What wrong with contrived?

[Paul Gray]

... Mackenzie did not build natural looking courses which is often wrongly attributed to him as his philosophy. ...

MacKenzie's 7th general principle

"The course should have beautiful surroundings, and all artificial features should have so natural an appearance that a stranger is unable to distinguish them from nature itself." The Spirit of St. Andrews

Furthermore, he spends considerable amount of time describing how to maintain a natural look when modifying the landscape while building the course.

Maybe he just wasn't very good. 

[Jon Wiggett]

... Mackenzie did not build natural looking courses which is often wrongly attributed to him as his philosophy. ...

MacKenzie's 7th general principle

"The course should have beautiful surroundings, and all artificial features should have so natural an appearance that a stranger is unable to distinguish them from nature itself." The Spirit of St. Andrews

Furthermore, he spends considerable amount of time describing how to maintain a natural look when modifying the landscape while building the course.

GJ,

that was certainly one of his aspirations yet not the reality. The vast majority of his greens if left to go fallow would still be recognisable as a golf green several decades later which if it was indistinguishable from natural land forms it would not be. What he did was make his courses sit well in the landscape.

Jon

[Garland Bayley]

... Mackenzie did not build natural looking courses which is often wrongly attributed to him as his philosophy. ...

MacKenzie's 7th general principle

"The course should have beautiful surroundings, and all artificial features should have so natural an appearance that a stranger is unable to distinguish them from nature itself." The Spirit of St. Andrews

Furthermore, he spends considerable amount of time describing how to maintain a natural look when modifying the landscape while building the course.

GJ,

that was certainly one of his aspirations yet not the reality. The vast majority of his greens if left to go fallow would still be recognisable as a golf green several decades later which if it was indistinguishable from natural land forms it would not be. What he did was make his courses sit well in the landscape.

Jon

Have you had the experience of seeing a MacKenzie golf course that has gone fallow without being guided as to what features were what?
Have you had the experience of seeing any golf course that has gone fallow without being guided as to what features were what?
If both, how do you characterize the natural looking aspect of both?

It seems to me that the propensity to have bunkers near greens would make any architects work have the greens be seen in a fallow state.
But, the point is not about fallow golf courses. The point is about golf courses that golfers play.

[Jason Way]

Having only played Crystal Downs, I am no MacKenzie expert, but I think that course is a great example of the original point.  Natural vs. unnatural  as a style is to some degree in the eye of the beholder.  It gets even more complicated when the preferences for each are introduced. 

CD is not great because it is natural.  It is great because MacKenzie used the land brilliantly, laid his course upon it, and then added daring flourishes on the greens and in the bunkering.  It is challenging and fun and enormously interesting. 

The pictures from Ran's review of CD illustrate the point:  http://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/crystal-downs/

Much of the bunkering looks made, not natural.  But the bunkers are very well made, and therefore, they add to the overall greatness of the course.  The same can be said for the tees and greens.  It just all works.

[Mark Bourgeois]

What's wrong with contrived? WHAT'S WRONG WITH CONTRIVED? The Uncanny Valley of Golf Architecture, that's what.

What really floats my boat are the little irregular ground contours of links courses and good green complexes.

See, that's the kind of stuff over on the other side of the Valley -- that's where the FOR REAL stuff lies. Suck on this Arble!!

[Sean_A]

Bourgeois

Leave it to you for examples of the common, everyday, seen it a million times.  Feast your eyes on something properly unusual and perhaps the ultimate in contrived. In fact, if you want to learn something about golf architecture, ditch the idea of links and heaven help us a foreign language alternative, go see Kington for a week...you won't regret it.  Just down the road is the Stagg with a very fine pub restaurant and rooms.  Just pull the trigger and be done with your nonsense  


http://www.thestagg.co.uk/

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

Have to say Sean that the above example at Kington does less for me because it is so regular in its ultra-micro rumple. They are less undulations and more pock marks. The spotty teenager of golf courses perhaps? "He'll be a looker when he's grown up".

I know what Jon's getting at with MacKenzie. Not for one minute do I think he wasn't trying to make his golf courses look natural but he did it with bold features. As a comparison, I've mentioned a couple of Gil Hanse courses before - Boston and Castle Stuart - where there are just so many features, so much skill shown, that it actually adds a slightly contrived flavour to the golf courses. In both those cases, it works excellently though.

[Sean_A]

Ally

The micros are no more regular than the macros.  People may not care for this particular extreme example of micro undulations (most of Kington's MUs are not nearly as in your face, but Kington is firmly a MU course mixed with other lovely stuff including serious slopes), but it is a highly unusual feature which has a massive impact on play when coming up short on this par 3.  Its always fun to see how people tackle the recovery...I certainly don't know how to deal with it consistently well.   

This is an example of the more typical MUs at Kington.  It looks harmless....


Ciao

[Mark Pearce]

The micro-undulations at Kington never struck me as remotely contrived.  They're natural, I assume, or the result of grazing sheep.  What is for certain is that no architect or green keeper is responsible for them!

[Jon Wiggett]

Have you had the experience of seeing a MacKenzie golf course that has gone fallow without being guided as to what features were what?

I have seen a couple of examples of Mackenzie gone fallow and it was always obvious that the area was part a golf course

Have you had the experience of seeing any golf course that has gone fallow without being guided as to what features were what?

Indeed I have.

If both, how do you characterize the natural looking aspect of both?

I  am not sure what you are getting at here. The fact that the features were obviously manmade was what made them recognisable as abandoned golf holes/courses

It seems to me that the propensity to have bunkers near greens would make any architects work have the greens be seen in a fallow state.
But, the point is not about fallow golf courses. The point is about golf courses that golfers play.

But natural would have to mean that the player looks at the hole and thinks all they did was mow. GJ, the problem with those pushing Colt or Mac as builders of beautifully natural courses is that to me they mistake natural for fitting their settings and then try to say all the movement is natural. There is nothing natural about Colt's splashed bunkers but they do fit and there is nothing natural about many/most of Mac's bold GCA.

To be natural does it not have to look free of the 'hand of man'?

Ally,

If you are ever playing Kilspindie then look at the micro movement there. It is the best example of it I have ever seen.

Jon

[Adam Lawrence]

Jon - I'd say it's not an all or nothing thing. Suspect Colt or MacKenzie would have agreed that few of their features looked totally natural, but that they were closer to achieving that goal than others building at the same time.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Mark, Sean,

I'm not for one minute suggesting the ripples at Kington are contrived.

I'm saying they do far less for me than the kind of movement Mark B posted just above. That is the stuff that floats my boat, even more so when it is within close proximity to a green.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Do you think the members/management at Kington wish they had smoother fairways or do you think they prefer what that have now?

[Paul Gray]

Do you think the members/management at Kington wish they had smoother fairways or do you think they prefer what that have now?

Genuinely Adrian, with no hostility intended, please tell me this isn't leading up to another pop chart discussion.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Paul - I am coming to the conclusion you are not right in the head.

[Paul Gray]

Paul - I am coming to the conclusion you are not right in the head.

Why?

Charming of late.

[Thomas Dai]

Is it known exactly what the continuous micro-humps at Kington actually are?

There was a thread about six months ago that discussed them but without a conclusion. I've seen similar before and been told they are yee olde ant mounds or mole hills.

Whatever they may be, they are horrid to take an electric power trolley over. Feels like the handle will snap off at any moment.

Atb

[Adrian_Stiff]

If I had to guess, I would say ant hills. They are a great defence though very unusual form of, if you don't carry the ball far enough onto the green or smoother apron. It is more the modern things/improvements in golf that lead me to the negative of them; Pain in the arse to get a cut on with the mower being the main one which would restrict its conditioning, difficult with the electric trolley is another good point. Would the course be worse if they were smooth, so all things considered discounting the cost, would it be better without the micro undulations. As it is Kington is more promoting aerial golf rather the ground game.

[Mark Pearce]

If I had to guess, I would say ant hills. They are a great defence though very unusual form of, if you don't carry the ball far enough onto the green or smoother apron. It is more the modern things/improvements in golf that lead me to the negative of them; Pain in the arse to get a cut on with the mower being the main one which would restrict its conditioning, difficult with the electric trolley is another good point. Would the course be worse if they were smooth, so all things considered discounting the cost, would it be better without the micro undulations.

Kington are fortunate to have sheep to keep the fairways in shape!

[Mark Bourgeois]

Bourgeois

Leave it to you for examples of the common, everyday, seen it a million times.  Feast your eyes on something properly unusual and perhaps the ultimate in contrived. In fact, if you want to learn something about golf architecture, ditch the idea of links and heaven help us a foreign language alternative, go see Kington for a week...you won't regret it.  Just down the road is the Stagg with a very fine pub restaurant and rooms.  Just pull the trigger and be done with your nonsense  


http://www.thestagg.co.uk/

Ciao

Sean, certainly you have me trumped. That tree, in the milieu of that pic, appears as contrived as contrived gets. 

[Thomas Dai]

If I had to guess, I would say ant hills. They are a great defence though very unusual form of, if you don't carry the ball far enough onto the green or smoother apron. It is more the modern things/improvements in golf that lead me to the negative of them; Pain in the arse to get a cut on with the mower being the main one which would restrict its conditioning, difficult with the electric trolley is another good point. Would the course be worse if they were smooth, so all things considered discounting the cost, would it be better without the micro undulations. As it is Kington is more promoting aerial golf rather the ground game.

Thank you Adrian. I'm a Kington fan but would prefer the course without this feature, a feature I've seen walking across many an open sheep grazed Welsh* hillside over the decades. In fact I believe the course at Welshpool has similar fairway features as do both Llandrindod Wells (and Clyne?) in places, although not as pronounced as at Kington.

Atb

* - I realise Kington is 'just' in Herefordshire/England, but you can see Wales from the top of the hill and Offa's Dyke runs though it. Maybe it should be considered a half-n-half course like Llanymynech, Ian Woosnam's old stamping ground.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Here again it would be great for everyone to just put up their definition of natural.  Somehow, I think a few are in the Melvyn Morrow camp and are talking pre 1900 almost nothing to design.

Some others may talk Mac, but in truth, his courses are built.  The greens, tees, and bunkers all had fill moved.  He shaped mounds and cut fairways for dirt and vision.  He just didn't do it as boldly with horses as later architects did with bulldozers, but the though process of building was almost exactly the same.

You could argue his puzzle piece bunkers, which BTW have probably set the modern standard, are the least natural, most contrived pieces of golf design artwork ever, no?  Natural gullies rarely have that great form in just the right place, LOL.

And of course, its great architecture, in the eyes of most.

[Mark Bourgeois]

By my definition there is absolutely nothing in the entire world of golf that is natural. Nada. The objective instead is supreme naturalism. Alternately go entirely the other way; that presents its delights as well, at least in small doses.

No man's land lies where a designer tries and fails or half-tries. For in that no man's land lies....The Uncanny Valley of Golf Architecture [cue 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho9rZjlsyYY#t=0  ].

[Peter Pallotta]

Thank you, Mark. You've just given me (and the owner of the highly successful company) the 2nd greeting card in the exclusive Golfer's Collection:

"In golf as in life, the no man's land is the half measure, and the less than bold"

Peter

[Jon Wiggett]

If I had to guess, I would say ant hills. They are a great defence though very unusual form of, if you don't carry the ball far enough onto the green or smoother apron. It is more the modern things/improvements in golf that lead me to the negative of them; Pain in the arse to get a cut on with the mower being the main one which would restrict its conditioning, difficult with the electric trolley is another good point. Would the course be worse if they were smooth, so all things considered discounting the cost, would it be better without the micro undulations. As it is Kington is more promoting aerial golf rather the ground game.

Adrian,

I agree they are a great defence and though it must be challenging to maintain if it were smoothed out the hole would loose much of its character so become less interesting to play. I would rather play a slightly scruffy but interesting course than one that is manicured but dull. I suspect the playing surface is better than the photo might suggest and I would suggest that the maintenance meld is more important than top conditioning.

Jon