Ron Whitten's low opinion of golf architecture

[jeffwarne]

Ira,


Understood.  Let's give GD credit.  They figure their demographic is smart enough that they have to wait to repeat every 10 years to keep people from noticing (and they almost did!)  The typical newscast (and some politicians) figure their audience has forgotten what they told them a few days ago, in an effort to stir up today's outrage, LOL (not)

I wrote an article back around 2000 for GOLF magazine on driving.
2 pages, multiple photos from a professional photographer(back when they actually use to do that)
Also back in the day when they paid instructors for content.
In it, I included a couple of drills I learned from Jim McLean and gave him due credit.


Exactly 10 years later they ran the identical text, with drawings of me(or my doppleganger) in the exact same positions and demonstrating the exact same drills,except they changed the title,never mentioned me, and didn't credit McLean.
I found out about it when I stumbled on an internet rant by McLean, using that article as the example.
needless to say they didn't pay me for the second run...


So yes they do regurgitate the same content after a period of time
To be fair, they have been sold twice since then and are currently very well managed,and put out an excellent monthly Magazine- despite the current epic challenges of print media.

[archie_struthers]

 


My petulance comment came from the fact that Whitten wanted to be accepted as an architect in his own right. His lack of acceptance into the fold might have caused him to be a little miffed, hence his lash at the more accepted GCA's

[Tom_Doak]

Why not indicate that it's from ten years ago, but the author thinks is still applicable? Surely that's more reasonable than trying to pass it off as something new.

Forgetting whether you agree with Whitten or not, it's a pretty pathetic editorial approach.

Agreed.  By journalism standards, not noting that an "opinion" article was written ten years ago is poor form, if they really did not.  [the online version was dated; I still haven't received the print version]


For Jeff's instruction piece, though, it's a case of seller beware.  I'd bet that the fine print in the little contract he signed gave all rights over to the magazine, so it's within their rights to reprint the thing every month if they want to.  And with the demand for new content every day, it is not shocking that some of it is not so new!

[Tim_Weiman]

My petulance comment came from the fact that Whitten wanted to be accepted as an architect in his own right. His lack of acceptance into the fold might have caused him to be a little miffed, hence his lash at the more accepted GCA's

Archie,


Yeah, Whitten does come across as jealous. Not a good look.

[Lou_Duran]

Perhaps architects are treated differently than writers for borrowing from others and being repetitive.  It is probably good form to have noted that the article was essentially a reprint, but for the vast majority of readers (probably including DG participants here but for our resident opposition fact-checkers), it is fresh material.


I don't know Ron Whitten personally or his motivations so I will take his arguments at face value.  Golf is a game of tradition with certain rules and expectations which, IMO, severely limit stylistic and functional innovations.  As the world is seemingly changing all of the time, the golf course serves as a respite.  Architects known for pushing the envelope- Muirhead, Dye, Engh, Stranz to a lesser extent- have not received widely positive acclaim (Dye has been prolific, but as his moniker, the Marquis de Sod, suggests, his work is often polarizing).


Just as writers are paid to be interesting and controversy is often the key element in inducing readership/economic viability, golf architects are commissioned to build courses which are sufficiently interesting to achieve the objectives of the project.  There are an inexhaustible number of combinations provided by the basic 10-20+ templates of golf holes built on highly varied sites with differing climate and weather conditions.  I thought that Erin Hills offered great variety and met all my needs for uniqueness and innovation.  I guess that if I wanted to be really surprised, I'd go to Top Golf and punch a program for a weird set-up.  There is one within a few miles and have only been there once, on someone else's dime. 


 

[Paul Rudovsky]

I cannot find the article (have looked thru GD's issue #7...sounds like July to me...from this year w Shane Lowery on then cover and it ain't there).  Scanned thru most of the comments and I would suggest there have been at least 7 major innovations in golf over the past several decades.  IMO some of those innovation are awful, some seem good, and some are to early to decide:


1.  Frisbee Golf...certainly solves the cost question...but seems to have failed in getting much traction (perhaps because it does not have much appeal for 75 year old like myself with fragile bones)


2.  Simulators...solves the problem of increased length demanding more real estate, and a lot of the cost question...but seems to fail in that part of the joy in golf is being outside in different conditions each day...and "feeling" the weather/climate


3.  Original Sheep Ranch...where the winner of the prior hole picks the next green to play for...very interesting concept, but really limits golf course's player capacity...and that concept has now disappeared from its origin


4.  Par 3 courses...IMO one of two real winners in this group...fun fun fun...and great practice ground


5.  Superb practice ranges/facilities...think back to what they were like 100 years ago...there were none.  Courses over 100 years old today that have practice ranges either purchased additional land or had a polo field.  Want examples of fabulous clubs that do not have "adequate" practice facilities today?  Winged Foot, NGLA, Riviera, and Quaker Ridge.  This hugely increased the ""capacity" or number of players a club could keep active at one moment.  And the new ranges offer so much...which I think mostly started w Hank Haney's teaching center in McKinney TX around 1991.  Fabulous innovation.


6.  Golf courses designed around real estate development...ignited a huge boom in golf course construction and is a major cause of the "dark ages" of golf architecture IMO.  This might be the biggest bust of these 6!!


7.  But the biggest innovation related to golf architecture and I guess  Ron can't see it...and it has three huge parts all of which have brought new life into the game:


--building courses on great land...even if players have to travel to get there.  I think part of the issue that caused golf arch to go mostly bad in the '50's thru 80's was that all of the decent land near cities was gobbled up by homes and other forms of development (not to mention the restricts related to environmental regs).  What the likes of Dick Youngscap and Mike Keiser did to turn that issue into a huge opportunity is a fabulous innovation with remarkable success


--the entire architectural trust of the "old look" (for lake of a better term) used by the likes of Doak, Coore-Crenshaw, Hanse, etc etc etches an innovation even if it was based on bringing the architectural thoughts of 100 years earlier back into play again on new courses...bringing something that had almost been forgotten back into play IS AN INNOVATION


--the renovation/restoration "Industry" which had brought back to life so so many courses that had started to "go bad" (yes...they were going bad


The total of these three had resulted in the finest and largest collection off great courses existing at one time in the world


So, Ron Whitten, do the above not qualify as innovation (remember...innovation can be good or bad or in between)

[Sean_A]

Paul

The only two points of the above I would consider innovative are better renovations and better practice grounds...I consider simulators and Sheep Ranch practice.

Frisbee golf ain't golf. The other stuff was already around, just rediscovered.

The importance of proper renovation is an under current for the rise in gca.

Practice ground insanity goes hand in hand with the equipment boom. Sounds great on the surface, but....

Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

Golf courses designed around real estate development...ignited a huge boom in golf course construction and is a major cause of the "dark ages" of golf architecture IMO.  This might be the biggest bust of these 6!!
[/size]
[/size]So making golf easier to play for millions after WWII was a bust?  Not everyone would think so, not the least of which would be the many veterans who wanted to enjoy their hard won freedom to the max, with some of them wanting to golf.  Not to mention, introducing golf to their kids, a few of whom went on to be golf course architects.

[/size]No innovation or change in golf is all good or all bad, it just prioritizes one thing over another for that particular situation.

[Jeff Schley]

Golf courses designed around real estate development...ignited a huge boom in golf course construction and is a major cause of the "dark ages" of golf architecture IMO.  This might be the biggest bust of these 6!!

So making golf easier to play for millions after WWII was a bust?  Not everyone would think so, not the least of which would be the many veterans who wanted to enjoy their hard won freedom to the max, with some of them wanting to golf.  Not to mention, introducing golf to their kids, a few of whom went on to be golf course architects.

No innovation or change in golf is all good or all bad, it just prioritizes one thing over another for that particular situation.

I agree with Jeff here, while not producing Golden Age golf courses, it served a greater purpose in real estate and accessible recreation. I don't think all courses have to be great architecturally, I mean look at any 9 hole or executive course to take beginners or kids out to. They have a great time and serves it purpose.

[Mike_Young]

• If the past is the only thing you bring to the table, sooner or later clients will decide to eliminate the middleman. (Whitten then mentions examples of a public course built by a golf contractor w/o an architect and Cypress Point restoring bunkers on their own.)

Have seen this coming for a long time...thats why design/build is coming on strong....

[Paul Rudovsky]

Agree with responses by both Jeffs...but that does not change the proposition that real estate golf development was a major innovation nor recognized by Whitten

[Mike_Young]

I'm also not sure if he ever played a Jim Engh course.  While he re-uses his own templates quite a bit, when you're on a Engh course you really know it, its pretty unique stuff.  Is #11 at Black Rock not out of the box for him?

I think he was a big fan of Engh...

[Mike_Young]

I can see where RW is coming from....he was probably around enough bad GCAs and could not ay anything that he finally had to let it out.
Don't believe for a second that GD did not consider advertising dollars etc when rating some courses...GD had so much to do with increasing the cost of golf.  The design aspects may not have changed that much but they had raters that rated as much on condition as anything and in the search for "best new" all types of new maintenance methods, chemicals, mowers and irrigation helped make the cost of golf unsustainable.  The industry used the post war GCA's as their outlet to push equipment, irrigation and other innovations to unknowing end users...and this was good for the magazine for a long time...

RTJ helped bring about an arrogance in GCA from right after the war until the late 90's.  There was an abundance of bad GCA's who were just not good. 

If there had never been GD "best new" which replaced the "Top 50 or 100 or whatever", golf may have been more sustainable and viewed in a different manner...
The millennials of the day are looking for something different...I think it will always be 18 holes and all these other models sound good but not sure it will work.  They are not into conditions like the present golfer...
The young architects, design build or whatever have a different outlook and while they may not bring new artistic innovation my bet is they will figure how to get a good product out there that can survive...

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,


Yes, a golf course that can make money with reasonable greens fees could be considered an innovation!  Or, a unicorn.

[Tommy Naccarato]

If I may be so bold to comment:


This has been coming for a long, long time.  He's been insulting people for years.  That's Ron Whitten!


Ron was going to retire someday, and frankly speaking, his tone in the article whether it was yesterday or ten years ago, I have always viewed Ron as someone who is very bitter because the subject he helped revive became a runaway freight train he couldn't control--and like it or not, his co-written work (the Golf Course & Architects of Golf) has inspired many of us and has been a guide to who built what and where; definitions, etc. It was sort of a landmark effort of its time.  However, the slope of evolution can be slippery and some times a bitter pill.  While I'm grateful for his works and contributions, I can never once remember where he was encouraging to anyone in the history of this website to learn further and expand their knowledge.  The only thing he's done is write reviews of courses and pay lip service for the sake of monthly content.


I can't forget nor let go of the fact that Ron did a pretty good job of pissing off the late, great Desmond Muirhead with an article that painted him a LSD-induced lunatic when he was anything but that!  Some of you might have not liked Desmond's work, but he was trying to create and think outside of the box; innovate, all with inspiration from the very ingredients and lore of the Old Course of St. Andrews.  Ron brutalized him for it.  The hypocrisies are many, but we're all guilty of that at one time or other in our lives.

It's not fun getting older while having tons of wisdom to share, teach and further guide and hopefully inspire.  Worse when you don't want to share at all! (Ron)  Youth caught up and surpassed Ron and he is mad at the world for that!  Its surpassing all of us one way or another.  You just hope that what you have come to know and have leaned through experience gets transferred in a good way.  With Ron, it hasn't.  He comes off as a bitter old cuss who is seemingly mad at the very world he helped build. To paraphrase Robbie Coltrane's character in "From Hell", Ron has become that sad old man at the pub that no one wants to sit beside because he'll start talking about the girl that got away.

"The Girl" in this case is Golf Architecture and one thing Ron doesn't have respect for is the passion and love to really understand and inspire the very creativity he calls for. Ron insults today's architects, calling them obsessed with old age ideas, when in fact, everyone of the great architects of this day that I have been fortunate to come to know, they have respect because of what these great teachers of the game have taught them.  The very principles that will hopefully guide the game for the next 500 years or more.

God help us!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ron also wrote, "Restoration is the narrow minded substitute for imagination."  They left that out. In this day of outrage media, I'm surprised they did.  (BTW, raise your hand if you agree.....)


Tommy,


For accuracy, Ron did not write that Desmond was under the influence of LSD.  And, Ron and Desmond made up, he did more articles on him, etc., so I think it can be time for Tommy to let it go....and the piece about the island green with island bunkers was part of his on again, off again series of humorous "architorture" columns, which skewered many of us at some point.  Next to his Carnak bit, (with an unnamed gca to protect the guilty) it was him at his funniest.


Ron is not bitter or angry.  And, having recently lost 50 lbs., is playing walking golf now.  And, happy about it. And, still working at reviewing courses of all types, having done more to promote a wider variety of architects than anyone I have known, rather than focus on the top 3 to 5 hot architects.  Yeah, gca criticism got away from him and grew beyond what he imagined, but he can go to his grave knowing he basically invented the profession and/or genre at least of gca critiques.


Short version, the assumptions you made in that last post are pretty far off base.  But, I guess that is today's internet, and possibly, people feel criticizing the criticizer is fair play, and it probably is.

[Tommy Naccarato]

Jeff, FACT: That article bugged Desmond till the day he died.  I’d listen to him for hours ramble on about it.  He felt betrayed and misquoted.  I understand your defense of Ron as he has always posted positively about your courses, but others have not had the same experience, so it would be foolish to try to say otherwise.  The proof is that article.  DESMOND’S OWN WORDS TO ME: They made me into a LSD-induced idiot!”


While I’m happy for Ron losing that 50lbs.  Hopefully he can lose the bitterness he seemingly has for architecture; it’s fans and the people who continue to promote it.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tommy,




Cheers and hope all is well.  We haven't talked for quite some time.


Well, if Desmond stayed bitter to you, he was gracious to Ron face to face after the article, and not sure what that says about Desmond.  Human, I guess.  And again, just to clarify, the LSD reference was a statement from Desmond to you, not something Ron wrote in a mainstream magazine, which I am sure was against their standards.  That is the possible misconception I wanted to clear up, now that defamation and other journalistic standards have gone down with the advent of the internet.


Yes, Ron and I have been friends, and he has said some nice things about my courses, more than some other critics.  He has done that for many architects and I don't feel I get any particularly skewed treatment. 


I have talked with him.  I sense no bitterness whatsoever.  And, you have always been known as one who will go somewhat over the top, sometimes even to attribute bad motives to people you don't agree with, which is usually a bad way to attribute various actions to people you barely know.


Anyway, that's all I know.

[Niall C]

FWIW, not having really read much or anything by Ron Whitten before I thought the article was meant to be provocative and entertaining and I think it certainly succeeded in that judging by this thread. Maybe the interesting thing is whether some of the themes it raises are still relevant 10 years after.


Anyway, it didn't strike me as being written by a bitter man but then I don't know him or his back story.


Niall

[Tim Martin]

Tommy-I’m normally not a big fan of mountain golf because of the inherent challenges with the terrain but Muirhead’s Haystack Golf Club in Vermont is a blast to play. He did a great job of integrating the holes and using the natural landforms to create compelling shots. Finally except for the uphill three minute trek from nine green to ten tee the course is very walkable. Hope all is well.

[Tommy Naccarato]

Doing good Tim!  Hope all is well during these crazy times!


I’m not a fan of mountain golf either, let alone the side of a hill, but Desmond created Quail Ranch that unfortunately is no longer existing in Moreno Valley, about three miles off of the 60 freeway going towards Palm Springs, right before you go into Box Canyon.  This golf course had some of the best greens in Southern California, and the strategies were what I think this group would find extremely entertaining!


Sadly, the place ran afoul of bad ownership; changed many of the holes as well as planted palm trees everywhere till it finally closed around the time of the market collapse in 2008.  There were grand plans for this place; it was going to have a hotel & convention center and the view of the Perris Valley was quite beautiful with all of the putts breaking uncannily towards a breast of a mountain which many who played there labeled, “Mt. Tit!”  You couldn’t miss it!  You can still see the remnants of this former gem, and sadly, I visited there with Desmond once.  He was quite infuriated—as he should have been—with what had happened there.



Jeff, All is good! 


Here is Quail Ranch’s 5th hole which could play from 320 to 400 yards from varying tees, which Desmond started employing in a course within a course fashion!

[archie_struthers]

 




Tommy so nice to see you here and as always welcome!


I feel so bad that I missed out on meeting Desmond at Stone Harbor when the job was going down. As is my nature was nosing around a little bit when I saw all the machines looking like something out of the War of the Worlds! Would have loved to talk to him about what he was doing and how it all[size=78%] tied in![/size]
[/size]
By the way I'm crazy about Norse Mythology et al, Greeks , Romans all those dudes




Rave on TN

[Tom_Doak]

3.  Original Sheep Ranch...where the winner of the prior hole picks the next green to play for...very interesting concept, but really limits golf course's player capacity...and that concept has now disappeared from its origin

4.  Par 3 courses...IMO one of two real winners in this group...fun fun fun...and great practice ground

Paul: 

The Sheep Ranch, like the par-3 courses, was designed purely with fun in mind.  Both of them helped to break down the idea that you have to have a certain number of holes, which you can't even get to without also abandoning norms of par and yardage.

I think "fun" has been the biggest innovation in golf over the course of my career.  MacKenzie talked of "pleasurable excitement" but he did not use the word "fun" -- I'm not sure if that was a generational thing or whether he was afraid of not being taken seriously.  We talked about that while building High Pointe, and Gil Hanse and I used the word in the first brochure for Renaissance Golf Design, because nobody else was using that word to describe what they were doing.

Jim Engh, Mike Strantz, and David Kidd all have different styles, and different ideas of what's fun in golf, but that is what each of them has pursued, too.  I can't think of any architects who were thinking that way in 1975, and I can't think of any that talked about it [other than MacKenzie] in 1925.

[Tommy Naccarato]

Thanks Archie!


Tom, As far as I’m concerned, in my experience, if it’s not FUN, if it doesn’t make you want to challenge yourself further, then it’s simply boring golf!  I like holes that make me giggle.  Holes that make me laugh.  Golf holes I don’t ever want to stop trying to better aa a shot maker!  The original Sheep Ranch was that!

[David Ober]

Doing good Tim!  Hope all is well during these crazy times!


I’m not a fan of mountain golf either, let alone the side of a hill, but Desmond created Quail Ranch that unfortunately is no longer existing in Moreno Valley, about three miles off of the 60 freeway going towards Palm Springs, right before you go into Box Canyon.  This golf course had some of the best greens in Southern California, and the strategies were what I think this group would find extremely entertaining!


Sadly, the place ran afoul of bad ownership; changed many of the holes as well as planted palm trees everywhere till it finally closed around the time of the market collapse in 2008.  There were grand plans for this place; it was going to have a hotel & convention center and the view of the Perris Valley was quite beautiful with all of the putts breaking uncannily towards a breast of a mountain which many who played there labeled, “Mt. Tit!”  You couldn’t miss it!  You can still see the remnants of this former gem, and sadly, I visited there with Desmond once.  He was quite infuriated—as he should have been—with what had happened there.



Jeff, All is good! 


Here is Quail Ranch’s 5th hole which could play from 320 to 400 yards from varying tees, which Desmond started employing in a course within a course fashion!

Quail Ranch. Wow. Was just discussing that gem with a buddy who said if he won the lottery he'd bring it back. Would love to be a part of that!


Lots of great memories there. My first competitive round in the old Riverside County  Am was played there.  They also had a Thursday(?) skins game that was a blast. Learned to make a 4 foot putt on 18 to close out a match there after years of never being able to do so.