Gilding the Lily

[Peter Pallotta]

I think I've just landed on the shortest possible phrase to describe what, let's say, displeases me about many golf holes/courses. Gilding the Lily - def: to adorn unnecessarily something already beautiful, from Shakespeare's metaphor, i.e. to gild refined gold, to paint the lily, is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

I think architects, good architects, building good solid courses, sometimes just can't help gilding the lily -- and this mars both visually and in playability terms some otherwise fine golf holes. Here is an example, from the course I play most often (a 1970s public):

The 2nd is a 400 yard Par 4 dogleg right, with a creek running across the fairway at 250 yards out (that can't be seen from the tee because the land slopes down towards it starting at about 220 yards, especially from the centre-right side). From the far side of the creek, the hole then goes uphill to a largish green that is angled to the line of play (opening up from the left side) and that has a bunker protecting the front right side.

A simple and lovely and effective golf hole: take driver off the tee and risk bounding into the creek; play to the left side of the fairway (which slopes down much less than the middle-right side) with a three wood and you have a clear shot to the green opening, but a longer approach of about 170, uphill; or play a 3 wood or less to the right side of the fairway and shorten the hole a bit, but then you have to come over the greenside bunker with your approach.

A good golf hole, with options and challenge. What else does one need? Well, the architect and superintendent both seem to have thought/think that it does need more. Okay, the trees off the right side of the fairway I can live with (since they punish the golfer who tries a fade but slices it instead); but then in front of the tree line the architect built-up a series of six foot mounds, running from about 220 yards from the tee all the way down to the creek, and then the super figured (apparently) that neither the trees nor the mounds nor the fact that a right side tee shot leaves an approach over a big deep bunker were enough, so he now maintains the whole area in thick, lush rough -- all of which results in losing one of three "options" and, if you hit the ball to the right side a bit too much, turning a good and challenging golf hole into a real drag.  (And, to add insult to injury, the mounding and the rough and the trees all disappear on the far side of the creek -- so that a long hitter who can fly the ball 250+ yards off the tee can slice the ball almost off the planet and still be safe!)

And why? Why does a good and classic golf hole (that smartly utilizes an existing creek) on a modest public course occasionally become a drag? Why does it go from being a golf hole that is playable for the mid-capper while still challenging for the good/long player to being a golf hole that punishes the former and grants the latter even a greater advantage? Simply because neither the architect nor the super could resist "gilding the lily". 

Just as cynicism is the greatest temptation of intelligence, perhaps gilding the lily is the most prevalent temptation for those who care to do good work. Architects: stop caring so much, will you -- it is wrecking your good work!     

Peter

[Michael Blake]

I agree, Peter.
Do you think the phrase 'artistic restraint' vs. 'artistic indulgence' can be applied similarly?





Your final sentence, "Architects: stop caring so much" reminds me of something, I think, Tom D posted on another thread which was 'Modern architects are trying too hard.'  I could be mistaken though.

[Joe Hancock]

Counterpoint: Golf courses, produced merely for the sake of art, can stand on their own as a piece of art, even at a minimalist presentation of course. But golf courses are produced as a viable business venture, not as stand-alone art, and the artform must take into account the preferences of the end user, to some extent. Beauty, as imagined by the artist, is a component of the architecture.

Imagine:

The Sistine Chapel without a painted ceiling. It would still function as a chapel.

A fee-based botanical garden...with one very attractive plant.

Your house, without any decoration that gives visitors a sense of who you are and creates a sense of place.

In many cases, that's what the "gildings" provide...atmosphere, sense of place, an appeal to senses beyond the functionality of the game of golf itself. It can be the very thing that makes a course special, without really being able to finger on why it's so special.

There are limits of course, and I suspect the thing you are objecting to is when courses push these limits...endless flower beds, fountains( in the vain attempt to beautify a cesspool), bunkers that overwhelm the landscape, etc., etc.

[Peter Pallotta]

Joe: I'd agree with much of your good post, except that in this case the "sense of place" is, in my mind, marred and not enhanced by the mounding and rough; the hole I described -- without the mounding and the rough -- would fit in perfectly with the look and playability of a 6600 yard public course that hosts a wide variety of skill-sets and a lot of very average golfers, while with the mounding and the rough, it is attempting to be something it is not and was not (apparently) designed to be, i.e. a stern challenge that rewards the long hitter.

Michael: "art" (and Joe used the term as well) is I think too loaded/fancy a word to use in the case of the golf course and golf hole I'm describing; but I think "restraint" vs "indulgence" fits, especially in the context of restraining the urge to make a golf hole, quote, even better.

Peter   

[BCrosby]

Good stuff Peter. We have talked before about the courage it takes to exercise restraint.


Flashy bunkers, water features, stacked stone walls, budding bushes and lush stands of tree are all things that photograph well. Which means they show well in a brochure and sell memberships/lots. Which means an architect is put under pressure to use those sorts of things. 


That's always been part of the problem with TOC. It photographs so poorly.


A course that is "flashy" and "good" is possible. They aren't mutually exclusive concepts. But I wonder if the people who build golf courses these days, if forced to choose one or the other type of course, wouldn't choose the former.


Bob


 

[Tom_Doak]

A course that is "flashy" and "good" is possible. They aren't mutually exclusive concepts. But I wonder if the people who build golf courses these days, if forced to choose one or the other type of course, wouldn't choose the former.

Do you really even wonder?  And do you wonder which the public golfer thinks they should choose, after looking at pictures of golf courses in the magazines the past 25 years?


One of the intriguing things about the new course at Forest Dunes is that it is as "un-flashy" as anything I've seen in a long time.  Partly, that's the product of the reversible concept [it's hard to make things flashy from more than one vantage point], and partly, it's the nature of the terrain [which wasn't very dramatic, which is why I chose the concept].  I don't hold out much hope for it in the rankings because it's so different, visually.  But the golf looks like great fun.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom, Bob
I tried to pick my example carefully. In the case I cite, a golf hole -- as a golf hole -- was actually made worse, less playable and with less options, instead of better...and I can't even tell in the name of what. Gilding the lily has no ryhme or reason, and must be diligently gaurded against.

[Thomas Dai]

Do scenic views generally mean that the lily needs less gilding?


Atb

[Tom_Doak]

Tom, Bob
I tried to pick my example carefully. In the case I cite, a golf hole -- as a golf hole -- was actually made worse, less playable and with less options, instead of better..

Oh, I understand.  I worked with a fellow once who thought that every added fairway bunker gave the player more "options" on how to play the hole.  But breaking up the average player's landing area into three smaller areas only provides options if you are good enough to hit those small spots.

[BCrosby]

Tom, Bob
I tried to pick my example carefully. In the case I cite, a golf hole -- as a golf hole -- was actually made worse, less playable and with less options, instead of better...and I can't even tell in the name of what. Gilding the lily has no ryhme or reason, and must be diligently guarded against.

I also understood. I would note that this website in not above falling for 'gilded lily' courses. GCA often has threads about the 'look' of bunkers. (Photographs are always included.) It is maddening that even here the discussion is rarely about a bunker's positioning and/or how it affects play.


Bob

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom - one day I'm going to start a thread entitled "False Memory Syndrome and GCA". It will explore the tendency of former-tour-pros-turned-architects to design golf courses based on their memories of how good they used to be, and of the remarkably long, high and precise iron shots they once used to hit...

Bob - the architect of the course I describe is the late Rene Muylaert, who I "tipped my hat to" in a thread on here, and who designed some 50-60 courses, mostly in Ontario and mostly with modest budgets on fairly flat sites. From the few courses of his I have played, he was a no nonsense professional who did good work (and occasionally, on the right site, very good work) with a minimum of flash. But even he fell prey here (on the 2nd, and on a couple of other holes) to gilding the lily in a way that actually adversely affects/limits the play. With your reference to what we tend to do (and miss) around here, I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, what I have always assumed was a bedrock and widespread understanding of the features-playability relationship may not be so widespread after all....

Peter     

[Tom_Doak]

Tom - one day I'm going to start a thread entitled "False Memory Syndrome and GCA". It will explore the tendency of former-tour-pros-turned-architects to design golf courses based on their memories of how good they used to be, and of the remarkably long, high and precise iron shots they once used to hit...

Peter: 


I don't think that phenomenon is limited to former Tour pros.  I noticed that as Robert Trent Jones got older, and his only connection with golf became watching the pros play on TV, his greens got smaller and his courses got even longer. 


I think it's sort of an evolution ... there is a stage at which the great player comes to have a bit more sympathy for the average guy, but then he forgets about that, and starts trying to make it tough for the young whipper-snappers, as he remembers it used to be for his generation.  Unfortunately, at that point, he is forgetting about you and me altogether!

[Peter Pallotta]

 

If I ever start the False Memory thread, my theory will be that, not only is the architect forgetting about you and me, he is also forgetting that the courses in his day actually weren't that hard...