[Mark Pearce]

Pat,

I did see the quote from Rich.  The one where you contradicted what you are now saying.  I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the new, really serious Pat Mucci, who only looks at the target area for his next shot, no longer looked sideways or backwards and that was the reason for your change of position.  I'd be careful, by the way, about escalating the levels of moronocity too far.  There's little space above colossal for the next time you search for hyperbole.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Reminds me of the old saying

"It takes one, to recognise 1499 others".

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

I did see the quote from Rich.  The one where you contradicted what you are now saying.

You are a colossal moron, there's NO contradiction in those opinions.

There's an inherent difference in how the features are created and how they appear to the golfer as he plays them.
The 4th hole at Sand Hills might be a good example

Bozos, who are close to or have reached moron status, claimed that the features looked "clunky", "artificial and even jarring", based on limited TV viewing.  Yet, when asked to identify the specific features, they've been unable to do so.
Why have they been unable to provide specific identity to those features THEY DEEMED, "clunky", "artificial and even jarring" ?
Why don't you try prodding them regarding their inability to produce the identity of those specific features ?

  I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the new, really serious Pat Mucci, who only looks at the target area for his next shot, no longer looked sideways or backwards and that was the reason for your change of position. 


That's why you've been elevated to colossal moron status.
Why would I look backwards or sideways as I get ready to hit a five (5) iron into a target green ?
Would you name just five (5) PGA Tour Pros who don't focus on their target as they get ready to hit their shot ?
Just five (5) who choose instead to look behind them and to their sides as they get ready to hit.
Hey, I know why your handicap is so high, "it's the target stupid"  

I'd be careful, by the way, about escalating the levels of moronocity too far. 
There's little space above colossal for the next time you search for hyperbole.

Not to worry, I'm sure you'll ascend to the next level of moronocity irrespective of it's category, in fact, you're fast approaching Supreme moron status as I type.

No doubt, you'll probably be elevated beyond Supreme moron status to an even higher classification of ignorance and/or idiocy.  

You strike me as the sort who would wear white knee socks while playing golf in shorts.
I'll leave participants and lurkers to dwell on that image, .........yikes.

[Jason Thurman]

Why would I look backwards or sideways as I get ready to hit a five (5) iron into a target green ?
Would you name just five (5) PGA Tour Pros who don't focus on their target as they get ready to hit their shot ?
Just five (5) who choose instead to look behind them and to their sides as they get ready to hit.

Really? I'm starting to get embarrassed for you, but this is too easy. Now that I know the twerking girl who caught her pants on fire was a hoax, this is turning into the best FAIL on the Internet.

First, just because you're too predictable, I'll remind you that Mark's post mentioned nothing about "as they get ready to hit." That was a detail you added in order to try and give yourself an angle, but you're becoming far too transparent. The fact is that golfers look all over the course during a round, and there are plenty of times when they look sideways or backwards. Of course, you know that just as sure as you know that your whole thesis on this thread is preposterous, since you made the exact opposite argument in another thread. This argument that "Features that look engineered from an angle don't count because golfers only see them from the fairway" is probably the dumbest one that you've ever stuck with for four pages, and that's saying a lot.

So, five (5) PGA Tour Pros looking away from their next shot's target, either backwards or to the side:

Tiger looking right of target, preparing a shot.



Rory looking left of target, waiting for a playing partner.



Mark Wilson looking backwards prior to choosing his club.



Bubba Watson looking back at the last green played.



Lee Westwood looking right at an adjacent hole as a partner plays behind him.



Can't wait to see the next few paragraphs of green nonsense!

[DMoriarty]

I get confused on what people are looking for when they criticize NGLA for not looking natural enough.  Of course it is distiniguishable from nature.   It is a golf course.  It has to function as such.  CBM believed in severe bunkers and drop-offs, especially around the greens. For strategic purposes he believed in hazards that punished the almost perfect shot.   Aesthetically this isn't what we are used to, but overall the course uses the existing landscape about as well as any I have ever seen.

This thread suggests to me that perhaps some people are a bit too caught up in irrelevant aesthetic frills over actual substantive quality golf course design.

Just please don't anybody design or build anything similar today.

Ironic statement considering so much of what is considered great "golden age" architecture directly or indirectly emulated NGLA.
 
My reaction upon first seeing the course was exactly the opposite.  I did not understand (and still don't) why more courses aren't trying to design and build similar courses today.  I said that over and over.   If you ever see it I suspect will say the same.  The television coverage didn't do NGLA justice.  It really is a course one must see in person.

[Jason Thurman]

David, you raise some points that have been lost a bit in the "watch Pat squirm" spectacle that's developed over the last few pages.

I don't think many people are in agreement with Martin's statement that you quoted. In fact, I generally think the shaping and aesthetics of National are well received. They obviously are lauded outside the confines of this website, but I think they're equally popular here with most people at least.

I wonder the same about why we see so few of those bold lines of MacRaynor, Langford and Moreau, and their contemporaries today. To be fair, I played Harrison Hills a week or two ago and saw Tim Liddy's holes had some similar lines on them. I thought his holes looked fantastic and complemented the Langford holes nicely. I also think Pete Dye occasionally has done some similarly bold shapes, notably on the Meadow-Valleys course at Blackwolf Run. But I wonder if earth movement has just become too easy now, and thus the tendency toward squiggly and busy shaping instead of the clean and sharp features of Raynor has taken over. Restraint is a tough thing to practice in all walks of life, whether shaping a golf course or trying to pull one's foot out of one's mouth.

[Jon Wiggett]

This thread suggests to me that perhaps some people are a bit too caught up in irrelevant aesthetic frills over actual substantive quality golf course design.

Absolutely spot on David. Having seen the responses to my earlier post I just couldn't be bothered to argue the obvious that when people talk about a golf course looking natural they forget that there is no such thing. Golf courses are always manmade in appearance.

Jon

[Patrick_Mucci]

Jason,

Nice photos, but NOT ONE GOLFER IS PREPARING TO HIT HIS SHOT.

In the future, try to read with a modicum of comprehension

[Jason Thurman]

Pat, take a look at this section of the post again:  

First, just because you're too predictable, I'll remind you that Mark's post mentioned nothing about "as they get ready to hit." That was a detail you added in order to try and give yourself an angle, but you're becoming far too transparent.

Try to follow your own advice when reading Mark's or my posts in the future. Good try though. Your current apparent strategy of feigning perpetual obliviousness might be your best shot at this point.

[Patrick_Mucci]

That's correct; I didn't answer your question as I had already stated that I have not played nor seen the course in person.

Besides, it doesn't matter what I think of all those greens.

But you stated the following:[/size]
Virtually every one of the MASSIVE green complexes appears to be manufactured or built rather than found just lying there.

But, we know otherwise, starting with the 4th green


It was you that wrote that NGLA looked natural in this thread, but also wrote that it appears manufactured in the thread that Rich linked.
You're the confused one.  

Not at all, just because elements of the course were crafted or manufactured doesn't mean that the course doesn't look natural to the golfer

Those five year olds won't play with me; they're too busy scribbling "moron" on the road with green chalk.  

I have to presume that they're doing this on the street in front of your home.

[Patrick_Mucci]

David, you raise some points that have been lost a bit in the "watch Pat squirm" spectacle that's developed over the last few pages.

Jason,

There's no squirming on my part what so ever.
My statements, in this thread and the other cited,  are in harmony with one another.

Obviously you possess neither the intellect nor the architectural eye to understand the distinctions presented in those two threads.
Only a moron wouldn't understand the distinction, especially after the "model" analogy was presented.
You, and others, who have no playing experience or familiarity with NGLA leaped at what your ignorance perceived as an inconsistency, when no inconsistency existed.   Surely, you can't hold me responsible for your ignorance and your reckless desire to find a flaw in my logic when none existed.

I don't think many people are in agreement with Martin's statement that you quoted. In fact, I generally think the shaping and aesthetics of National are well received. They obviously are lauded outside the confines of this website, but I think they're equally popular here with most people at least.

I wonder the same about why we see so few of those bold lines of MacRaynor, Langford and Moreau, and their contemporaries today. To be fair, I played Harrison Hills a week or two ago and saw Tim Liddy's holes had some similar lines on them. I thought his holes looked fantastic and complemented the Langford holes nicely. I also think Pete Dye occasionally has done some similarly bold shapes, notably on the Meadow-Valleys course at Blackwolf Run. But I wonder if earth movement has just become too easy now, and thus the tendency toward squiggly and busy shaping instead of the clean and sharp features of Raynor has taken over.

Restraint is a tough thing to practice in all walks of life, whether shaping a golf course or trying to pull one's foot out of one's mouth.

Restraint should definitely be exercised when discussing a golf course you've never set foot on, let alone played, but that hasn't stopped you from changing feet.

Stick to discussing courses and analyzing replies about courses where you have a reasonable degree of actual experience in playing or walking them.

Otherwise, you're just another moron chipping in his worthless opinion  

[Rich Goodale]

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,7446.msg144085.html#msg144085

Another great "blast from the past" dealing with this issue.

[DMoriarty]

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,7446.msg144085.html#msg144085

Another great "blast from the past" dealing with this issue.

I don't get it.  What does a thread about the Lido project have to do with a thread on whether NGLA is (or should be) indistinguishable from nature? Lido and NGLA were very different projects, which was part of the point of that old thread.  

I can't recall if you have been to NGLA or not.  If you have been to NGLA then surely you realize that these comments about NGLA being excessively unnatural are way off target.  

[Rich Goodale]

Dave

I've played NGLA (November 2001), and I fully agree with Pat Mucci and others that the course is highly manufactured.  I reposted that thread in that there were several comments in there from thoughtful posters regarding the "naturalness" (or lack thereof) of NGLA.

Hope all is well

Rich

[V. Kmetz]

The nearly inscrutable semantics of "nature" and "natural" are bogging this thread down...

...that, and PM is magnet for contention when the  question is one of pure opinion, without discrete data at the bottom.

I figure that, to the extent that we're all talking about the same thing when we say "nature" - I agree with PM on two counts of the topic question

1.  I think it's "natural" in that it is "natural" for golf; this is the whole damn point that's readily missed in the many discussions of MAC/Raynor/Banks work, Template holes, and "engineered style."  It's how each element of the design, each hole, tends to elicit the SHOT VALUE the early modeling architects found worthy from the GB/Euro courses to which they were exposed...

Biarritz - SHOT VALUE - a long, lower, centered hit where proper judgement of carry and overspin release are rewarded...
Redan - SHOT VALUE - a risk/reward of executing distance and shape ratio where the shorter and safer the player goes, the more that the fortune of the front contours work can thwart him and the longer and deeper into the green he goes, the more precious becomes his evaluation and execution of distance, as the green is oblique and thinner.
Short - SHOT VALUE -  precision of distance control with a shorter club in your hand.  The risk is the moguls, pimples and/or pockets of the traditional "Short" putting surface, which can range from "Dolomites" style..."bathtub style" to just about anything devious The designer gave you an 8, 9 or PW in the hand, if you come to rest 40 feet away on a Short, you're supposed to have issues

and on and on...each of the Templates is replicating the shot value of its model, or in the case of some CBM/Raynor originals... discovering a shot value that's worthy of presentation.

Of course the whole damn sport is artificial, as is all game-recreation, and all architecture is artificial because it was made by man, not by nature and in the case of golf, the use of what the sea revealed, the bird shit seeded, the sheep huddled and the rabbits' warrened is...all non-natural and artifical.  We made that use; it didn't occur in nature.

so, the first part of agreement that ngla is more natural than it appears from watchign it on TV is because the shot values - the natural elements/measures of competence for a game of golf as we understand it - are very harmonious, they are not wrought from the terrain, they feel justly placed for what a golfer is trying to do there.

2.  To me, while the pins are in, the greens are mowed, the fairways clipped and the bunkers edged, the course cannot be "Indistinguishable from nature"  However, I offer the speculation that if the NGLA were untended and allowed to grow wild for one season, when you returned, it would appear like any protected bay-side preserve...long grasses, exposed sand, bluffs and scrubby meadows, sea and brush birds twirting, small game tickling about.  To that extent, it seems very natural to me.

MORE:
Now, on a comparative basis, I'd have to say that neighbor Shinnecock seems more "natural" to me and perhaps comparisons of such courses on a point by point basis elicits what the properties of "nature" and "natural" should be called/defined.

cheers

vk

[Rich Goodale]

Good post, Mr. Kmetz, but you and virtually everybody else on this thread seem to miss the point of FBD's initial post which was (I assume) meant to ask thoughtful people on this forum as to how to resolve the inherent contradictions between the theory (and practice?) of Dr. MacKenzie that golf courses should be "indistinguishable from nature" and the practice (and theory?) of Mr. Macdonald, who seems to have adopted the role of "nature maker" in the courses that he and his associates designed and built.

I happen to think that both concepts can co-exist within the "big world" theory of GCA, but others seem to think that one of the other is pre-eminent.

Rich

[DMoriarty]

To say that CBM adopted the role of "nature maker" at NGLA is more than a bit of a stretch.  He "manufactured" some greens.  So did MacKenzie.  MacKenzie was more into hiding the beams.

[Tim_Weiman]

Dave Moriarty:

I share your view that the television coverage of NGLA wasn't very good. When I saw the telecast after spending the weekend on the golf course, I almost felt like I was seeing a different course.

Anyone judging NGLA based on that telecast is doing himself a disservice. It is a place golf architecture junkies should go for several weeks (if at all possible) to study. There are an amazing amount of details to take in.

I don't think focusing on the question "is it natural?" makes much sense. CB obviously wasn't trying to build a Mackenzie course, but that hardly makes NGLA less of an accomplishment.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Rich Goodale,

This is what FBD stated and it had nothing to do with MacKenzie

I didn't think so.

I thought there were some really 'clunky' landscape features which may have been acceptable in 1911, but looked really artificial and even jarring today.

I still loved the look though, and thought it was a marvellous history lesson.

Just please don't anybody design or build anything similar today.

And no, Patrick, I've never been, so bite me,
F.

[Rich Goodale]

Pat

Please read the title of this thread, and then please think about it and then please recognise that, yet again, and like all of us, you were wrong. 

Rich

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat

Please read the title of this thread, and then please think about it and then please recognise that, yet again, and like all of us, you were wrong. 


Rich,

I've done that, and FBD's focus was on "clunky" "artificial and even jarring" features at NGLA.

I asked him to identify, with specificity, those "clunky", "artificial and even jarring" features and he's been unable to do so.

The introduction of Macakenzie represents a departure from FBD's focus and an attempt to protect him from having to respond and identify those features as seen through the camera, and not as the golfer plays the course.

Since you've played NGLA, can you tell us, from the following tees, what appears to be unnatural about the view of the DZ and the hole.

#'s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.

And from the DZ, tell us what looks unnatural about the following approaches ?

#'s 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.

Thanks in advance for your prompt reply

[John Mayhugh]

To say that CBM adopted the role of "nature maker" at NGLA is more than a bit of a stretch.  He "manufactured" some greens.  So did MacKenzie.  MacKenzie was more into hiding the beams.

I've yet to see a course that didn't look manufactured in some places.  While CBM's style of doing so may have been bolder and less artistic than some others, it's laughable to think about any golf course I've played as indistinguishable from nature. Do people really have this romantic notion of a frilly-edged bunker as being something a flock of sheep emerged from just before the sand groomer went in prior to their morning round?

I'm not sure what Martin considers the "clunky" landscape features, but saying "please don't anybody design or build anything similar today" is a bizarre reaction.  CBM took a nice piece of land and fitted an amazing golf course on it.  In order to do that, he manufactured features.  He built up green pads and dug out bunkers.  What he did works spectacularly well.  The features he added do not look completely natural, but they also do not look bad.  The entire course still fits the land remarkably well.


The second green is clearly built up from the sides and back.  Yet play the hole, and you understand why.  This adds so much more risk to the tee shot racing down the hill.  Can someone really walk behind the green and be bothered by this?





How about the green complex on the 7th?  Huge bunkers with steps (distinguishable from nature, I fear).  These horrid man-made features combine with the brilliant angled green (that fits the land naturally) to make a hole that plays perfectly.  What's wrong with that?

[Michael Whitaker]

My wife attended the Walker Cup with me and walked the entire course twice over two days, from 1-18 in sequence. She does not play golf, but grew up in a golfing household, is a keen fan of the game, and has visited more quality courses than many of you "aficionados." Her initial reaction to NGLA was that it was not a very "attractive" course and had too many sharp lines and angles for her eye.

I don't think this is an unusual reaction from golfers when first introduced to Mac/Raynor courses. My first such course was Yeamans Hall, which I played long before I'd ever heard of GCA.com. I initially thought it had been created by some ultra-modern designer!!! You can imagine the shock when I learned it was built in 1925.

[Lou_Duran]

My wife attended the Walker Cup with me and walked the entire course twice over two days, from 1-18 in sequence. She does not play golf, but grew up in a golfing household, is a keen fan of the game, and has visited more quality courses than many of you "aficionados." Her initial reaction to NGLA was that it was not a very "attractive" course and had too many sharp lines and angles for her eye.

I don't think this is an unusual reaction from golfers when first introduced to Mac/Raynor courses. My first such course was Yeamans Hall, which I played long before I'd ever heard of GCA.com. I initially thought it had been created by some ultra-modern designer!!! You can imagine the shock when I learned it was built in 1925.

Did the era and brand make it more acceptable to you?  I wonder how we would feel about individual golf courses in terms or their architectural merit if we didn't know anything about their history and went into our rounds without expectations.  

[Michael Whitaker]

Lou - it wasn't "unacceptable" to me from the first play, so your question doesn't fit. I liked the uniqueness of YH right away. Learning about the "brand" only made me interested in knowing more about Raynor and why he constructed such a "strange" golf course. At the time I had never heard of Raynor, Macdonald, or any of the ODGs except Donald Ross... and, I'd only heard of him because of Pinehurst.

On second thought, I had heard of MacKenzie in connection with ANGL, but not any of his other courses.

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