This fascinating thread reveals a great deal about the tension between the artist and the critic, and the discussions of golf course architecture in relation to other arts and sports have been very stimulating to this recovering professor of literature. Tom Doak, like many in different artistic fields over the centuries, is chiefly motivated to do his creative work. He is far less interested, and even sceptical, of the legitimate and fundamental work that critics do as they try to describe what, if fact, the artist actually did, how well it was done, and if it reflects an overriding artistic movement, a coherent theory of art, etc. He is also wary, as artists rightly must be, of critics who try to imagine what the artist revealed about himself, his creative processes, his chief artistic influences, his temperament and neuroses even. Tom admitted that he roams this website, in part, to correct errors some critics, of whatever stamp, make about his work.
I've known artists whose scepticism and wariness were so powerful that they refused to examine the sources of their own creativity. They were as likely to tell a critic such things as , "I don't know what the poem means. I just wrote it. You figure it out, if you think the poem's worth your effort." One poet told me he didn't want to examine where his creativity came from, for fear that his self-analysis could lead to second-guessing his impulses, even artistic paralysis. Artists often fear that too much intellectualizing about their art cannot but cripple it, so many of them leave that kind of work to the critics. Very healthy artists, moreover, don't pay much attention to what critics say and write, even those whom they respect and trust to keep to their legitimate business of giving as objective a recounting of what they see the artist has actually made.
In defense of his scepticism, though, Tom gives insufficient credit to the critical effort so many in this thread enjoin: learning exactly what Donald Ross did, how much he did, and creating a legitimate, thorough listing of his contributions at the courses that claim his authorship, if you will. This task is akin to the literary scholar's and the musicologist's efforts to produce a complete canon of the artist's works, in the most authentic texts or scores available. That task provides a rock-solid basis on which the interpretation of the art can proceed: discerning and articulating the quality of the artistry. Doak seems to understand this, as suggested by his repeated claims that he will give the scholars and critics his own accounts of what he did and, where possible, why. That will be an inestimable boon for scholars and critics, and a major contribution to both the understanding and appreciation of his works. Personally, I'm not entirely confident he will do much of this accounting, as he has far more important, creative work to do. And most of us will be happier if he does his new golf courses rather than spending his time trying to remember and figure out what he did with his earlier courses.
This thread has also raised questions about the static nature of some arts as opposed to the evolving nature of golf courses. Literary texts and musical scores, for example, are static in the sense that, once published, they're done. But they're as about done as a golf course on opening day. Many an author or composer, like Donald Ross puttering around #2 for all the years he lived on the third hole, never finishes revising his works -- usually the process continues throughout their lives and is revealed in the collected editions that appear over the decades. Such works are as evolving as a Donald Ross golf course.
In addition, just as with an original Ross course, for which we have architectural drawings, the drawings are sometimes merely the equivalent to a poet's or composer's first draft. Once transferred to the construction site, the drawings get the creative process going. But the land soon becomes the most compelling character in the process, as wise architects, like wise novelists, let the work take over and move as and where it must, based on the artistic imperatives generated by the preliminary shaping and routing on the land. Drawings recede in importance and the needs of course itself begin to emerge out of the land and the skills of the workers on the site. This is just as it should be in art. And if the artist isn't always sure why he moved away from the drawings, that he had to move away from them was never in doubt. No matter if he can't (or refuses) to explain the process; the successfully completed course itself will reveal the wisdom of his creative swerve.
There is another crucial matter that's drawn some enlightening thought in this thread, and it's the question of a Donald Ross course's evolution when a later superintendent or greens chairman or architect modifies it. "How much Ross, indeed!" Knowing who did what to the course when it was renovated or reconstructed or enhanced or restored is essential for a proper understanding both of Ross's contribution and an evaluation of the revised course. Ross created some gems; we know all too well that subsequent individuals tarnished that work, while others enhanced the quality of the design and the pleasure of playability for their contemporaries. In other arts as well, this same type of outcome is familiar. For example, when Hollywood took the text of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and turned its tragic ending into a comedic one, many critics found the reversal revolting. But when Vladimir Horowitz revised the scores of great composers like Wagner and Liszt, the composers often felt he'd enhanced their works and acceded easily to the new version as the, for example, Liszt-Horowitz "Hungarian Rhapsodies." It is as fitting, and honest, for a revised Donald Ross course to carry both architects' names as it is for a production of a Shakespeare play (Olivier's Hamlet), a film ( Ken Russell's versions of D.H Lawrence's novels ), a musical composition, or a ballet (any of the classical works Balanchine made his own).
Golf course architecture is as evolutionary as many of the other arts, and those most interested in the form and its greatest practitioners should want to know precisely what the artist accomplished, as a basis for enabling critics to evaluate the artistic merits, the quality, of such work. Both tasks are important, but the creative process precedes and is foundational for the analytical. The more we can learn from original documents and from the artists words themselves, the better prepared critics shall be to make reliable evaluations. We must never expect, however, that evaluation can be reduced to a handful of aesthetic criteria that can be used as a measuring device. Originality and creativity will always leave artistic tenets and lists behind. Great art makes its own distinctive rules.