[Ted Sturges]

In the 1960's, 1970's and the 1980's, US golf course design was dominated by what I would describe as "American looking" golf courses. It was a period which included the end of the design career of Robert Trent Jones, coupled with the beginning of the careers of names such as Robert Trent Jones, Jr., Rees Jones, Pete Dye, and Tom Fazio, who were becoming the "go to" architects during that time period.  With the exception of some of Mr. Dye's work, the majority of the design work produced by these men during that period included "clean" bunkering and a high emphasis on wall to wall maintenance.  Courses like High Pointe (1989), Sand Hills (1995) and Pacific Dunes (2001) had not yet been dreamed of.  Those courses all went back to what I would describe as the "Golden Age" architecture look, which included out of play areas receiving much less maintenance and the more beautiful (to me) "rough edge" bunkering look.  Today, we have a large number of architects building golf courses that look more like those courses built during the golden age, than the courses built in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's.  Some are even taking courses that received that dreadful "modernization" touch sometime during the 50's, 60's or 70's and making those courses look "old" again with thoughtful "restorations".  My question is....when did it change? Was there a moment in time when some sort of pivot on the end of the "clean" look and a return to the Golden Age look occurred?


-TS

[Jeff_Brauer]

No one moment. Change is constant, and sometimes too slow to notice.  A few highlights from my memory -


The 1980 US Open at Inverness (or was that the PGA?)  Outcry because you could see the difference between the Fazio new holes and Ross old holes.


From WWII on, the watchword was streamlining and cost efficiency.  Design tried to match the maintenance equipment on the market.  I clearly recall Tom Fazio stating at an industry meeting, some time in the early 1990's, that it was time for equipment to be designed to maintain designs, not the other way around.  Then, it sort of happened.  He may not have been the first (something tells me Dye might have also said it) and the mfgs. probably were starting to get the idea on their own.  Bigger, newer, more capable, a la, build the better mouse trap.


And, of course, all that was possible due to the Gordon Gecko Go Go 80's and 90's.


Other stuff happened to, but on the artistic side, golf design isn't much different than pop music. There is always a craving for a new style, and the old ones start to look like Beehive hairdos over time.

[SL_Solow]

There were probably a lot of factors involved.  In 1976, Paul Voykin superintendent at Briarwood CC, published an article in the Green Section Record and addressed the Superintendents Association on the topic "Overgrooming is Overspending".  Paul posited that a return to more natural looking golf courses including wild areas would both improve the game and cut costs of maintenance.  It took awhile but this idea  caught on.  Whether this had any direct influence on architectural styles cannot be measured but it indicates that there were likely numerous factors that developed over a period of time which led to a return of more classic concepts in design and maintenance.  Incidentally, Paul's ideas were not ell received at the time as the Augusta look was dominant.

[Tom_Doak]

Paul's ideas were not well received at the time as the Augusta look was dominant.

The Augusta look is still dominant, mostly, and courses are still over groomed.  Yes, we can have more rugged contours in the fairway and native grasses in the roughs, but everyone demands the fairways to be perfect, and the majority would prefer them to be stripe-mowed if possible.  And even the native grasses are supposed to be a uniform golden color!


Though Jeff prefers to couch it in terms of style and era, it's also about people.  Rees Jones and his favorite contractor are still out there building the same style of bunkers they've been building for 30 years, even as we are rebuilding some of them to the older style.  The style has changed because a handful of architects were doing something different, and that style has caught on.

[Ted Sturges]

Tom,


Can you cite a moment in time when this shift occurred?  For example, what compelled you to build High Pointe in the look and style that you did?  Do you believe Bill and Ben reacted to stuff built by you and others, or were they doing it ahead of everyone else?  Something changed and I'm personally curious when this shift occurred.


In the Men's grill at Crooked Stick there are photos of what our course looked like in the early years (late 60's, early 70's), and Pete definitely built CS to not have wall to wall maintenance (the look in the early years was quite rugged, and I for one prefer the way it looked then). What year did you first see CS, or The Golf Club (similar look)?  Did that impact your thinking and your design ideas?  Or do you think your study of the UK courses had more to do with shaping your design style?


TS

[Jonathan Mallard]

The 1980 US Open at Inverness (or was that the PGA?)  Outcry because you could see the difference between the Fazio new holes and Ross old holes.

The 1980 US Open was at Baltusrol. The PGA that year was at Oak Hill. Jack Nicklaus won both.
The 1979 US Open was at Inverness. Hale Irwin won.


I'm guessing that you're referring to Inverness or Oak Hill.

[David_Tepper]

I thought Pete Dye building Harbour Town at Hilton Head was a (if not the) turning point. 

[jeffwarne]

The 1980 US Open at Inverness (or was that the PGA?)  Outcry because you could see the difference between the Fazio new holes and Ross old holes.

The 1980 US Open was at Baltusrol. The PGA that year was at Oak Hill. Jack Nicklaus won both.
The 1979 US Open was at Inverness. Hale Irwin won.


I'm guessing that you're referring to Inverness or Oak Hill.

OT but I see Inverness had another $2 million renovation in 2014 to get it "major ready" .
Does that mean Merion is 7x more likely to be major considered having decided to spend 15 million? Hey 10 driveable par 4's would get Mike Davis delirious.


"why not 5 minute abs?"


Grow the budget.....errr...game

[Jeff_Brauer]

The 1980 US Open at Inverness (or was that the PGA?)  Outcry because you could see the difference between the Fazio new holes and Ross old holes.

The 1980 US Open was at Baltusrol. The PGA that year was at Oak Hill. Jack Nicklaus won both.
The 1979 US Open was at Inverness. Hale Irwin won.


I'm guessing that you're referring to Inverness or Oak Hill.

The big uproar back then was Inverness. Sorry, memory missed by a year.


Jeff W,


Art Hills had been in Inverness for a long time. I haven't been there in a while, but recall many of the fw bunkers were moved out, etc. Not so much as at Oakland Hills up north, but many changes, nonetheless.  And yes, moving bunkers out is clearly an attempt to attract majors, as members aren't hitting it that far in 99% of cases.


The USGA is a demanding mistress!

[Tom_Doak]

OT but I see Inverness had another $2 million renovation in 2014 to get it "major ready" .


Grow the budget.....errr...game

Apparently that wasn't enough.  Rumor is they are now working on plans for a multi-million dollar restoration/ redesign to replace the Fazio holes entirely.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,


Can you cite a moment in time when this shift occurred?  For example, what compelled you to build High Pointe in the look and style that you did?  Do you believe Bill and Ben reacted to stuff built by you and others, or were they doing it ahead of everyone else?  Something changed and I'm personally curious when this shift occurred.


In the Men's grill at Crooked Stick there are photos of what our course looked like in the early years (late 60's, early 70's), and Pete definitely built CS to not have wall to wall maintenance (the look in the early years was quite rugged, and I for one prefer the way it looked then). What year did you first see CS, or The Golf Club (similar look)?  Did that impact your thinking and your design ideas?  Or do you think your study of the UK courses had more to do with shaping your design style?

Ted:


It's not a moment in time, or one course that changes the tide.  It takes a few of them.


I've known Ben Crenshaw since 1981 and almost every time we talked about architecture, the working premise was why couldn't we build courses that looked like the old ones we revered?  So it wasn't me seeing his courses or him seeing mine, it was 10-15 years of conversation and both thinking similar thoughts, and then both working at trying to build something that looked like we wanted it to look.  It took practice!


I played Crooked Stick and walked The Golf Club for the first time on my way back to school from Long Cove in the summer of 1981.  The Golf Club struck me as different than the rest of Pete's work (I didn't have the word for it then), while the original Crooked Stick had greens that imitated Macdonald and MacKenzie and Ross - just like what Ben and I were talking about.


But then the next summer I went overseas and my thinking went to a whole other level from seeing stuff that was almost not constructed at all.


If you want to put it to a moment in time, though, I think you could put it down to Ben Crenshaw spending his time talking to me and to Bill about architecture - and/or to Mr Dye for letting us learn how to build stuff without trying to indoctrinate us on what to build.

[Thomas Dai]

........almost not constructed at all.

Nice way of describing what many of us herein seem to like to view, play, admire, study and discuss.
atb

[MCirba]

Ironically, part of the momentum towards this change happened after the restoration of The Country Club in 1985, attributed to Rees Jones for design but my understanding is that the work was performed in house. 

I also think that the creation of High Pointe may have started some of the trend, but feel the influence of the Legends Heathland course in Myrtle Beach was more important as numerous everyday golfers became exposed to something much different than the standard fare.

[Derek_Duncan]

Sand Hills definitely planted the seeds but I put the real turning point -- when the "Golden Age" style of design began to become widespread, assuming that's a correct premise --to the opening of Pacific Dunes.


With all the publicity it garnered, Pacific Dunes was really the first course the entire golf world saw together that had such a naturalistic, rugged look, especially, obviously, the bunkering. The media started comparing it with Pebble Beach and the choppy, sandy character was a vivid contrast to Pebble's traditional shapes. Frankly to many golfers it just looked better. Furthermore it was public, and it was successful.


Bandon, but specifically Pacific Dunes, re-introduced golf to sand. It opened the world to ever more spectacular properties and from there just about every architect started trying to find a way to get in on the action and the look, even on sites that weren't coastal or sandy. PD might not have been the first, but I think it was the turning point.

[Tom_Doak]

Ironically, part of the momentum towards this change happened after the restoration of The Country Club in 1985, attributed to Rees Jones for design but my understanding is that the work was performed in house. 

I also think that the creation of High Pointe may have started some of the trend, but feel the influence of the Legends Heathland course in Myrtle Beach was more important as numerous everyday golfers became exposed to something much different than the standard fare.

I got a note from Rees Jones just this morning [really] thanking me for giving him credit for starting the restoration trend.  [I gave him partial credit in a thread here years ago that made the Little Red Book.]


I think those early designs of mine or Coore & Crenshaw's [Barton Creek and then Kapalua] were mileposts on the way, but not a turning point in themselves.  Certainly not The Legends ... it didn't attract that much attention based on calls to my office.  As Derek says, Pacific Dunes and all the publicity it generated was certainly the turning point for my design career, even though I'd been saying all the same things for a long time by then.  For Bill and Ben, it was definitely Sand Hills ... but more people played Pacific Dunes in the first year than had played Sand Hills in the six or seven years before that.

[Rich Goodale]

When I first played golf with my paternal grandfather at Winchester CC (Ross) in 1958, he ranted and raved about the maintenance which had fairways as lush as shag carpets so that the hackers could hit 5 woods to their heart's content.  He knew his golf, having been club champion there in 1913 and green convener for many decades at Woods Hole GC.  IMHO the "change" Ted refers to came when Dye and Crenshaw and Watson and Wind and etc. discovered the virtues of the crumply rumply maintenance at the great Scottish courses.


Regrettably, the great Scottish courses are now inexorably being altered and maintained to the immaculate standards of US golf.  My grandfather will be rolling in his grave.

[Lynn_Shackelford]

Ted, here is my California version.
It was 1983-84 when Landmark and Pete Dye combined to build their courses in the Palm Springs area, specifically La Quinta.  Many areas were kept native and not irrigated.  The bunkers had different shapes.
I remember someone saying this is the "new" way people are now building courses.

[Craig Sweet]

Perhaps it changed when air travel to GB became more common and people brought back to the States an idea of how a golf course should look?  They saw. they played, they loved, they wanted the experience back home.

[Phil McDade]

I've known Ben Crenshaw since 1981 and almost every time we talked about architecture, the working premise was why couldn't we build courses that looked like the old ones we revered?  So it wasn't me seeing his courses or him seeing mine, it was 10-15 years of conversation and both thinking similar thoughts, and then both working at trying to build something that looked like we wanted it to look.  It took practice!

Tom:


Did Crenshaw ever talk about Shinnecock Hills and the U.S. Open being held there in 1986? I've always thought that tournament played a role in all of this -- I was a pretty avid watcher of golf tournaments back then, and that Open looked completely different than any I'd seen before; i.e., the difference between that and the jungle of Winged Foot was pronounced. (Crenshaw also played well at that Open, finishing T-6th and just four strokes behind winner Ray Floyd.) The USGA took something of a risk in putting the Open there, and I've thought appreciation for faster, firmer and browner conditions grew from there.

[MCirba]

I think those early designs of mine or Coore & Crenshaw's [Barton Creek and then Kapalua] were mileposts on the way, but not a turning point in themselves.  Certainly not The Legends ... it didn't attract that much attention based on calls to my office.

Tom,

I think you may perhaps underestimate the impact of how much play Myrtle Beach got in its heyday from what I'll call "everyday golfers", particularly on the east coast.

Heathland Legends was something wholly different than anything ever built there before.   Prior, what passed as "Links inspired" were courses like Heather Glen, with pot bunkers built into large mounds and soft green conditions.

You may not have received much new high-end business offers from that gig but it certainly opened the eyes of more than a few average golfers on what a golf course inspired from abroad could/should be in the states, including an impressionable young Mike Cirba.

[Mark_Fine]

Change is constant and golf architecture will continue to ebb and flow as it always has.  Trends will come and go as there is really no right or wrong design philosophy. 


The next biggest change in the works is automated maintenance.  Toro for example has automated fairway and greens mowers in the works and they will be on the market in the next few years.  There will also be automated bunker raking.  The goal is to reduce the HIGH cost of golf course maintenance/manual labor.  These changes will impact golf course design for sure.  It will start slow but this change in maintenance practices will create yet another evolution in golf course architecture!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,


Always reminds me of a demo I saw of robotic mowers years ago. Where the driver would sit was a big box of something.  Salesman asks super if he could get used to a motionless unresponsive object on the seat.  Super replies, "I get that now!"


You make the same point I was trying to make, its a whole lot of decisions made by individuals in related fields.  As noted, design fit maintenance machines through the 70's.  HDPE drain pipe reduced the cost of drainage, and was reflected in design.  Earthmoving became more efficient thanks to Cat, and was reflected in design, carts required cart paths.....then more cart paths, as a full loop was nearly inevitable.  The list goes on.  Superintendents came up with a lot of neat, but unpublicized ideas they shared with friends.  Golfers wanted smoother, faster greens, and so on.  Everyone had their own interests.


And, a few designers made a conscious choice to do something different.  More didn't.  The new style was a reaction to what had consolidated into a more or less standard pattern.  But, like everyone else, those designers changed style believing it was in their best interest to stand out in a crowded field.


Its even harder to pick out one single reason or point in time, it is just a gradual, slow march forward.


And, as I have said before, there are probably seeds of post minimalist design thought out there, if you know where to look, which will only be recognized at some point in the future.  No design style solves all problems, no design trend is permanent.

[Tom_Doak]

Did Crenshaw ever talk about Shinnecock Hills and the U.S. Open being held there in 1986? I've always thought that tournament played a role in all of this -- I was a pretty avid watcher of golf tournaments back then, and that Open looked completely different than any I'd seen before; i.e., the difference between that and the jungle of Winged Foot was pronounced. (Crenshaw also played well at that Open, finishing T-6th and just four strokes behind winner Ray Floyd.) The USGA took something of a risk in putting the Open there, and I've thought appreciation for faster, firmer and browner conditions grew from there.

Phil:


The first letter I ever wrote to Ben, in 1979 or 80, I asked him what courses I should try to see, and Shinnecock was one of the half dozen he listed.  I was there for the Open for a couple of days, but I'd already been there a bunch of times by then, because my parents didn't live too far away.  [I played at National the Monday after the Open with a friend.]  But I think you are right, that the Open at Shinnecock had a big influence on the native-grass look of today.  That summer was also the first time Ben came up to Crystal Downs to play.

[Mark_Fine]

Jeff,
We are in agreement.  Anyone who plays a lot of public golf will know that "minimalist" design has been around forever. It might have become "a trend" in higher end golf courses because of all the exposure those courses get but don't be fooled, it has been around forever.  I can name a dozen courses that were built for example on converted farmland because the land owner wanted a golf course and the budgets were ridiculously low.  Were they great golf courses - no, but thousands and thousands of public golfers play them every day and enjoy them. 
Mark

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,


As Jay Morrish used to say, "There is minimalism and there is necessitism."

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