The Evolution of Golf Architecture

[Jordan Wall]

Yesterday I played my first Seth Raynor course, and something that really stood out to me about the design was the enormous fairways and the gigantic greens.  The angles of play were magnificent and the generally fairways and greens were easy to hit in general unless you hit a poor shot.

But, even with the huge greens with great contour and these huge fairways with great angles of play, it really got me thinking about why courses today are designed as they are and whether or not that is truly bad for the game. Big greens and wide fairways are unanimously praised on here, and for good reason as architecturally speaking it creates a much greater thought process on the golf course and allows for more diversity in shots hit.  However, with many courses over the years pinching their fairways and building, in general, smaller greens it seems as if this is looked down in and chastised in the GCA community. 

Why is this the case?

When older architects, the golden-age boys we consider among the best there ever was, designed golf courses they did so when equipment made it much harder to hit the golf ball straight and control the ball.  This made wide greens and huge fairways imperative from a playability standpoint. 

However, as technology has evolved and golf has become more playable for everybody, is it not also imperative for golf design to evolve with it?  Shouldn't fairways be narrower, shouldn't greens be tougher and faster and harder to hit?  And, with wedges these days making it so easy to get the ball in the air stop it, isn't it also imperative to place more emphasis on the aerial game with today's architecture?

I would argue that angles of play can still be created with narrowish fairways, obviously not too narrow but more narrow than in the golden age when many fairways were enormous.  I would also argue that it is imperative to provide more aerial routes to holes because that is how the game is played today. Not on every hole or even most, but at least some holes should provide purely aerial routes.

In general, I think the way GCA is viewed has a big tendency to be judged against older courses that set the precedent for golf architecture.  But I think it is important to realize too that as golf is evolving, so is golf architecture, and as true fans of GCA we should not bat a blind eye to that when discussing and judging the way courses today are designed and built.  In fact, I think ignoring the evolution of golf architecture and golf in general is downright irresponsible.

Golf courses just can't be designed the same ways today that they were a hundred years ago, because golf is different today than it was back then.

[Tom_Doak]

However, as technology has evolved and golf has become more playable for everybody, is it not also imperative for golf design to evolve with it? 

[1]  Shouldn't fairways be narrower, shouldn't greens be tougher and faster and harder to hit? 

[2]  And, with wedges these days making it so easy to get the ball in the air stop it, isn't it also imperative to place more emphasis on the aerial game with today's architecture?

Your second statement seems to me to contradict the preceding sentence.  If the aerial game is easier for everyone today, and your goal is to make courses harder to keep pace with technology, why place more emphasis on the aerial game?

Also, the main reason you don't see more small greens in modern design is because the greens are so stressed out by modern maintenance standards that superintendents want more area so they can spread out the play.  I've had a couple of superintendents tell me it's "impossible" to maintain a green under 6,000 square feet to today's standards   and I remember that Tom Fazio's construction specifications had a clause that no green under 6,000 square feet should be built, even if they drew it smaller than that, without direct verification from the architect.

[RJ_Daley]

Jordan, it is stil the "golf is a big world" theory, and you can find a venue that suits your tastes.  You may have to travel somewhere to experience what one might call the old timey golf, with the wide fairways and large sectioned, contoured, or rolling greens.  But whatever you want is out there.  And, as a matter of golf evolution, in my view it evolves and regresses, and then evolves again, often on a trendy basis.   Heck, when we look at golf as a game traveling around the world in popularity of play from recreational to competitive, it is only some 150 years old at best.  That isn't really a 'evolutional' timeframe so much as a tide of trends.  What do you think if in those terms?  What would you call Mike Nuzzo's Wolf Point if not a throwback?  Same with these darlings of GCA.com from Barnbougle and LF to Bandon Resorts, to Cabot, etc.  Brian Silva's Black Creek, or Mike DeVries Kingsley. others too numerous to mention;  They are modern, yet have many of the attributes you speak of as old timey.  

Could it be that the evolution of golf course design in many cases is our idea of what is a penalty hazard feature on a golf course, and how they are constructed and presented?

[Andy Troeger]

Jordan,
I agree with a lot of your premise, but think there is one point missing when you consider the evolution of the game. The ball goes further today, meaning it also has the potential to go further off-line. So even though today's drivers may be easier to hit and provide more distance, they are still difficult to hit straight (IMO at least!) and so width is still a very important part of the game.

Additionally, I think the style of a course depends on the venue's purpose. Designing a course to host the US Open is far different than a course for a regular membership. Modern courses seem to have far more water in play and other severe hazards that more than make up for improved equipment when it comes to creating a challenge for the golfer.

[Dan Herrmann]

Jordan - I think a primary driver to narrower fariways and smaller greens is the goal to save money.  I don't think it's much more complicated than that.

Maintaining acres and acres of fairways costs a lot of money.

[Jaeger Kovich]

One thing I think it is important not to forget. As much as one designs for golf, it is still architecture, and scaling the golf course to its site/property/landscape is a very important architectural decision... There are so many variables, design elements, and problems to solve while building a golf course.

[Tim_Weiman]

Jordan,

I have been observing people play golf for more than 50 years. I see no evidence that golfers today can hit the ball straight any more than they could 50 years ago.

[DMoriarty]

I think Tim has it correct. IMO, Jordan is making inaccurate assumptions about why the old architects did what they did, and about how golfers played back then.  

[Paul Gray]

Get your hands on an old wooden headed driver and hit it down the range. What is so striking, particularly when considering the endless propaganda from manufacturers, is that it really isn't so difficult to hit. Shots poorly struck will travel far less distance than well struck efforts and ball flight will be significantly lower but, overall, you won't suddenly find banana shots aplenty. Add in the length of modern drivers and you have every reason to think that the modern player needs more width than ever.

The current thread offered by Robin Hisemann shows where proportional narrowness can be compelling (although even there more width would be a virtue), but generally speaking there is surely no more an argument for narrow fairways now than there ever has been. One of the biggest problems in the game is surely that Greens Committees now understand the importance of width less than ever before, precisely because of this false assumption that modern equipment makes players laser accurate and requires clubs to tighten the playing area.

[Dan Herrmann]

From a lurker:  (not in Philly!)


Architecture in build a complex exists but golf course architecture has been rendered like penal ‘Persona Non Grata‘ even the second Golden Age Designers work bears little resemblance to their original form.

I even question design and wonder what the intent is these days, well that is until you see courses like Askernish, then there is something to learn, but has lessons been learnt, have the newer so called Championship courses incorporated these ideas – Hell no, of course not because we seem unwilling to learn from past Masters – then why am I surprised as the Design Industry in golf still do not know how design or for that matter golf course design started and are still of the belief that staking a course AM and playing it PM was the norm in the 19th Century even when the local reports in journals and newspapers clearly state that it took between 6-12 weeks to create a golf course with of course the exceptions of Cruden Bay started in 1894 opened in 1899, Muirfield designed in November 1890 opened in May 1891 and the list goes on.

So the industry does not know its own history but it still believes it has all the answers, look at the Castle Course at St Andrews, sold to the world as a St Andrews course – sorry bollocks it an international course of very little importance in St Andrews GCA apart from its ability to make money – it’s a fake, its sold knowing its not a genuine St Andrews quality course, - this is the face of the modern game.

[Mike Sweeney]

Yesterday I played my first Seth Raynor course, and something that really stood out to me about the design was the enormous fairways and the gigantic greens. 

Cough it up, which one?

[Sean_A]

Unknown lurker

It wasn't all roses and whiskey back in the day.  I reckon golf was far more difficult than today and I think there is a very good case to say golf is still too hard.  I always point out Flynn courses as examples, but they are but samples.  Flynn, Tilly etc designs are damn hard today, they must have been torture chambers back in the day.  Although, I think a not so subtle shift in thinking happened between then and now; golfers comparing themselves to par.  Now all golfers do it (very much mistakingly  imo), back then I don't believe this was the case.  Such is the importance of the number written on the card that these days people will swear blindly an unchanged hole is better as a par 5 rather than a par 4 etc.   

Playing with two older gentleman thrashing hickories about at Cavendish (5700-5800 from the back tees!) on Friday was a serious eye opener. Neither could get on with their drivers so they were hitting what looked to be 5/7 wood hickories.  Even at Cavendish, there were a few a places these guys couldn't make the carry with no place to lay-up.  There were other instances of laying up 80-100 yards because they couldn't make the carry.  Neither chap seemed teribly upset by it all.  The one hard core fellow merely said thats the way golf is meant to be. It didn't look like a lot of fun to me, but then golf is different for everybody and the par number on the card was completely irrelevant for him.  I have to admire that approach to the game.  Now, I would like to see a decent player somewhat on form playing hickory spanners to get a better idea what its all about.

Ciao   

[Ronald Montesano]

From a lurker:  (not in Philly!)

Architecture in build a complex exists but golf course architecture has been rendered like penal ‘Persona Non Grata‘ even the second Golden Age Designers work bears little resemblance to their original form.

I won't even try to figure out what that means. I'm sure that it's not from Jabberwocky...

1. I grew up golfing in the 1970s and we hit some wild-ass shots back then. Lots of sky balls, sliders and hooks;
2. I have friends who do the same with modern equipment, so they hit it farther off line since the ball now goes farther;
3. One reference for green size is the existence of enough areas in which to cut a hole. The fewer the alternatives, the more stressed those limited areas become;

Here are some questions for Jordan:

A. When you write "narrowish fairways," what comes after the fairway? Is there a first cut of rough? Is it penal? How about the second cut of rough?

B. When you type "narrowish fairways," what narrows them? Is it trees? Sand bunkers? Waster bunkers? Low, medium or high rough?

C. Can you explain your closing affirmation? I could hammer at its contradiction, but I'd like to hear you expound a bit before I do that. Keep in mind that this is a great debate, the finest mental exercise I know.

[Jon Wiggett]

Jordan,

for me good GCA should offer an interesting golfing challenge to the golfer not a difficult golfing challenge.

Jon

[Paul Gray]

Sean's post reminds me again of my early days as a 12 year old playing the game at Hayling. And, much in the same way as you still see kids these days enjoying the game, I certainly never found my lack of length to be a problem. Yesterday I played through a couple of old girls that couldn't have been hitting the ball more than 130 yards. Similarly, they were clearly enjoying themselves.

The point I'm stumbling towards is that length in itself isn't a hindrance to enjoyment, at least it isn't unless you approach the game with a purely 'pencil and card' mentality and therefore assume you have to be able to reach each and every green in regulation. Width, on the other hand, or lack of, stifles my enjoyment of the course these days far more than a lack of length ever did. And to paraphrase Jon, enjoyment is the reason for playing the game, not some masochistic desire to put oneself through the ringer.

[Dan Herrmann]

Mr. Lurker updated his thoughts based on your comments:

Narrow fairways, short or long rough, bunkers, island greens seem today to be more a point of complaint rather than accepted as hazards, but the narrow fairways are in my book questionable as are island greens, both just playing to a limited group of perhaps more than competent players, but golf embraces all levels of skill, not just the proficient.

 I repeat my previous comment that I have not encountered a really hard course that has stopped me in my tracks. Yes, penal and yes difficult, but that is when a golfer by the very nature of being a golfers selects the mode of have a go, hoping ones skills are adequate or seeks the more modest route to comply with ones mood and of course skill level - some will willingly sacrifice shots to acquire the ultimate goal of playing golf over a mentally challenging course.

Perhaps Sean from GCA.com has miss-understood the mental aspect of the game with his two Hickory golfers. Yes golf was harder but my point is that we still do not understand GCA today let alone from its concept and that is why we miss the quality courses of the mid to late 1800's and those for the first 30 years of the 20th Century - the designers then knew the need how to design utilising Natural & Man made designs to blend in with the equipment available - perhaps a silly but simple oversight much encountered today, yet apparently ignored in many cases in this forlorn drive to seek Championship Courses for money - oops sorry meant the many golfers who just manage to obtain a foothold on the game's handicap system - a semi pointless exercise but still the required boast today is 'we have a Championship course'. Lets get back to basics before we try to argue the merits of modern GCA - oops silly me, many are still rather ignorant of the early processes in GCA so are really unable to voice much about the original basics. Don't agree then think - many of the designs and Holes that pre date not just the 1900's but are closer to the 1850-7's, a few springs to mind, the Redan at North Berwick dating from 1860-70's or even the Alps or Sea Hedrig at Prestwick (much still in play) dating from the 1850's.

[Sean_A]

Mr Lurker

I merely offered an observation of the golfers using hickories on a course which hasn't been materially changed from the tail end of the hickory era.  The game didn't look to be any more fun to me and luckily golf encompasses all sorts.  I certainly have my design preferences which include work from all eras of golf, though I am particularly fond of 1890ish to 1930ish.  For me at least, its more about the tolerance of clubs offering the opportunity in how they set up courses to allow most to get around in a reasonable manner. 

Ciao

[Jaeger Kovich]

I would think the a lot of the width in the golden age would be more attributed to lost balls than crap equipment. Balls were VERY expensive, and people didn't like to lose them anymore than cutting/breaking them, as they already had to replace them... There are countless stories/quotes about the old guys going on about loosing balls.


ps. this lurker posting via someone else thing is kinda weird. I'm not a fan.

[Adam Clayman]

One example you can't shake is Pebble Beach. There are no huge greens there, and that's a windy site.

Jordan's conclusions appear to be how most better golfers perceive the game, and, the future of the game. The sport, is but a foreign concept to the modern day, technical analyst, looking for that one more yard.

 Yes, The modern era's arbitrary mow line narrowness mindset, places a greater emphasis on accuracy, yet neglects far more important facets of the sport.

And besides, Who are these Angels that decide "narrowish"?

Let Freedom ring. A core principle once advocated by the Scots. Or so I'm told.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jordan, agree with your basic premise, but in many ways, its both simpler and more complex than that.  And, you left out any mention of construction technology on your theory, which I think played a bigger role than any deep thoughts.  For example, FW in the GA were about 60 yards wide because that is how far the then new invention of fw centerline sprinklers could cover.

But, even considering your basic premise, I think the call here for return to Golden Age principles is based more on nostalgia and a sense of self righteousness than anything else.  Specifically, this group tends to mass brand anyone involved in design/construction in the 50's as real idiots who knew nothing.  In fact, I suspect they were designing as a logical and thoughtful reaction to all the factors that influence design as they saw them.

Perhaps the least rationale thing - then and now - done was to design courses because tour pros were hitting it"too far" and winning scores were "too low."  Perhaps there was too much of a reaction to the aerial game, but then, over reaction to situations is a bit of human nature.  And, that may not have even been on the mainstream courses (ie. low end muni) that were built for affordable golf.  More rational stuff was more drainage, irrigation, better turf, easier maintenance, as tech allowed.  Given the influx of golfers, and the slim margins of the golf biz, those sorts of things became the biggest drivers of most designs.

In the 1980's when those lessons of the great depression were fading, and American was less clubby buy generally more wealthy, the upscale public course was born.  It's easy now to see we built too many and maybe too hard, but it made sense at the time.

So, I view the evolution of architecture as a very complex thing.  I also surmise that in a few decades time, there will be those critics who compare current fads/trends/principles (and trust me, there are some of each in modern design) to beehive hairdos.  One among them will be frilly edge bunker edges.  It made sense with no or primitive irrigation, but will eventually be seen (on most sites) as unsustainable, or at least not worth the effort to maintain a certain look that the combo of man made and nature that a golf course is really wants to become.

As to wide fw, I believe those in the 40-80's saw them for what they were.  Its not black and white, but grey as to the value of those, and the cost of those extra options so few really used wasn't worth the upkeep, and so they generally faded away as impractical.  It turns out most were satisfied with the idea that a tee shot was a test of hitting the fw vs. the rough and the subtlety of hitting the left third, while it never really went away, diminished in value to golfers as a thing to strive for.  

Were they wrong?

[Paul Gray]

Jeff:

It would have been simpler if you'd just gone with something like this:

"It was easier to sell the public a dumbed down product so that's exactly what we did. Don't blame me for making money out of it." 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Paul,

I'm sorry, but I call that kind of smug, sound bite answer typical of gca.com "know it all syndrome" and not representative at all of what I feel.  Like I say, its easy to be pretty smug and smash those who were in charge of golf by your standards today, but I still believe they did what was right for them individually and collectively for golf.

Some more specific examples that architecture buffs don't consider on the width of the fw is the cost of width.  From memory it cost at least twice as much to mow fw as rough. (obviously it varies) and in their mindsets, it wasn't worth it.  Now gca.com, its easy to tell them they should have spend more of their money, but you have nothing invested in it.

Now, did the have mistakes? OF course, like every generation.  Didn't recognize full size of trees they planted and/or forgot the "thin quick" part of the old saying "plant thick/thin quick" probably due to changing greens committees.  But, when 75-90% of the courses in America were built for low budgets in cornfields, was planting trees later (in general) a mistake?

[Paul Gray]

Jeff,

Of course mistakes were, are and always will be made. In Britain we had all sorts of trees planted for example long before the 80's and it was in no way attributable, in my opinion, to the penal mistakes being made more broadly. But the smugness you refer to, and I'll happily concede there is a certain amount of smugness attached, is, nonetheless, based on cold, hard facts.

Style was sold over substance and golf is paying for it today. The real cheap budget places, the farms with nine holes and one man and his dog operating them, were never the problem, quite the opposite. The problem lied, and still does, within a middle ground that was consumed by social climbing and demanded a gauche product which you were happy to serve up, making you part of the problem. The dark ages were just that and history should never be rewritten.

I don't begrudge you doing what you did. I have absolutely no personal axe to grind with you. Your actions simply allowed supply to meet demand and if you hadn't done it someone else would have. But please, don't try to intellectualise your own actions and don't try to misrepresent a sustainable golf model by suggesting it has anything to do with shaggy bunkers. Shaggy bunkers are (and perhaps your comments betray an inability to perceive the issue from a position of genuinely 'getting it') an eye candy trick which has nothing to do with minimalism. 

[Thomas Dai]

I would suggest that maintenance practices also form a key aspect.

Once upon a time courses were mowed - eaten - by sheep etc, and when towed mowers first started to be used they weren't particularly good at cutting more than gradual slopes and seasonal ground conditions effected this. Less trees in yee olde times was often a function of animals eating them before they could grow and on common land, folk cutting them down for firewood and fencing and the like.

To me maintenance is a key component and one we perhaps take for granted. For example, we putt on some fabulously conditioned greens these days, but there are photos of the greens at TOC being cut by men with scythe's.

As new equipment is invented there is also certain "we must have it and use it" mentality. One could argue that sprinkler systems in certain parts of the globe fall into this category. Another would be ride-on bunker rakes, which could be seen as having contributed to the growth of large even vast sized bunkers.

atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

Thomas,

No doubt a large part of the design style in the 50's-60's was tuning design to the new machinery. Somewhere in the 80-90's Fazio wondered why they didn't tune maintenance equipment to design styles, and it seems (IMHO) to have signaled a shift in design.

Or put another way, with that being just one example, of the old fashioned "design triangle" of maintenance/playability/aesthetics the emphasis in the "go-go" 90's shifted from primary emphasis on maintenance to that of aesthetics.  Playability concerns seem to have shifted from "the every day" to "some theoretical tournament that will never come to Tiddly Links, but we will design for it anyway".   When money flows, everyone tends to raise standards and shoot for the top.  And why not?  If not then, when?

Nothing black and white, just shifts of emphasis.

Paul, of all the phrases thrown around, the phrase "gets it" seems to me to be one of the smuggest, self congratulatory ones out there, no?  And is smug really based on facts, or a shift of opinions, which some smarty pants tend to believe so hard (and admittedly, not without some justification, but looking from, IMHO a too narrow prism) that they consider it fact?

I submit its the latter, especially when we consider that at any period those in charge felt exactly as strong as we currently do, whether RTJ designing tournament courses everywhere in the 50's, the middle ground of the 60-70's, the race to catch CCFAD up to privates in the 90's, or the minimalism of the 2000's - its just the top courses we discussed, and which set the trends, while the rest of the golf world still lived within its cost constraints.

In other words, for all we talk about it, what per cent of courses really followed, for example, the Augusta model of maintenance?  What percent raised standards and got somewhat closer?  What raised standards somewhat?  What courses didn't even try?  Given that 2/3 of all courses are public, and probably 2/3 of those are on a budget, my guesses would be 1%/33%/33%/33%. 

However, just a guess.  And, perhaps not relevant to your points.  I understand that many here consider that minimalism (whatever it is) is the be all, end all of golf architecture and will be it's final word, whereas I believe that culture being what it is, there will be a post minimalism that will recognize the flaws inherent in it and seek to correct them, just as minimalism sought to provide a new style to look at (always in vogue) AND is quicker to point out flaws in the previous styles (perhaps for marketing purposes?) and less prone to acknowledge what is right (human nature in all of us)