynor because he was "just copying" well that is not worth addressing.

As for your request that I give you my definition of what most golfers call "unfair," such a request both misses the point and makes my point for me.  As golf architecture goes, I don't think "unfair" ought to even enter the conversation, and I don't think the best architects worried about fairness like you.  I don't care what "most golfers" think.  

See Bob Crosby's initial post to you on the matter as he said it better than I can.
_____________________________________________________________________

Jim,

I generally agree your post.   But are you asking in relation to something I wrote?  

[Garland Bayley]

Jeff keeps asking about a golden age course where a shot landing in the middle of the fairway will carom off the fairway. Unfortunately, somewhere between few and none golden age GCAs build courses in the pacific northwest. So I find it hard to answer.

Interestingly though this situation was created on the first hole of Chambers Bay. Also, interestingly it is being remedied for the tour pros and their play of the hole in the upcoming U. S. Open.

As an aside Jeff, I find your posts to lack in logic. IMO you would be better off trying to understand what David writes, follow the logic,, and try to assimilate it. Try to find where you agree with him, as opposed to battling him. Try to find common ground.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Garland,

Hard to find common ground with David. I tried, and he then blasts me for changing my tune, saying I am outlandish, etc. a real overreacton instead of just saying, yeah we agree here, don't there. 

BTW, I find David's posts to be really illogical and only argumentative, as has been his custom, but again, its his style.  He goes to great lengths to avoid answering simple questions, and sometimes, it really isn't all that hard.  I have always believed if you can't explain an idea in a few simple sentences, it really isn't a good idea.  David (and others) refuse to define even in broad terms what golfers seem to think is unfair, then or now.  I really don't know why that is, but as Niall says, I try to boil things down to a simple idea. 

Not sure how that is illogical at all.

My example of fw holding shots isn't really hard to understand - either you think a fw that rejects shots is a good feature or a bad one (or perhaps, one that is okay once in a while, or okay if on the edge of kicking a ball off the fw)  I have found it to be one of the classic cases of cries of "unfair" which is why I used it as an example.

Instead, I will just let you guys figure this one out.  As I have said many times, before, I simply see seeds of the fairness coming into design over time.  If you or others read it differently, that is of course, your right.

Cheers to all.  Sorry to have started another one of those unsolveable architectural riddles!

[Garland Bayley]

... David (and others) refuse to define even in broad terms what golfers seem to think is unfair, then or now. ...

So who am I? Chopped liver? I gave the definition and contrasted it with what definition one would conclude you are using.

Not sure how that is illogical at all.

When a definition has been given, and you say it hasn't, that's illogical.

...

Instead, I will just let you guys figure this one out.  As I have said many times, before, I simply see seeds of the fairness coming into design over time.  If you or others read it differently, that is of course, your right.

Yep, fairness has come into design, but is rejected as a valuable attribute by many. Tom Doak created a hole at Pac Dunes (#16) that has your infamous hit near the center of the fairway and have it kicked out of the fairway by the slope of the fairway. Many, perhaps including Tom himself, think it is the best hole there.

Cheers to all.  Sorry to have started another one of those unsolveable architectural riddles!

Near the time when I joined this website, you wrote that one of the reasons you belong is so you can get your ideas out and refine them. I think your reticence to "refine" them when called on their shortcomings is the epitome of "unsolvable architectural riddles".

[Melvyn Morrow]

Jeff

“I simply see seeds of the fairness coming into design over time.” Yes, I can see your point of view, but that does not mean it’s right, or more importantly right for the game.

All manners of items have seeped into the game over the last 50 years and IMHO they have not done golfers or the game any favours. Take away the advance in equipment and ball technology, and I wonder if we or the game has actually progressed in any way. In fact has the game not lost its edge and its wide appeal?

For a game based upon the challenge of overcoming the design and terrain by the steady accumulation of skill, fairness just seems to scream the total opposite.

Nevertheless, I agree that for some ‘I simply see seeds of the fairness coming into design over time.’ That reflects poorly on those who are trying to push the point as clearly they have not understood the merits of the great Royal & Ancient Game of Golf. Example Cart Ball does introduce fairness into the game and look what it has gone to the original game. Don’t follow then read that 1920 article on the Excess of Energy showing how much energy is saved in a round – noting that study only related to dropping and picking up ones bag of clubs, just think had carts been around then how much more energy would be saved by riding too. A totally unfair aid to the rider over the walker – is that fair or should a fair balance include the introduction of penalty strokes for the rider over the walker to compensate?

Fair has a very fast habit of becoming unfair and so should have no place in golf.

Now I do not know if Old Tom would or would not agree, so I am not bringing him into this thread, just for the record.

Melvyn

[DMoriarty]

I think Melvyn hit on something important and it may highlight where Jeff Brauer and I disagree.  Jeff seems to think that the increasing emphasis on fairness is some sort of an evolutionary process with its roots in the golden age, and he apparently sees this as a positive development in golf.  Why else would he claim that generations of designers and golfers think that the modern courses are better than courses like The Old Course, Prestwick, North Berwick, and other courses around during Old Tom's time?

I agree that many misguided golfers (and some misguided designers) have been trying to bring "fairness" to golf for a very long time.  But the men like Low and CBM were battling against this trend, not advancing it, as Brauer claimed.  The idea of making golf more fair was antithetical to their understanding of the nature of the game.  That is the major difference.  Jeff sees the introduction or expansion of fairness into design as positive or at least neutral, whereas I see it as negative and contrary to the higher principles of that earlier era.

To use the "seeds of fairness" analogy, I see fairness as a noxious weed which has been slowly choking out the essence of the game.

I'd still like to see Brauer's list of all those modern courses which are so much better than The Old Course, Prestwick, North Berwick, etc., but  I won't hold my breath.

[Sean_A]

David

I too see fairness as a noxious weed, but unlike you I do see the origins fairness in the Golden Age.  As stated before, blindness is one aspect that was systematically attacked by ODGs.  I also think cross bunkers were considered a no no but some ODGs.  I am sure these archies didn't see the elimination of these two features as a march toward fairness, but rather an elimination of "bad" architecture.  So the lingo changes (today many associate good architecture with fair architecture), but the result is the same.  Afterall, it was only opinions which declared these features as something well short of ideal.  It would be interesting to know the philosophical bent behind eliminating blind shots.  I recall Dr Mac writing something about visibility allows for hazards to properly intimidate the golfer - or words to that effect.  I often wondered why he didn't consider blindness itself as a form of hazard.  I know most golfers are uncomfortable with blindness at least to some degree. 

I can understand the cross bunker being despised as penal, but I think guys like Dr Mac (Colt as well) used "penal" to partially mean "inferior" and so beyond the aesthetic considerations.  If this is indeed true (only a guess on my part) it is a great pity.  I spose blindness and cross bunkers are reasons why I admire Fowler so much.  He didn't seem to be afraid to use the full range of hazards and their placement to challenge and interest golfers.   

Ciao   

[Jeff_Brauer]

David,

While I do see it as an evolutionary thing as courses went from laid on the existing land, to built items, and generally think its a better deal - or at least I think it responds to customer demands, as even your quotes show was discussed, I sure understand those who think it isn't, or at least that in the last few decades it has been overdone.

And as I said, while you pick early GA examples of Low and CBM, I picked later examples like Ross and Mac, and maybe Colt.  It was, as I said, a 30 year period and I think the understanding of the game on the American side at least, did change, and the actual architecture of those gents reflected it.  After all, there were few pot bunkers by those guys - they favored the moderate depth, artistic puzzle pieces (Mac more than Ross, though) and I presume they felt those softer bunkers, etc. made more sense for the way golf was played.


As someone mentioned there were fw that canted and kicked balls off, I am not so sure they worked that way in 1920 with 1.5" bluegrass fw cuts, but of course, we cannot be sure.

I don't recall saying I have a list of modern courses I like better than the old ones, although I have seen evidence that many, perhaps misguided, modern golfers do prefer the new style to old.  I love the old courses you mention, and try to incorporate some of that in my designs, abeit, I use it as a change of pace thinking that a replica of Prestwick wouldn't go over too well.

I understand you and Melvyn having a different opinion, and actually, simply thought my specific examples might highlight the fact that most of us would take a "fair course" in general and accept a bit of quirk.  I am still not sure you or anyone else would regularly play a course with designed in unplayability.

But again, I also make a distinction between design and maintenance fairness issues.  Unraked bunkers are a maintenance meld issue to me, and I would accept it.  However, it would be a rare case for me to design a 20 foot deep pot bunker that by design precluded escape.  That said, I did do such a bunker at Firekeeper last year, loosely molded after RSG no. 4.  Its on a par 5, and even if you find it, you can wedge out and maybe still hit the green in 4 or more likely 4.  I think its good design there, whereas on a long par 4 I wouldn't do it unless an extradordinary situation presented itself.

I would still like to see someone try to define design fairness.

But, that is the difficulty in talking about such things.  Few here have even seen my work to start with.  And second, what I sit down and think in theory is often altered quite a bit in the field, depending on what the land gives.  As I mentioned yesterday, even CBM noodled on what the ideal course was, but I doubt he ever built one exactly to his prescription.

Cheers.

[DMoriarty]

Sean,  

I think we are coming to the same disagreement we've had many times although this time from a more round-about and somewhat novel direction.  In short, I am not comfortable foisting our ideas of fairness or unfairness on the old dead guys.  I'd rather take them at their words in trying to understand why they did what they did.   So to me it matters very much that they may not have seen the elimination of blindness and cross-bunkers as a move toward fairness.  You say the result is the same, but this presupposes that these things were about fairness, and I don't think they were and I don't think they thought so either.

Your comments about Mackenzie's opposition to the "penal" school provide a good example of the problem with substituting our own understanding in place of theirs.  I don't think he thought "penal" meant what you seem to think it means. MacKenzie's argument with "penal" architecture had nothing to do with his desire to make things more fair.    Bob Crosby knows more about it than I do, and hopefully  he will come in and set me straight if I veer to far off course, but the aim of  "penal" architecture was aimed at making things equitable by matching the punishment to the degree of error in the golf shot.  in other words was about bringing FAIRNESS to golf. Courses like St. Andrews were unfair because they posed arbitrary a capricious.   MacKenzie was very much opposed to this fair play approach to design.

Likewise regarding cross bunkers.  I cannot recall anyone arguing they were unfair.  In fact, one of the main reasons they were opposed is more toward the opposite end of the spectrum.  They were seen as an attempt to make golf mathematical and predictable, and as an unreasonable effort to take the unfairness out of the game.  Many of those who opposed them did so on the grounds that golf was supposed to be quirky and unpredictable.  In a word, unfair.

[Sean_A]

David

This is a very complicated topic not least due to the multiple meanings of "fair".  My argument has nothing to do with ODGs believing they were making the game more or less fair by reducing blindness and/or cross bunkers.  So far as I can tell, these guys didn't think in those terms in the way modern golfers do or at the very least didn't express themselves in this manner.  Be that as it may, some ODGs made moves to reduce blindness and cross bunkers, I think because they believed these type of features were essentially not ideal for golf and were in some way less than attractive from an aesthetic PoV.  That thinking at some point somehow evolved almost exclusively into mantra of "fairness" and at least one other feature was added to the list - front to back greens.  My point is certain features being deemed unfair has its origins with ODGs.  I probably didn't explain it very well.  I think for whatever reason they deemed these features to be less than ideal was mistaken and short sighted.  The question shouldn't be about ideal/not ideal or fair/unfair.  The issue should be about variety of holes, features and shots.  The one archie I think stood out from this crowd was Fowler. 

I would also mention that we have to remember that what these guys wrote and what they did do not necessarily jive.  They were far too smart to  try and force a round peg through a square hole or allow a golden opportunity for a showcase hole to slip because of architectural tenets written for a magazine.

Ciao

[Melvyn Morrow]

Sean

I feel you have a strong point in believing that the idea of too penal rather than fairness came from the ODG. I feel they for some surprising reason viewed their predecessors as being to penal and set about first criticising the earlier designs and designers. Then their approach to designing a course, however this is where I, unlike the majority, believe that the many of the ODG where in fact quite ignorant of the rear workings of the early designers. For some reason, we call the period of the ODG a Golden Age, yet I have contested this time and again to the point of now calling it at best the 2nd Golden Age, as I am in the firm belief that the only true Golden Age of Golf was between 1840 to 1900.

The game matured within this period, the real and honest foundations were forged, from design to part modifying or shaping the land to produce a course based upon design rather than just the basic landscape. The development of the humble green keeper’s then his skills, the professional golfer/green keeper lead the design charge, aided by technology which gave the game some serious consistency for some 50 years by the introduction of the gutty, a true ball that still rolled when wet, which was a first in the 500 years that golf had been played. The development of the game through dedicated design was developed by these guys and so automatically set the standard of not just the day but the game itself. So tell me what right did this second set of designers, yes I mean the ODG have in criticising the early game as being penal, playing upon words like strategic which as I have said on many previous occasions constitutes about 75% penal in its make up as there can be no strategic in golf without penal.

Of course within the group of the ODG there were some dissenters, who saw the wisdom of the First Golden Age Guys and confirmed that golf by its nature was a penal game and required it to produce the challenge. Otherwise what sort of challenge would it be if there was no way to punish the poor or wayward shot, in fact where would be the test, let alone the deterrent? Golf is a thinking man’s game but having learnt this by the turn of the 20th Century, some seem to be trying to distance themselves from this concept. Having said that look at all the great Holes still in existence today designed around the mid to late 19th Century that surprisingly were also praised by many of the ODG. They were and for the most part penal, to the point that many say that these Holes would not be seen on modern courses, but forgetting the amount of these templates that have been built on new courses over the years, included being copied by a few of the ODG.

Fairness kills the need to push oneself, to face the test in oneself and to openly embrace the full challenge of the game the course and the designer’s cunning.

To the disgust of many I do not worship at the Alter of the ODY, nor their writings although some are indeed interesting. Yes, they certainly built and developed great designs, but in doing so forgot some of the understanding that made golf the great game which was exported all around the world.

Fairness in golf is like water on a fire, it quenches out the flicking of real skill.         

Melvyn

[Tony Ristola]

Melvyn,

Politics is fair?  Didn't know that!

It's true.
One faction wants everyone to be equal, have equal results, wants to close the revenue gap and make everyone equally miserable.
Another wants fairness, equality under the eyes of the law; a level playing field.

[Niall C]

David

Many thanks for your comments in post #52. I won't pretend to have anything more than a basic grasp of what the ODG's wrote. I have read an awful lot of stuff from that era and without having it right at my fingertips when I post on here I'm apt to make comment based on overall perceptions that the material left with me rather than having specific examples to back up a viewpoint. Certainly I don't have any examples to hand that address fairness head on and its possible it interpreting practicality as fairness although I can still seen a nod at least to fairness in Whighams idea about the degree of penalty that the bunker should give, or maybe thats stretching it a bit, I don't know.

Jeff  

You wrote in one of your posts above that I said you boil things down to a simple idea. The comment I actually made referred to you looking at the practical issues which imagine don't always involve a simple solution. In case there was any doubt my original comment was intended to be positive in that the great strength of this site is that isn't just a bunch of enthuisiasts such as myself waffling on but guys in the business such as yourself and Tom D dealing with the "how" as well as the "why".

Niall  

[Giles Payne]

I am certainly no expert on this topic, but was an aversion to blind shots and centre line hazards based around the idea that you should have an option to take an alternate route and neither of these features necessarily offer that option?

With regard to the whole fairness issue, there seems to have been a change of emphasis so that every single occurrance has to be fair as opposed to a range of outcomes on balance being fair with a selection of good and bad luck being part of the challenge. I think that this has probably reduced some ofthe challenge of the game.

[Sean_A]

Melvyn

I am not sure I understand your thread of thought. I most certainly agree that the Golden Age should be dipping back to when TOC became more or less what we know it as today - perhaps circa 1875ish or at the every least this should be seen as the first phase of the Golden Age.  What I don't follow is the fairness/penal discussion.  My point was only that the origins of fairness as it is understood today come directly from the ODGs.  Because they labelled the features as something else other than unfair, rightly or wrongly, has little bearing on the matter.  The nut is these guys systematically tried to stamp out important elements of a design era before theirs.  I think this was a great mistake and very short sighted, which eventually led to folks saying the reason these elements are not desirable is they are unfair.  It doesn't matter to me if the ODGs believed that to be the case or not, their actions are the foundation for the concept of unfairness.  As I said earlier, I don't think these guys actually thought of design in terms of fairness, they merely thought seeing the target is better and that cross bunkers don't allow for alternative routes of play.  Its easy to see how that line of thinking was eventually labelled as unfair.  

Ciao

[BCrosby]

David says:

"I agree that many misguided golfers (and some misguided designers) have been trying to bring "fairness" to golf for a very long time.  But the men like Low and CBM were battling against this trend, not advancing it, as Brauer claimed.  The idea of making golf more fair was antithetical to their understanding of the nature of the game.  That is the major difference.  Jeff sees the introduction or expansion of fairness into design as positive or at least neutral, whereas I see it as negative and contrary to the higher principles of that earlier era.

To use the "seeds of fairness" analogy, I see fairness as a noxious weed which has been slowly choking out the essence of the game."

Well said David. I might go a bit further. The birth of the main ideas behind strategeic golf architecture can be seen as the moment when Low, MacK, MacD, Travis amd others began believing that 'equity" should not be a main goal of golf architecture. (My postscript to my Crane piece goes into more detail about this. I'd ask people take a look at that.) That's a radical idea. Some people find it impossible to get used to. See Joshua Crane for one. J H Taylor seemed to be another. Maybe Brauer and Arble too? It cuts against deeply ingrained intuitions about 'fair play'. But then that's why we find gca so fascinating, right?

It's a complicated issue. So bear with me. One way to think about it is in terms of the main function of a hazard. The birth of strategic gca was not about the discovery of strategy. Strategy has been around since, like, forever. (Another reason why the strategic - penal dichotomy is so profoundly misleading, imho. Behr did not invent the idea of strategy. But that's another topic.) Hazards have always had a strategic role at some level, even if a sometimes minimal one.

What Low came up with (over against the Victorian designers of his time) was the revolutionary idea that the main function of hazards wasn't to inflict punishments that were predictable and proportional to the degree of the miss. It was rather that their main function (hazards have other functions too) was to capture the "not quite perfect shot" of the golfer playing aggressively.  That meant that an almost good shot might be punished much more severely than a egregious foozle.

To the objection that such hazards are unfair, Low responded, correctly in my view, that "fairness" had nothing to do with it. The quality of a hazard should not be measured against some abstract equitable standard. That's nonsensical at a number of levels. The measure of a good hazard lay elsewehre for Low. Their main function is to heighten the strategic choices a player must make so as to create a game with more drama, interest and challenge.

When Low says "no bunker is unfair", he meant it in the broadest possible sense. Applying moral terms to a bunker is a category mistake. It is a misnomer. Not just because your philosophy TA would tell you that you are saying something that is incoherent, but for the more important reason that thinking about the function of hazards in terms of moral concepts tends to lead to bad golf architecture.

That is what, I think, MacD, MacK, Behr, Colt, Simpson, Travis, Leeds and others took from Low. That they were correct in doing so is attested to by the quality of the golf courses they built during the GA.

Bob   

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