This is what Tom MacWood wrote in October of 2003:
"Based on his books and essays I get the impression Wind had a real interest in the subject--a thorough understanding of the history of golf architecture, of the great architects, of their best designs and of their theories. He was an admirer of MacKenzie, Tillinghast, Macdonald, Thompson, and others.
But when it came to contemporary design he remained pretty quiet--other than championing RTJ. Writing that favorable profile in the New Yorker, complementing his redesign work at Oakland Hills, Baltusrol, Winged Foot and ANGC (RTJ also contributed a chapter on gca in Wind’s first book and was praised in Wind’s second book). He, along with Bobby Jones, basically made Jones the huge name he became, which allowed him to dominate and shape modern golf architecture.
Although he wasn’t a critic in the 50’s and 60’s, by the mid-70's, it appears to me, HWW was totally disgusted with modern golf architecture, and wrote of his disgust in several essays, including a speech to the ASGCA.
Was he indirectly responsible for golf architecture’s sorry state…did he feel a certain responsibility? And did his criticism in the mid-70’s have any effect on golf architecture?"
I think those last two questions are extremely important and I can't see this thread has really tried to answer them. Most of the posts, which are really good by the way on Wind himself, don't exactly deal with Tom MacWood's two questions. I think a site like this needs to try to take a very careful look at that era in architecture---eg early 1950s probably into the 1980s to try to determine how it was looked at by golfers and even the profession generally.
Was it looked at during that time by even Wind as a time when golf architecture was going through what Tom MacWood labeled in 2003 'a sorry state'?
That is not my recollection at all and I certainly am old enough to remember the whole thing pretty well. Frankly, I remember most all the golfers I knew about thinking it was a pretty exciting time in golf architecture. Everything was bigger and longer and they looked at that as a pretty cool change and challenge.
I think it's important to get the feeling at that time right and accurate in its own historic context. To come to the assumption and the conclusion in 2003 that it was looked at in its own era as a time of a sorry state in golf and architecture I think is simply historically inaccurate.
But then, of course, one needs to follow that style in American inspired architecture to it's historic conclusion which is pretty hard to miss, at this point. For that I think one needs to look very carefully at the impact Pete Dye had near the end of that RTJ/Wilson super-long course, super large scale era. Pete Dye's own remarks about it as he traveled down the road on his way to Hilton Head is hugely indicative of the state of things then and also where it was about to go next. And that's the part I really do remember best----the interest and response to some of what young Pete Dye was beginning to do. That, my friends, to most of the most knowledgeable people in golf and architecture at that time was the beginning of a sea-change and I think I can tell you almost precisely why the people of that time thought so. Frankly, I can still hear them and what they said.
I think you'll be pretty amazed to hear what they said and what they thought about what they all perceived was coming off the palatte of Pete Dye.
Another interesting thing about the beginning of the Dye era is perhaps something Herbert Warren Wind thought about RTJ in the end and told his son----eg the danger of super high production golf architecture.
I have no idea how many golf courses Pete Dye has done at this point but I can tell you back then and through most of his career that is not the way those knowledgeable in golf and architecture looked at Pete Dye. If he was high production it certainly didn't seem like it and he most certainly never seemed to promote such a thing as RTJ very clearly did!
I mean seriously, can you believe it---one of the primary selling points of an architect like RTJ and even Tom Fazio in the next leg of the era was the more courses an architect does the better that must mean he is? I'd say at least half the golfers in this world still believe that to be true. That's how effective and impactful the likes of RTJ was on one aspect of the perception of architecture.
In that way, I think Herbert Warren Wind did his part to warn of dangers in architecture and perhaps seriously influence what was to come next from the next really significant group of architects, many of which came up right through Dye's operation and through his influence.