Mark,
Great question, and like golf courses themselves, there are many variations among gca's.
I know that I apprenticed with great technical guys, one was a fair artist, but neither knew anything about golf, and they learned what they knew from Robert Bruce Harris, which as we all know, designed for maintenance first. They tended to follow that path. And, they every so often made some good technical decisions that were horrible for play. So, when we first had the opportunity to work with Jim Colbert, I felt it enlightened me a lot, but they mostly refused to incorporate much of what he said good players looked for.....which is why, when I left he chose (among other reasons) to go with me. And I continued to work with various pros, sometimes just by chance, but learned a bit from every one of them.
Short version....I knew my deficiency as a designer was not understanding what they (good players) look for. So, I managed to improve my appreciation beyond what KN taught me, or even by what I learned back then from the World Atlas of Golf, by handing with folks who really did know. By my game, I was qualified to assess the average player, LOL.
A few things were that they didn't really look at green frontal openings as much as all the golden age writing would suggest. One would rather be on the same side of the fw as the green bunker, so he could aim at the far edge of the green, attempt to bring it back, and have the most margin for error. Another said having the green front opening allowed him to club down when between clubs, and allow uphill putts. If coming over a bunker, he hit it harder with more spin to back it to the hole, in essence giving himself the most margin for error distance wise, rather than cross ways.
I guess we have do define the phrase of "appreciating architecture?" For who?
I find various golfers appreciation of courses seems to fall in line with their handicap.
- Good golfers comment on hard holes, and holes that "fit the eye."
- Average golfers comment on beauty most of all, and unusual holes occasionally (usually in the negative, so maybe there is no appreciation there)
- Poor ones count lost balls.
And all golfers seem to judge their every day courses as being good i
f they shoot about their average score. So, if a course plays about as any level of golfer expects, has some aesthetics and isn't too hard, at least they relate to some portion of the architecture, which does encompass many things.
A related topic, but how good does a golfer have to be to be in this biz? Or even just play business golf? I generally believe (perhaps based on where my game usually is) that not hitting ground balls is good enough to leave a favorable enough impression on whoever you are playing with. My handicap (when I really had one) ranged from 7 to 17 at various points, with the 7 coming after my trip to the Dave Pelz Short Game clinic (Thanks, Dave's guys!) I hope a 17, with few ground balls but a fair share of stubbed chips and 3 putts is viewed as favorable to potential clients, enough not to dismiss me out of hand. They seem to understand that virtually no one has enough time to work on the short game.
Lastly, I once was in charge of the ASGCA annual meeting golf tournament. I don't recall if Forrest ever did it (among the many things he has done for the group over the years) but many think ability to handle that group on the golf course is a good indicator of how they might handle greater responsibilities, LOL. At any rate, if memory serves, the average handicap of ASGCA members was 26 or something, i.e., average to poor golfers. A fair number of them rarely played at all. Some were embarrassed at being so poor, others who formerly played well were embarrassed at not playing as well as they used to. Among mid century architects, the only one I can recall getting better with age was Larry Packard. If you count Brad Klein as among the fraternity, he may have made the biggest handicap drop I ever saw, making his "Igolfbadly" email address a bit outdated.
