Why did square greens disappear ? Have any been built lately ?

[Stephen Brown]

Mr Mucci-

"Have any been built latley ?".  I am going to assume you are talking about a design that adheres to "classical" architectural principles.  Well, I played the Cupp Course at Plametto Hall in HHI, SC, and this golf course had some square greens, square bunkers, and mounding features that were all in real geometric shapes.  I am no sure why this was done, but obviously created a very unnatural look.  

I guess I have kind of answered your question, and still am not sure what Cupp's intention was, but that is for another thread.

Go Vijay !!

Steve

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
I can't understand why perimeter configuration would have anything to do with agronomic difficulties."

Pat:

No, that's not what I mean and not what I'm saying. Again, one needs to look closely at that early era and the combination of factors that were going on back then and evolving.

There's nothing inherently problematic agronomically with producing healthy turf on squared green shapes per se! What I'm saying is back then there was rudimentariness in all facets of green design--ie shape, growing medium, drainage characteristics etc.

It's just that sort of in concert golf architecture began to move away from all of that (rudimentariness) and become more sophisticated in all those facets and squared greens (as an aesthetic or architectural style) simply began to evolve (first with "flared corners" of my early Ross course) and the ultra squareness began to be cast by the wayside.

As to why the original squared greens of a course like mine became rounded over time is answered by the supers above which simply involved maintenance practices of mowing. I don't know that my course actually meant to round out their old squared greens it simply happened over time as do all greens of all shapes due to mowing processes! EX: Certainly William Flynn's multi-form greens (potato chips) lost green space on their perimeters and became rounded out over time.

So there was a combination of factors at work back then and an aesthetic evolution was just one of them. Squared greens that had been built became rounded for one reason (maintenance practices) and for another reason (architectural aesthetic) squared greens no long got designed as the sophistication of architecture increased going into the "Golden Age" of the 1920s!

[TEPaul]

Pat:

The reason you see some highly pushed up greens from that earlier era that were squarish in shape is simply because this multi-factor evolution did not happen exactly simultaneously. Probably the best example of squarish shapes in green design (and other areas of design) as golf architecture evolved aesthetically, agronomically, drainage-wise and growing medium-wise was Seth Raynor. His aesthetic style of architecture remained basically the same for his approximately fifteen year career. Why? I think we all pretty much know why--with the famous prototype of NGLA and the continuous and constant reproduction of similar hole types because of that famous prototype. A hole such as the "biarritz" was basically "squared off" (large rectangles) and reamains so today.

But some architects today are beginning to built basically squared off shapes again here and there. Why? Because they've taken the time to look back carefully at former eras and recreate some of what those eras had. Gil Hanse, for instance, occassionally builds greens that are squared off in shape. I just saw a few yesterday at French Creek (#16) and Doak did a basic rectangle at Stonewall North (#7)! Coore and Crenshaw's #9 Hidden Creek is squared off in the front and basically rectangular. Why? Because they looked back to a much earlier era for inspiration on that site (Heathland tribute).

Just to show you what I mean about architects doing certain things because they choose to look back to former architectural eras, some of the bunkering at Hidden Creek is an even better example.

Bunkering inherently doesn't look particularly natural when it pops straight out of flat ground. Coore and Crenshaw are as capable as anyone in the world building bunkering that looks ultra natural as if wind and water may have reamed a bunker formation naturally out of the ground.

But having been down to Hidden Creek a few time before construction and during the early stages of construction I got there one day and here were some bunkers faces that popped straight out of flat ground;

I sort of said; "Whoa Bill what are you doing--those sure don't look like nature made them." He said; "We're doing a semi-tribute to early Heathland architecture here and many of those early Heathland bunkers were so early in the evolution of architeture that they basically just dug a hole and threw the dirt (fill) right in front of the hole to create the bunker-face so that's the look we're recreating on some of these bunkers as a tribute to the early Heathland era. The early Heathland era, by the way, was that time when man-made architecture first migrated out of the linksland.

The linksland people basically said you couldn't do courses outside the linksland, or golf outside the linksland wasn't real golf but those early Heathland architects starting with Willy Park and going on to Colt, Alison, Abercrombie, Fowler et al proved them wrong. Hidden Creek reminded C&C of the Heathland somewhat so they decided to do a tribute to it in New Jersey by emulating some of that early style!

[paul cowley]

pat ,our company,love golf design,has of late been building greens [and bunkers] that are more squarish in nature.....one ,forest oaks c.c.,should show these corners well if they use a blimp for the telecast of the GGO in two weeks.

we like the look and the ability to pin the corners.....these are not totally square like the tees ,but tightly radiused,and walk mown..........plus you will see a true biarritz [and a half biarritz] green....the half  has the mid lower level extending about two thirds across,so the entire green is connected on the same level on one side....comprendo?................paul.

[Patrick_Mucci]

S Brown & Paul Cowley,

Any chance that you could provide some pictures ??

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

I understand what you're saying, but every green and every bunker design doesn't have to be of a free form nature.

There is nothing wrong, especially strategically, with straight lines.  One only has to look at the back green line of the 7th green and bunker at NGLA to see that they work.

# 15 green at NGLA comes close to being squared, especially at the rear.

Many of the bunkers at TOC don't seem very natural, nor do they seemlessly blend into the surrounding land.

I know you love C&C,
And I think they did a great job in designing and building Friar's Head and Hidden Creek, but their style isn't the only acceptable design style in golf course architecture.

Departure from the "most favored design style" is good for golf course architecture.

Geometric designs are not inherently flawed, architecturally.

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Why are you saying those things? I never said there was something inherently wrong with straight lines. If I did show me where. By reporting what I just did about the "Heathland tribute theme" of Hidden Creek I'm only trying to indicate that good architects sometimes get away from "formulaics" EVEN if that sometimes means the "formulaics" of ultra naturalism.

Clearly that example of some of Hidden Creeks bunkers is one that clearly shows that C&C that time DEPARTED from building some bunkers that appear ultranatural is SHAPE.

What you need to do is get with the big picture a bit more and stop trying to fixate on finding something wrong with every little thing that's said. It's important when one looks at the evolution of architecture and all that it means to look at it in the overall as sort of a flow and not every single little facet of it in a vacuum!

I talk about Coore & Crenshaw a lot because they're very good architects and probably the ones whose overall thinking I know the best. But I could also talk about Doak, Hanse, Prichard, Forse, Silva, Wagner, Hines, Nagel, Jones, Esler, Goalby, Duncan or a number of others I'm coming to know better.

[Stephen Brown]

Pat-

I do not have any photos, nor the computer savy to post pictures, but there are some photos of the golf course available on the web.  I "googled" Cupp Course at Palmetto Hall, and you can find a few photos.  It is interesting to note that the geometric shapes of the bunkers and the mounding are not as noticeable when playing the coure.  The pictures available are aerials.  Also, the cart paths are all straight edges as well. A very odd look to the whole course.

Steve Brown

[TEPaul]

"Geometric designs are not inherently flawed, architecturally."

I never said geometric designs were inherently flawed architecturally. I never even said they were flawed aesthetically. But anyone who studies the history of architecture and its evolution can clearly see that "geometric" design, particularly ultra geometrics surely fell out of favor bigtime--although IRONICALLY even with one of it's most adamant and earliest decriers (C.B. Macdonald) many vestiges of "geometric lines", particularly straight lines, remained in much of his architecture and certainly in the architecture of his primary protege--Seth Raynor.

There're many interesting reasons for that, not the least of which that some of what Macdonald was bringing from Europe that was considered the best of architecture fo that very early time possessed some of that early architectural "geometrics". In some ways even Pete Dye fixated on that aspect in a form of renaissance approximately 50-60 years later.

And now some architects are looking back on that little by little for various reasons, probably mostly ones of historic interest. It's probably not that different from the entire look of "Victorianism" that was very popular in its own era, fell out of favor bigtime for many decades and now is beginning to be noticed again and reemerge again to some extent.

Look at the big picture and the evolutionary flow. That's where the real interest is!

[TEPaul]

Furthermore Pat, you asked a very good question here and you got a series of very good and interconnected answers. But the reasons (the answers) are not some single one. And the reasons and answers to your question by no means happened simultaneously. Understanding that is not much more than understanding the evolution of architecture--or understanding it better! That's real, real important. The answers you got here essentially tell the entire tale, in my opinion--at least in a general sense. Don't go trying to find answers and reasons that don't exist--that aren't valid!

[paul cowley]

  pat ...sorry i don't have photos yet, but the greensboro news and record is doing a series on the changes to the course that shows somewhat the nature of the greens of which i have been refering to....www.news-record.com /sports.....i think should get you there...paul.

[T_MacWood]

Pat
The title of your thread is 'Why did square greens disappear?'.....and then you ask me 'why did they survive and prosper?'....which is it?  

Some angular features survived, I don't believe they prosperred. I'm not aware of any square greens...perhaps some greens with squarishness.

Chicago was redesigned by Raynor in the mid-20's.

Didn't Macdonald, MacKenzie, Ross, Colt, etc strive for naturalness?

IMO the reason Raynor, Banks, Langford, etc angular features are appealing is because of their ability to incorporate and utilize the natural features of the site...setting up an interesting contrast or juxtaposition.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Why did square greens dissapear?  Practicality, as mentioned, when supers went to riding mowers.....

For that matter, how prevalent were they?  The "double green" fad took root in the 80's, until safety stopped it.  Then someone noted that there were only 14 of the suckers in all of Scotland, with 8 of them being at St. Andrews, so they really didn't connote the old days at all!  

How many square greens were there, really?  I know some early American designs were geometric, as pointed out, but they just were't thinking too hard about it!  RTJonesII noted a few in Ireland in his book, and for a few years, included at least one square green in each design.  The only one I've played is Tiffany Greens near KC.

Most of the B and W photos of Golden Age greens I have seen (thinking of the Riviera photos here) actually show large greens with detailed curves, very modern looking compared to the small circles they have become! Of course, Raynor had several, and a few years ago, Chicago Golf started to sqaure off the edges to get back to the original design.

After visiting Gulph Mills, where they had restored some Ross greens with square fronts, but rounded backs, I have incorporated some of those in my designs, including the 4th at the Quarry at Giants Ridge.  Designed in Sept. 2001, it came out as a liberty bell shaped green, which I think is neat, and a patriotic tribute as well.  However, the super can't resist rounding, and there is now a tiny curve at the front right and left of the green.

So, there are a few examples of square greens, fewer reasons to really do them (except as a feature to make you go, "huh?" and even fewer reasons to lament their passing, IMHO!

[TEPaul]

Tom MacW:

Pat didn't say squarish greens survived and prospered--he said squarish tees did.

[T_MacWood]

Sorry, my bad.

I suspect squarish tees survived because the teeing area--deliniated by two tee markers and two imaginary perpendicular club links--is a square or rectangle.

Also you don't play toward the tee, you don't view the tee while playing a golf hole, unlike the other man-made or natural features of a hole. You disembark from the tee, not unlike a pier.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

You're so hasty to find fault that you're reading comprehension is suffering  

Playing from the back tees gives one a full, unencumbered, view of the entire tee, glorious in its traditional rectangular form.

I understood the reasons attributable to riding mowers which occured in the 70's, but didn't understand why these greens weren't being built in the 40's, 50,s and 60's, and why golf courses that continued to mow with walkers would let squared greens disappear, and why golf courses that were built in the 70's and later, that were intended to be walk mowed didn't have any squared greens

I also understand the agronomic stress created by heavier, more cumbersome triplexes on grasses of varying heights.

If greens at NGLA and other courses can be mowed into the downslope of adjacent bunkers, I can't see why squared greens can't be mowed accordingly.

[TEPaul]

Again, the mowing stuff is obviously why most all the old squared off greens disappeared. They didn't really disappear they just didn't have their corners mowed square for decades and decades. I can almost guarantee that 99.9% of golfers just forgot that many of their old greens from that pre WW1 era had been square or sqaured off in the corners. I remember when I first went down and picked up those Dallin aerials of my course from the early 1920s and the first thing I said was;

"Look at that, so few trees, such wide fairways and SUCH BIG SQUARISH GREENS. So obvoiusly I went out there and looked at them carefully and you could basically see on all their backs that big squared off greenpad. When I told people that every one of them said; "Dang, I didn't know that but it makes sense."

That's why greens that were built squared off became rounder--they didn't disappear.

But why didn't square greens continue to get built after about WW1? Again because that style went out of favor in place of the new multi-form greens of the 1920s and beyond. Who the hell really knows--just maybe when those old squarish greens began to round out because of mowing patterns maybe architects just assumed that's the way it was supposed to be and stopped even thinking about buildign squared off greens. But to me the truth is those straighter lines of the geometric era just lost popularity in architecture. Are they coming back now? They are a little bit--because I've seen some recently in new construction. Are they going to take over again and be super prevalent? Of course not!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

One of the biggest flaws I notice in playing golf courses today, is the failure to mow greens and tees as their footpad dictates.

I think this is due to benign neglect rather then intentional maintainance practices.

And as someone said above, mowing by minimum wage, seasonal employees has led to the attrition of the putting green surfaces, especially at the corners and edges near fall-offs.

[TEPaul]

"I think this is due to benign neglect rather then intentional maintainance practices."

Pat:

I couldn't agree more. Even the fabled Shinneock was super surprised when they saw our Flynn plans. Flynn's greens flow out into their surrounds unlike some of the older pre WW1 greens did so their greenspace perimeters are much harder to recognize. But we showed them that ALL Flynn's Shinnecock plans, even that the supplemental green drawings on the right of his hole drawings are to exact scale---and so they said something along the lines of;

"Oh my God, that means we can scale them and find the old perimeters and recapture them!"

[T_MacWood]

Pat
I don't think I'm the only one who finds fault with this thread...it seems to be based upon a false premise and an inaccurate reading of history (once again).

[DPL11]

Tom,

What are you referring to being an inacurate reading of history?

DPL11

[T_MacWood]

I'm not aware of an abundance of square greens built after the 1890's (or very early 1900's)....very few, if any, survived because they were universely condemened. The example of Macdonald's crude 1890's Chicago GC as something to emulate is not something even Macdonald would advocate.

What course had or has square greens....maybe there is course I've overlooked that would be a good example of the postive attributes of square greens.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

Would you review all of my posts and cite for me, where I used the word "abundance" in discussing square or squared greens ?  That's your editorial distortion working again.

Didn't Lido have a squared green ?
Didn't Lakewood have a squared green ?
Was the 5th hole at Yale squared ?

[paul cowley]

 i'm surprised no one seems to be picking up on the strategic and pinning possibilities that emanate with squared ,or i will call them, 'cornered' greens'......combined with internal contours,you have great design options....and a sound design future when one begins to think that way..........

[Patrick_Mucci]

Paul Cowley,

I think the strategic nature of the hole/green when the flag is cut near the edge, in the triangle of the corner, is enhanced exponentially.

Those hole locations also create havoc in the mind of the golfer, which is a critical element.

The back left and right pin positions on # 15 at NGLA are ferocious, and few have the courage or foolhardiness to attack them.