Why Did The Macdonald/Raynor/Langford/Moreau Style Of Design Disappear?

[Michael Whitaker]

 I really don't understand why this style of course was abandoned. As popular as Macdonald/Raynor/Langford/Moreau courses are one would think that some modern architect would have continued in their path and adopted this style.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Perhaps Robert Trent Jones came along in the 1930s and, after leaving Stanley Thompson, did his first major course- Peachtree after WWII and then redesigned the 11th and 16th and Augusta National. As a result, during the 1950s he became popular with his " hard par, easy bogey" style without incorporating MacRaynorBanks  and Langford & Moreau template holes. Others followed his example.

[Peter Pallotta]

Michael - I don't have an 'answer' of course; but it strikes me that, if you can sum up an entire era/style and all its practitioners in one simple subject line and a grand total of 4 names, that style isn't very likely to survive the deaths/retirements of those 4 practitioners -- especially if the style was so distinct that any would-be followers (i.e. up and coming architects) risked being labelled as merely copy-cats. 

Peter   

[Eric Smith]

Styles. It’s great when you come across the ones you aren’t that familiar with. Golf design by these guys is like when they invented round boxes. Round boxes!!


I bet they built the coolest sand castles when they were kids.

[Blake Conant]

Advances in equipment probably had a lot to do with it.

[Tom_Doak]

Trent Jones and Dick Wilson had way more pride than simply to copy an old style.


Most of us don't get into this business just so we can copy other people.  But, lots of designers in the past 25 years have tried those forms.  Brian Silva has built a few courses in the Raynor style.  Dana Fry is working on one now.  Heck, even I've done one.

[Nigel Islam]

I think Dye has incorporated some of the push up greens and style at various times.

[Kyle Harris]

I've quoted this on here before but I feel it could be relevant:


"The question of bunkers is a big one and the very best school for study we have found is along the seacoast among the dunes. Here one may study the different formations and obtain many ideas for bunkers. We have tried to make them natural and fit them into the landscape. The criticism had been made that we have made them too easy, that the banks are too sloping and that a man may often play a mid-iron shot out of the bunker where he should be forced to use a niblick. This opens a pretty big subject and we know that the tendency is to make bunkers more difficult. In the bunkers abroad on the seaside courses, the majority of them were formed by nature and the slopes are easy; the only exception being where on account of the shifting sand, they have been forced to put in railroad ties or similar substance to keep the same from blowing. This had made a perfectly straight wall but was not done with the intention of making it difficult to get out but merely to retain the bunker as it exists. If we make the banks of every bunker so steep that the very best player is forced to use a niblick to get out and the only hope he has when he gets in is to be able to get his ball on the fairway again, why should we not make a rule as we have at present with water hazards, when a man may, if he so desires, drop back with the loss of a stroke. I thoroughly believe that for the good of Golf, that we should not make our bunkers so difficult, that there is no choice left in playing out of them and that the best and worst must use a niblick.”
[/size]
[/size]-Hugh Wilson, 1916
[/size]
[/size]In other words, form follows function still.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Appears that flattery is alive and well in Michigan:


https://arcadiabluffs.com/the-south-course

http://frystraka.com/en/news/2018/07/16/the-south-course-at-arcadia-bluff-is-showcased/

[Michael Whitaker]

I understand that creative people want to exercise their creativity. And, I understand about RTJ and how his style became adopted and accepted as “the” standard.

But, let’s face it, there is very little completely original in golf course design. Everyone is “borrowing” from something that came before... and, I don’t see that as a bad thing. If some concept works, it works. If it entertains, it entertains. If it challenges, it challenges. Etc, etc.

It’s just that the MacRaynorBanks style courses are so respected and highly ranked (then, and today) that it baffles me how building courses in that style by anyone just faded away. One would think that their popularity and critical acclaim would keep the “genre” alive.

[Sven Nilsen]

I think sometimes we forget that the game evolved from the land it was played on, not the other way around.

[Tom_Doak]

It’s just that the MacRaynorBanks style courses are so respected and highly ranked (then, and today) that it baffles me how building courses in that style by anyone just faded away. One would think that their popularity and critical acclaim would keep the “genre” alive.

My recollection of history is a bit different.  Thirty years ago almost none of those Raynor or Langford courses were to be found in anybody's rankings ... they were all dismissed as too short and old fashioned.  NGLA wasn't in the GOLF DIGEST top 100 when I was in college.  George Bahto had no idea who Seth Raynor was ... that's why he started his research.


The renaissance of those courses has usually followed careful restoration of the original work, and perhaps a couple of influential books and web sites drawing attention to them.


Places like Fishers Island and Yeamans Hall and Camargo and Shoreacres are also built on gorgeous pieces of land.  Trying to imitate them on flat ground in Houston might not work out as special as you imagine.

[MCirba]

I've quoted this on here before but I feel it could be relevant:


"The question of bunkers is a big one and the very best school for study we have found is along the seacoast among the dunes. Here one may study the different formations and obtain many ideas for bunkers. We have tried to make them natural and fit them into the landscape. The criticism had been made that we have made them too easy, that the banks are too sloping and that a man may often play a mid-iron shot out of the bunker where he should be forced to use a niblick. This opens a pretty big subject and we know that the tendency is to make bunkers more difficult. In the bunkers abroad on the seaside courses, the majority of them were formed by nature and the slopes are easy; the only exception being where on account of the shifting sand, they have been forced to put in railroad ties or similar substance to keep the same from blowing. This had made a perfectly straight wall but was not done with the intention of making it difficult to get out but merely to retain the bunker as it exists. If we make the banks of every bunker so steep that the very best player is forced to use a niblick to get out and the only hope he has when he gets in is to be able to get his ball on the fairway again, why should we not make a rule as we have at present with water hazards, when a man may, if he so desires, drop back with the loss of a stroke. I thoroughly believe that for the good of Golf, that we should not make our bunkers so difficult, that there is no choice left in playing out of them and that the best and worst must use a niblick.”

-Hugh Wilson, 1916

In other words, form follows function still.

Hugh Wilson was a very sensible man.

[RJ_Daley]

I think that the MacD/Raynor L%M  style VS 1950s on GCA style is down to construction techniques driven by earth moving equipment and drainage infrastructure evolution.   I think those classic architects routed with a keen eye on where they could more efficiently bench in a green site, or push earthen works to create a green or feature structure.  The old classics are more routed and shaped for surface drainage.  Doing so on loam and clay soils was a different challenge of marshaling resources to the old classic architects.
Then, earth moving became more efficient and effective and sub surface drainage gave the architects and the construction entities more freedom to discount the challenge of routing with existing terrain challenges in mind.  The modern architects could shape as they wanted without as many compromises.  Shaping  became more fluid and sweeping and stylistically, containment mounding, sweeping long slopes and cape and bay style bunkers took on their own genre. 

GCA and design construction became a bigger enterprise to be sold to developers and the process had to be sold to developers as a more elaborate and valuable service, so everything just took on a new more bold look and stylistic approach.  Just my opinion.

[Michael Whitaker]

Tom - I understand about great land, but CC of Charleston is on flat, relatively featureless land and it is an excellent course... far from Raynor’s best, but very good. So, it can be done.

[Jeff_Brauer]

I have mentioned this before, but you can't discount the obsessive need for that generation to move forward in a completely new world of design, trying to forget the decades of Depression and war.  At that point, "streamlining" and new age design was the rage and the last thing they were going to (at least admit to) do is copy something pre-WWII.


Secondly, construction technology and maintenance technology (not to mention club technology) advanced fast, and matching design to mowers had an effect to keep costs low.  (Golf was a tough biz then, as it is now, and maintenance concerns took a bigger priority on most courses from 1950 to the boom of the 1980's.)


Lastly, newly minted golf course architects were trained more and more as landscape architects, and the flowing style prevailed in universities.

[Rick Lane]

While the question probably relates to entire courses mimicking a style, does it not count that there a "Redans" sprinkled around, and "Punchbowls" (such as at Streamsong Black), and lots of "Capes" in lots of places?   Etc etc?   While not an entire course, don't these concepts or templates continue to show up today in newer courses?  Even back in the Golden Age, Tillie built a Redan here and there, etc?   

[MCirba]

I agree with Rick Lane.


I think to some degree we are talking style vs substance as well as variations on a theme.


From a playing perspective, however, those differing styles do play differently.

[Peter Pallotta]

I think there's also differing notions about what characterizes an 'ideal' golf course and how to manifest it on the ground. I marvel at what seems to me CBM's predominately 'architectural' vision of/for that ideal.

[Joe Hancock]

But, let’s face it, there is very little completely original in golf course design. Everyone is “borrowing” from something that came before... and, I don’t see that as a bad thing. If some concept works, it works. If it entertains, it entertains. If it challenges, it challenges. Etc, etc.

Not always. Unless I am asked to think of a certain hole or concept while building a feature, my usual way forward is to problem solve things like drainage and grade, then go for something fun without a preconceived notion. Of course, once dirt starts to move, then other ideas or opportunities arise.


That isn’t to say that once the feature is done that someone else might relate it to something else they’ve seen, but the creative process doesn’t have to rely on borrowing concepts and ideas from the past.  As Kyle Harris posted, form follows function in the world of golf design.


On another note, there are a few “purists” out there that want to poo poo anything MacRayBanks, sort of like a beer snob who poo poos IPA’s due to their current popularity....but IPA’s can still be very good as can be MacRayBanks type design...past, present and future. Let the grumbling purist types grumble, as that’s what satisfies them.

[Michael Whitaker]

Joe - I get it that you must problem solve on site and work out how you want a hole to play... but, our concept of what is an acceptable golf hole derives from everything that has come before. This generation didn't invent golf or how courses should be laid out, we just inherited the game and its tenets.

[Tom_Doak]

Joe - I get it that you must problem solve on site and work out how you want a hole to play... but, our your concept of what is an acceptable golf hole derives from everything that has come before. This generation didn't invent golf or how courses should be laid out, we just inherited the game and its tenets.

fixed that for you

[Joe Hancock]

Joe - I get it that you must problem solve on site and work out how you want a hole to play... but, our your concept of what is an acceptable golf hole derives from everything that has come before. This generation didn't invent golf or how courses should be laid out, we just inherited the game and its tenets.

fixed that for you

Elaborate please.

[SL_Solow]

My recollection on ratings is the same as Tom's; Golf Digest's first list was America's Toughest Courses.  As far as changes in equipment, I presume this refers to the ease in earth moving.  But notwithstanding the improved equipment, did anyone move earth more dramatically than Langford and Moreau with their dramatic and precise cuts and fills at places like Lawsonia.  Mac and Raynor sure moved a lot of dirt at Yale.  I suspect that the change was more in line with philosophical differences than caused by technology although the technology made things easier.  Whether it was caused by the influence of landscape architecture, a desire to create fairness in competition as first suggested by Joshua Crane, or convenience in selling real estate may vary between architects. 

[Steve Lang]

   Might the M/R/L/M style simply have been considered un-American, too old world template centric versus new gca folks taking on or engaging the site-specifics of a property?  One off production certainly more challenging for a gca.