How come there are not more bad courses?

[Peter Pallotta]

I can't think of any great golf course architect who has designed a really bad course.


How come? Aren't they trying hard enough?

[Mike Sweeney]

I can't think of any great golf course architect who has designed a really bad course.


How come? Aren't they trying hard enough?

Can you define a "great golf course architect" first?

[Peter Pallotta]

Mike - I assumed we all share the same conventional roll-call of the golden age and modern day greats/award winners. I wouldn't want to leave anyone out
You'd think that if they were really swinging for the fences they'd occasionally whiff really badly and look foolish. But I can't think a golden age or renaissance whiff. 

[Matthew Petersen]

Perhaps some of the work from the Golden Age that didn't survive until today didn't make it because it wasn't as great.

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike - I assumed we all share the same conventional roll-call of the golden age and modern day greats/award winners. I wouldn't want to leave anyone out
You'd think that if they were really swinging for the fences they'd occasionally whiff really badly and look foolish. But I can't think a golden age or renaissance whiff.

Let's start with Merion Golf Club. It had no bunkers when it first opened. It is currently closed for 18 months because it is not relevant to the modern game. How many architects have cleaned up this mess by some over-priviledged Philly guy !!

[Joe Zucker]

Peter, I was actually thinking about this very topic earlier this week.  From an architecture perspective, what is the worst Ross, Flynn, Raynor, etc. course?  Assuming we only analyze their courses that have not been significantly altered, I also came to the same conclusion that there aren't any really bad ones. 

I wonder if this is because it is pretty easy to replicate once you know how to do it?  Basically once you have the skill, it is hard to mess up.  If you know how to ride a bike, you almost never mess up.  But if you don't know how to ride a bike, it's near impossible.

Or is it that the early architects were able to steer courses to better land or choose better land?  This doesn't seem realistic to me because I've seen a few solid Ross courses on flattish land that I enjoyed.   

I'm not educated enough to know, but do great artists (painters or sculptors) have works that are generally thought of as bad? I think the answer to this would give us a clue if golf architecture is really any different from expertise in other fields.

[Greg Smith]

Re:  painters and sculptors -- As far as I know, the process for creating a great work involves a) inspiration; and b) bazillions of study sketches before even setting brush to canvas or hands to clay (and afterward chisel to stone).  If a great artist ever "zips one out", it's because they did a number of works on that same theme before and didn't need as many studies.  But the process of learning/ingraining the greatness of the work still exists.

Same thing for golf architecture I guess.  Once you have studied the process enough and worked out your typical development curve of (at least) goodness, the work you just did in a Sunday afternoon equals a mere mortal's week of work, and what you did in a week equals a year's effort for a mortal.

Plus, if you are used to doing good/great work, your standards for yourself tend to remain high.  Ergo, no bad works by great artists.  We just don't see the studies leading up to the products, that's all.

Bad art results from a fault in the INSPIRATION, I think -- so guys with iffy baseline concepts like RTJ can't hold a candle body of work-wise to the truly inspired, even if they can on occasion squeak out something significant through brute force creation.

[Sean_A]

I am not sure I have come across many bad courses...dull courses for sure, but bad?

Ciao

[Ken Moum]

I am not sure I have come across many bad courses...dull courses for sure, but bad?

Ciao

You need to come to Kansas....


or South Dakota.


I've spent the last 30+ years in those two states, and I can tell you there are a number of courses with almost no redeeming virtues. Or flaws so egregious that they cannot be over looked.


In South Dakota alone I have played four separate courses with "foul poles"  where you had to play around the pole. At one of them if you played on the wrong side of the pole you had to go back around it, just like missing a mark in a sailboat race.



The other three sad you were OB if you played on the wrong side, even if the ball landed in your fairway.


Or the one in Topeka with a 100* dogleg.


K

[Peter Pallotta]

Marty's thread brought this one to mind.
Dull/poor courses there are aplenty - and I've played plenty of them.
But they're dull-poor precisely because they do everything a golf course is 'supposed to do', but without much flair or imagination or variety or drama or challenge. In other words: they are proper and wholly-conventional, and therein lies their dullness.
But a bad golf course, one that doesn't work, a failed attempt -- it has failed precisely because there was an 'attempt'.
The great Martin Scorcese made 'Kundun' -- it fails on almost every level, but the ambition to make something magnificent and different is evident; and he tried to stretch as an artist with "New York, New York", which also fails. But the attempt was there, when he could easily have made another terrific gangster picture.
Where are the magnificent/ambitious failures (bad courses) from otherwise great architects?       

[Edward Glidewell]

Marty's thread brought this one to mind.
Dull/poor courses there are aplenty - and I've played plenty of them.
But they're dull-poor precisely because they do everything a golf course is 'supposed to do', but without much flair or imagination or variety or drama or challenge. In other words: they are proper and wholly-conventional, and therein lies their dullness.
But a bad golf course, one that doesn't work, a failed attempt -- it has failed precisely because there was an 'attempt'.
The great Martin Scorcese made 'Kundun' -- it fails on almost every level, but the ambition to make something magnificent and different is evident; and he tried to stretch as an artist with "New York, New York", which also fails. But the attempt was there, when he could easily have made another terrific gangster picture.
Where are the magnificent/ambitious failures (bad courses) from otherwise great architects?     

They no longer exist. They either closed because no one wanted to play them, or they were heavily renovated to eliminate the flaws of the original. Of course, that's assuming any were ever built in the first place. But if they were, it's no surprise that they're not extant.


I would think something like Stone Harbor is what you're looking for (except that I doubt most people would call Desmond Muirhead a great architect) -- something totally different that absolutely did not work, but was at least attempted.

[Matthew Rose]

You haven't played enough muni golf 

[Duncan Cheslett]

If you chanced upon Marsden or Low Laithes in Yorkshire, you would not believe that they were the work of a great architect. Yet they are original MacKenzies.


Dr Mac did plenty of indifferent stuff in his middle years shortly after WW1 when he was racing about the north of England just trying to make a buck.


Sitwell Park was deemed "bad" enough to necessitate drastic changes to its greens as soon as Mac left. If it wasn't for those few iconic photos we'd never have known about them...




...one could even argue that MacKenzie's reputation was on the wane and his best work a distant memory before he reinvented himself by blagging some top gigs in Australia!

[Sean_A]

Marty's thread brought this one to mind.
Dull/poor courses there are aplenty - and I've played plenty of them.
But they're dull-poor precisely because they do everything a golf course is 'supposed to do', but without much flair or imagination or variety or drama or challenge. In other words: they are proper and wholly-conventional, and therein lies their dullness.
But a bad golf course, one that doesn't work, a failed attempt -- it has failed precisely because there was an 'attempt'.
The great Martin Scorcese made 'Kundun' -- it fails on almost every level, but the ambition to make something magnificent and different is evident; and he tried to stretch as an artist with "New York, New York", which also fails. But the attempt was there, when he could easily have made another terrific gangster picture.
Where are the magnificent/ambitious failures (bad courses) from otherwise great architects?     

I guess if this is the description of what you mean, I think Ballybunion's Cashen course fits the bill.  A very well known and respected archie with an opportunity to build a course on Irish links.  Granted, the site is as severe as it is beautiful, but the archie had machines.  Perhaps the budget wasn't big enough for the site, I don't know, but I can say the Cashen isn't the result many were hoping for.  Regardless, I would play it again and treat the place as an elaborate driving range which requires a cart.

Ciao

[Tom_Doak]

The Cashen is definitely one.  So was Stone Harbor, and the Bob Cupp Course at Palmetto Hall.


I've been roasted for suggesting The Castle Course as another, but that was my feeling about it.  As Edward said though, it's already seen significant changes to make it more acceptable... unlike a movie, it doesn't stay preserved in its original form forever.


I'll also just mention Stonehouse and Tot Hill Farm.


One reason there are fewer "swing and miss" designs is that clients are afraid to let the architect swing away.  Golf design is commercial art on that level.


Some people were hoping The Loop would be a failure but I fear I disappointed them 😉.  Maybe that par-68 thing will be next, or my crazy elevation changes in Northern California?

[JESII]

I hope you are designing a par 68!


To me, the acceptance of sub-70 par will change everything...

[MCirba]

Oh lord...


I have a list of awful courses longer than my arm.


But if I speak their names the world will spin off its axis and that wouldn't be good for any of us so I will refrain.

[Rob Rigg]

Desert Golf is littered with bad courses that were driven by housing developments. So is Florida. Not just bad for walking, but garbage golf.

Of course "awful" is in the eyes of the beholder. Some people absolutely love those courses . . . I guess.

[jeffwarne]

I am not sure I have come across many bad courses...dull courses for sure, but bad?

Ciao

In South Dakota alone I have played four separate courses with "foul poles"  where you had to play around the pole. At one of them if you played on the wrong side of the pole you had to go back around it, just like missing a mark in a sailboat race.

The other three sad you were OB if you played on the wrong side, even if the ball landed in your fairway.

Perhaps the USGA should adopt some of these ideas rather than bastardizing classics


I'm actually serious

[Peter Flory]

Didn't Kidd get a 0? 


He has been quoted as saying that he knew that it would be a polarizing design. 


There is one example. 

[Tom_Doak]

Didn't Kidd get a 0? 

He has been quoted as saying that he knew that it would be a polarizing design. 

Yes, and he had a hard time getting a job for several years afterwards, until he publicly recanted his whole philosophy of design.  That's why most architects are afraid to take chances!

[Sean_A]

I've been roasted for suggesting The Castle Course as another, but that was my feeling about it.  As Edward said though, it's already seen significant changes to make it more acceptable... unlike a movie, it doesn't stay preserved in its original form forever.

Does anybody have a record of the work that has been done to The Castle over the years?  Also, why is the course closed in the winter? 

Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

There are plenty of 'poor' courses, but Tom's Par 68 course might actually be 'bad'. If it were a Par 66 it'd have an even better chance of being bad -- but I know I'm asking too much: the man has the right to make a living, and beggars can't be choosers. And yet, I can't help but think: I know it profiteth a man nothing to gain the whole world and lose his soul, but for two Par 5s?

[Tim_Weiman]

Marty's thread brought this one to mind.
Dull/poor courses there are aplenty - and I've played plenty of them.
But they're dull-poor precisely because they do everything a golf course is 'supposed to do', but without much flair or imagination or variety or drama or challenge. In other words: they are proper and wholly-conventional, and therein lies their dullness.
But a bad golf course, one that doesn't work, a failed attempt -- it has failed precisely because there was an 'attempt'.
The great Martin Scorcese made 'Kundun' -- it fails on almost every level, but the ambition to make something magnificent and different is evident; and he tried to stretch as an artist with "New York, New York", which also fails. But the attempt was there, when he could easily have made another terrific gangster picture.
Where are the magnificent/ambitious failures (bad courses) from otherwise great architects?     

I guess if this is the description of what you mean, I think Ballybunion's Cashen course fits the bill.  A very well known and respected archie with an opportunity to build a course on Irish links.  Granted, the site is as severe as it is beautiful, but the archie had machines.  Perhaps the budget wasn't big enough for the site, I don't know, but I can say the Cashen isn't the result many were hoping for.  Regardless, I would play it again and treat the place as an elaborate driving range which requires a cart.

Ciao

I don’t believe RTJ had much of a budget to build the Cashen, nor was there much earth moving.


Like it or not, RTJ loved the Cashen. When the course was completed, the club asked RTJ what they could do for him for the opening. RTJ broke into tears and said the one thing he wanted was for his estranged son to attend the opening.


If I remember correctly, RTJ got paid about 12,000 and some memberships to give away.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Actually, there are probably few bad courses because thankfully, most developers know enough to hire a golf course architect who is competent to do good work, if not inspired to do great work.  I agree with most here, it is a shame when an architect gets a plum site and doesn't care enough to turn out much other than their standard product.  I have heard a few say things like "I spend three days on the design to max out profit, and live with what I have at that time."  Obviously, not the recipe for great or even good design.


As to Peter's point, that "

they're dull-poor precisely because they do everything a golf course is 'supposed to do', but without much flair or imagination or variety or drama or challenge. In other words: they are proper and wholly-conventional, and therein lies their dullness......" [/size] First, any designed course should "do what it is supposed to do".  And yes, after accomplishing that, after a thoughtful design process, then the architect can attempt something slightly unconventional, but still within the outer limits of convention, in an attempt to make it both good, functional, and unique.[/size][/font]

[/size][/font]

[/size]I think most here would be surprised at the low number of design briefs that call for the architect to do something creative and wonderful.  Most owners prefer functional with enough flair to attract customers, without driving up maintenance budgets, slowing play, etc.[/size][/font]

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[/size]Yes, I know I drifted from my main point a bit, so please excuse.[/size][/font]