“Tom P: I know you'll hate this question but I'm going to ask it anyway:
Do you think North Berwick belongs on the list of the 100 Greatest Courses in the World?
I've gone back and forth on this question myself. Many low-handicappers think it's short and silly and strange, and the fact that I've shot even par there means it's no championship test. At the same time, it's totally unique and one of the coolest places in golf.
For the record, I'm voting for it again these days, but it doesn't have a lot of other supporters (Ran is one).”
TomD:
What a question for someone like me who not only doesn’t much like or support the “100 greatest” concept but doesn’t really know what it means---in the sense of what the criteria is that’s supposed to define “greatest”. But you certainly do know it and understand it! So, frankly, I’m absolutely DELIGHTED that someone like you would seriously write the paragraph above beginning, ‘I’ve gone back and forth on this question myself’.
Whatever I could say here about my feelings about North Berwick having seen it and played it once last week couldn’t be better said than what you said in that paragraph! So the question is---why do you think it’s totally unique and one of the coolest places in golf? Why do I? Why do so many of the others who contributed to this thread? Why do they use words to describe it like “unique”, “wonderful”, “enjoyable”, “quirky”, “haunted”? Presumably because it really brings out those feelings about it when one plays it or even looks at it. Would any of those people say the same things about Pinehurst #2, Bethpage Black or even Oakmont or Shinnecock---golf courses that will probably always be recognized by almost everyone as “great”? I doubt it!
And in that lies, at least to me, a lot of the answer to your question to me. I don’t really care about the CONSENSUS ASPECT that’s most of the essence of the “100 greatest” concept of golf courses and is frankly almost completely necessary to it. But I certainly do recognize and admit that plenty of others do care about the idea of “100 greatest” for whatever REASONS---some good reasons but plenty of other reasons that aren’t good, in my opinion!
Probably the biggest drawback to ever properly or accurately answering the question you asked me is there’s always the tendency to try to make a golf course and its architecture all things to all people and the more I get into this subject the more I feel that just might be an impossibility, certainly an improbability, so one (an architect) should probably not even try! But even that I’m not completely sure about and who knows---maybe someday someone will pull even that off in ways we may not have yet imagined! But at the moment I can’t see that happening, or how.
So I think at this point the best thing to do is to just go with the potential “DIFFERENCES” which probably is the essence of the entire art and enjoyment of all architecture and golf too! But to do that one should realistically recognize that avenue will always leave some out of the equation—out of some kind of “consensus” building attempt. But so what?
You know I have real respect for the way Bill Coore looks at this subject both in a general and specific sense and he so often seems to talk about “difference” when he tries to speak of his feelings about some architecture in a positive or complimentary way. It’s what he said over and over about Pacific Dunes when I asked him how he felt about it. I said what do you mean by that and he said again, “It’s just so different”.
And certainly North Berwick is different, very different presumably in a very good way and always has been, and for many of the detailed reasons mentioned in this thread about some of its holes---the detailed architectural reasons that people remark about those holes on here and elsewhere. It’s definitely not a course that can test the scoring ability of really good golfers as can hundreds and hundreds of others around the world (unless it happens to have it’s X architectural ingredient—the wind) but that’s not the point to me—and it sounds like not to you either---hopefully. But it seems to me it can fascinate people more than most any other—even if some do conclude that it’s strange!
I think you should very seriously consider now and in the future this whole idea of “difference” in architecture. You might even consider it a form of separation or even an increased spectrum! And you should keep plying that “difference” in an attempt to make it even more distinct! You should get away from the notion of trying to do products that are all things to all people at least more than occasionally.
There may not be an architect in the world today who has a foot and mind as well planted in the fascination of the architecture of the past and it’s evolution than you do. That’s something you should keep focusing on, in my opinion. I think a very good example of that would be Stonewall2, and the apparent reaction and impressions some people have to that course are very apropos to this subject and the question you asked me about North Berwick and the whole idea about “great” courses or the “100 greatest” concept.
I think almost everything about Stonewall2 (with a couple of exceptions) is a wonderful throwback in time—some truly fascinating architecture reminiscent of some of the best of the past. Some already appear to love the course because it’s so different, probably in that throwback sense. But I met a man in the parking lot when I walked it a month or so ago. He asked me what I thought about it and I said I thought it was fascinating architecture, the kind that makes golf truly fun and enjoyable. And I asked him what he thought about it and he said; “It sucks”.
Don’t worry about that—don’t be disappointed in remarks like that because courses like Stonewall2 just aren’t all things to all people and it shouldn’t try to be. It’s different today for a new course---very different---it’s a throwback to some of the wonderful old aspects of the game.
I feel that particularly Americans move very quickly through cultural fazes---change to them is a good thing—an important thing---we’re the “can do” people of this world that don’t admire static tradition and such much---at least not for a time---the time of those cycles that we do move forward rapidly. But the end of that forward portion of the cycle always comes and then what to we inevitably do? We look back longingly to that time which we inevitably call "simpler", or maybe more innocent when things weren’t so frenetic, or whatever.
I know enough now to understand that the portion of the cycle when we stop and look back longingly will always come, and after a while we'll be off again racing into the future and changing things--and the cycle will keep repeating through time. There's no question that portion of the cycle in golf course architecture when we're ready to look back longingly is upon us--I guarantee it---it probably started little by little up to 10-15 years ago and now it's building to a critical mass! But it will never encorporate everyone in golf and so that should never be important or even a consideration!
I think you’re the one who has the best understanding of those general and specific things about the architecture of the past that made golf interesting once. You should keep focusing very carefully on that alone and more often than not you should figure out interesting ways of bringing it back again and applying it to today. I think you’ll have an audience that’s plenty large and very appreciative but you’ll never get them all---but is that really important?
In this sense your company is probably perfectly named.
I do think that despite all those things that North Berwick isn’t—and will never be—that it is one of the 100 greatest courses ever done—but I really do recognize that many people will never feel that way about it.