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Padraig Dooley

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Dreaming about Golf Course Architecture
« on: March 18, 2019, 06:40:35 PM »
A slightly different topic, does golf course architecture appear in your dreams?
It happens to me on a regular enough basis, the latest one was ending up on a course on a fine summer's evening where a famous enough architect was going to show me around, hilly site, he came along and off we went, he explained his concepts, he quietly drifted away and the landscape changed and I was left to figure out my own concepts.
It was quite an enjoyable dream!
Does it happen to anyone else?
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
  - Pablo Picasso

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Dreaming about Golf Course Architecture
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2019, 07:40:28 PM »

Not often, but did have a weird one the other night.  All I recall is I was in a design competition for a course somewhere in Africa.  It was an existing course on an awkward hill, but the best land next door was a national wild animal preserve which I badly wanted to use, but couldn't.


I am sure someone could analyze the hell out of that one, but I had seen a news bit about someone proudly posing over their African kill that day, and maybe that played into it.  My dreams are usually odd and nonsensical combos of different things concerning me earlier in the day.
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Terry Lavin

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Dreaming about Golf Course Architecture
« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2019, 09:12:20 PM »
Uh, no. 😅
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.  H.L. Mencken

Colin Macqueen

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Dreaming about Golf Course Architecture
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2019, 04:49:51 AM »
Padraig,


Golf course architecture as a subject for one's dreams seems innocent enough. Not much fodder for Freud at any rate, surely!


The closest I have come to such fantasy is when I read Darwin's wee essay "The Links of Eiderdown". Darwin's architectural dreamy endeavours are finally put paid to when he learns that sausages are on the menu for breakfast and "The links of eiderdown are fast becoming of the fabric of a dream." and he has "...tried to fix the holes before they elude the frantic clutches of memory and fade away into one another."


So there you go you are in the finest of company!


Cheers Colin
"Golf, thou art a gentle sprite, I owe thee much"
The Hielander

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Dreaming about Golf Course Architecture
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2019, 11:06:09 AM »

I will dare to say that I am not alone among golf course architects who have woken up in the middle of the night (sometimes in cold sweat) dreaming of the problems of meeting payroll, finding the next job, being sued, etc. at some point in their careers, probably multiple points.


As to actual design dreams, the also trend towards nightmares.  When I did the Legend Course at Giant's Ridge, on boulder fields, I spent many nights tossing and turning that first winter obsessing whether in spring, I would find all the topsoil earth works had seeped between the boulders leaving pot holes.  This was especially true on holes like 7 where you could (and still can) hear subsurface water running below you when standing in the fairway.  The good news was, the contractor, experienced in such conditions, had done a wonderful job of mixing boulder, stone and cobble size and packing it together to eliminate voids and there were no problems. 


On the Quarry, I was worried about them taking the old quarry slope back to something stable (on the 18th)  No problem for them and I was amazed at where their track hoes could go and set up.


And of course, the night before any bid is due from contractors, I find myself dreaming that low bid is about 50% over my estimated budget, which can be a mess.  (Happy to say I never missed one by quite that much, however.  Still doesn't stop the nightmares.)
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Marty Bonnar

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Dreaming about Golf Course Architecture
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2019, 01:45:43 PM »
Very timely thread. I had a strange one just two nights ago.
We were playing/walking Pine Valley, although the Course we were on didn’t really bear much resemblance. At one point, I got to sit with an elderly gentleman to discuss the Course and we talked about three streams on the periphery of the property which they wanted to do something with.
I then wanted to go to the pro shop to buy some souvenirs, but they didn’t have anything I wanted. They seemed to have ball markers and stuff from other courses though.
The Clubhouse was some weird amalgam of my old school and a modernist lump with strange pink-mosaic covered columns which were hard to get around.
All very Freudian, of course!
 ;D
F.
The White River runs dark through the heart of the Town,
Washed the people coal-black from the hole in the ground.

MKrohn

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Dreaming about Golf Course Architecture
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2019, 05:30:34 PM »
I only have the relatively common dream where I am on the tee and because of some atrocious GCA work I can't take the club back because of the hedge behind. Sometimes I am also playing my first tee shot from inside the pro shop, no blame on GCA for this one.

James Brown

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Dreaming about Golf Course Architecture
« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2019, 08:25:56 PM »
After I did an internship on Long Island many years ago, I had a recurring dream for a while about playing the original Lido after I read about it in a book on lost courses.


I’ve also had dreams about playing Crewe Island.


Less so about courses I have actually played.  Although I have had some fun dreams about playing nondescript courses in Scotland.