What if we let someone repaint Guernica, or Mona Lisa, or Las dos Fridas?

[Jim Hoak]

I think Forrest has it right back in Post #4.  Golf courses are not static; they are living, breathing things.  They are constantly changing, trees and grass growing, wind moving dunes around, and nature changing the canvas on which they were originally built. Restoration is not sacrilege.  It is when done properly restoring the course to what it was, and what it can and should be.  In my mind the best restoration architects are constantly asking, "What would MacKenzie (or Tillinghast or Raynor or whoever) do if he could see this course and this land today?"

[Tom_Doak]

BTW, as to the central question, maybe Kalen has it right.  While it really isn't important enough to enough people, I suppose there could be some sort of rating system or maybe we just encourage the four or five golf journalists who cover such things to at least come up with a loose label system, i.e., renovation, restorvation, loose restoration, sympathetic restoration, true restoration, etc.  I agree many courses have been called a "restoration" that really have the new architects stamp on them more than the "can't tell they were there" stamp.

I had this exact conversation with Stephen Goodwin today who is writing another book and wanted to represent my body of work "accurately".  When we got to the consulting part, I just told him to call them all "consulting clients" and leave it at that.  Some are true restorations [listed earlier in this thread], some didn't quite want that [Cherry Hills, Onwentsia, Woodhall Spa], some just have me on call to tend to the minor details when they come up [Chicago Golf Club, Royal Melbourne], and a few involved major changes [Atlantic City, Concord and The National in Australia, etc].  It's a wide range because that's what the situations call for, or at least it's what they want.

[Tom_Doak]

In none of those cases did I change things to "restore the design intent" [your term] or the "shot values" [Mike's term, although I do think we have restored the original strategy . . . just not for players who can hit it a lot farther than the players of the 1920's].  We put all the features back onto the ground where they used to be, and maybe left a few extra back tees and some forward tees if there was room.  That is what Peter defined as a restoration.  What you do is not.

Were those back and forward tees there from the beginning? If not, then it doesn't conform to Peter's definition:


Example: a 1920s course was originally 6350 yards long, with two sets of tees, and fairway bunkers some 200-225 yards off the tee, with very few trees, and large & well-contoured greens with slopes sometimes in the 3-4 degree range, and deep green-side hazards set hard against the edges.A restoration would result in a course that is 6350 yards long, with two sets of tees and fairway bunkers some 200-225 off the tee, with very few trees and well-contoured & sloping greens with penal hazards set right up against them.That's a restoration. Everything else is a renovation.

Donal:


My take on that is that if you can play the exact course that was built in the beginning, with the bunkers in the same places and the greens undisturbed, then it doesn't matter whether there are alternate choices for tees or not, it's a restoration.  But once you start moving the bunkers around to guess at what Donald Ross would do today, you disturb the relationships between tee and hazard and green, and between hazard and ground, and I don't know how you can call that a "restoration" as Mark and Jim Hoak and others have done.  That's a restoration ONLY FOR ONE PARTICULAR PLAYER, and golf is not like that.


But I guess that's not exactly how Peter wrote it, you are correct.


Also, I'd like to refer back to the original post here:  I am arguing in favor of preserving the Guernicas and Mona Lisas of golf courses.  Unfortunately, they are mostly the clubs who have the money to blow their courses up and restore them to some new version of themselves, which is the very definition of "renovation".

[Tom_Doak]

I just watched the video on the “restoration" of Pinehurst #2. 

https://youtu.be/wxgFX2jyihk

It is very well done and I actually think it provides a great summary of what many of us (I know I go through most of this) when doing what I will call “restoration type work”.  Is it “true restoration”, you tell me?  What label should be put on work like this?  Some here say we should call a spade a spade. 

C&C as well as Pinehurst's Robert Dedman Jr and Don Padgett II are featured and comment on the project.  Right out of the gate Robert and Don state that the restoration was designed "to restore the course’s natural and historic character, and the strategic options that were the centerpiece of Ross’s vision"! I know some here don’t like when I have talked about trying to restore design intent.  Seems like this is part of what they were trying to restore.  They go on to say they wanted to capture “the spirit” of Ross that had been lost as well as position the course for future championship golf.  Bill and Ben state that they wanted to capture the vision of the course from the 1935-1960’s period and they relied heavily on an old 1943 aerial found by Craig Disher (Craig is awesome by the way, he has found important aerials in the past for me and many others).  Bill states that they had a lot of information, "enough to be almost dangerous” about the course.  But they only tweaked two of the greens.  In fact they rarely mention the greens as those were apparently off limits even though many of us know how they evolved over time. 

Bottomline, Pinehurst #2 in golf course architecture is like the Mona Lisa in paintings.  Ben called it a museum piece in the video.  What is #2 now?   

Bottom line:  in the case of Pinehurst #2, as you well know, the Mona Lisa's face has aged gradually over time.  [Some would say it has "aged gracefully," and others might argue the point; Pete Dye would have argued it.] 


They chose not to change the greens from how they had evolved, just like Riviera chose to keep their bunkers the way they had evolved over time [deeper and flashier than how they were built].  It was the safe choice, and you can't really blame them for that.


But of course they don't discuss that in their videos, because they are justifying and promoting what they did do, rather than looking at both sides of the debate.  Big corporations prefer to gloss over the details.

[Peter Pallotta]

The most interesting part of this thread for me is Tom's "golf is not like that" idea, ie that trying to 'restore' the 'original shot values' by moving bunkers out to 250-280 yards from the tee instead of leaving them at 200-220 yards out actually preferences only one type of golfer -- and ends up (my extrapolation, not Tom's) proscribing a way to play the hole instead of letting the architecture speak for itself. I'd never thought of that before. It's a new idea to me.

[Mark_Fine]

Maybe we can all at least agree there are different iterations or depths or variations of restoration.  Pinehurst #2 in my opinion provides a great example.  Even C&C call it a “restoration” and they talk about restoring original strategic intent and the spirit of Ross, etc.  These things are all part of at least some restoration type processes.  What I know for sure is NOT restoration is when there is little to no regard to what was once there.  I think we can at the minimum agree on that


Tom,
One question for you and my memory is vague but I believe it was at The Valley Club, I remember playing it with a member and I think he said there was some debate about restoring “top shot” bunkers, those that would only hinder the weaker golfer.  I think you put those back in but my memory is not clear.  I am trying to find my notes on the round.  This is one example where there is sometimes a challenge with restoring everything exactly as it once was.  Many of these type hazards were removed over time and when any of us propose putting them back in which you know will primarily hurt the weaker golfers, there is opposition.  Just another example why “true restoration” as we are now calling it is very very challenging. 

[JC Urbina]

Mark,


The top shot bunkers as you refer to were on a few of the holes at the Valley Club the most contentious was the 15th hole.  We added a forward tee for the senior members to assist in the ease of navigation. Other holes that were not restored in the original go around were # 6 and # 12.

[Tom_Doak]

The top shot bunkers as you refer to were on a few of the holes at the Valley Club the most contentious was the 15th hole.  We added a forward tee for the senior members to assist in the ease of navigation. Other holes that were not restored in the original go around were # 6 and # 12.

Indeed, in many of our restorations, there have been one or two bunkers that the committee pushed back on restoring because they would only hurt weaker golfers.  In about half those cases, they have had us come back and restore those bunkers 2-3 years later.  For The Valley Club, the bunkers at 12 and 15 are now restored, but the one on #6 [which would block the view of another bunker immediately behind it] has not been restored. 


I would love to ask Robert Hunter what the purpose of that bunker was.

[Mark_Fine]

Jim and Tom,
Thanks for the update on that. Yes those kinds of bunkers are always challenging to justify restoring. 


I think you will both agree as will most others that the quality of a restoration can have A LOT to do with the quality of the information you have/can find.  If you watched that Pinehurst #2 video that 1943 aerial was precious to Bill and Ben and the whole restoration process.  All of us who do this kind of work know that this kind of historic information whether it be old aerials, original drawings, old photos, newspaper clipping, writings/notes from the original architect, club meeting notes,...., are usually not all sitting neatly in a box waiting to be reviewed.  This is the kind of work that can take time and patience and not everyone is willing to do it or sometimes lucky enough to discover it even if they try.  We have also spend days doing spoil probes trying to locate original bunker locations or green edges,...This kind of effort especially when successful can be priceless for a project.  I know for example that there were some new recent discoveries at San Francisco GC and as a result there will be some more tweaking going on to get a few things restored more accurately.  This is yet another good example of why true restoration is so hard even if that is the architect's absolute intent.  Even a few tweaks in mowing lines can make a difference whether it be fairway widths or approaches or bunker surrounds, etc.  And then there are some (I often fall in this category) that do feel trying to assess and restore design intent is (or at least can be) important.  I know for example at LACC, Gil moved bunkers down range where he could trying to restore such lost strategy.  New tees is usually the first option considered but sometimes that is not possible.  Again is this true restoration, some will say not.  I guess a restoration like LACC falls into one of those other variations as stated above.  But again, quality of one's research has a huge impact on the quality of the restoration.  As my one contractor/shaper told me many years ago, "Finding out exactly what to restore is the most difficult part.  Once we do, building it is easy and a lot more fun."  It takes a team effort for sure!

[Steve Lang]

   I think left-Frida in the white dress would say "No Mas" on discussion of an ideal versus the reality of restoration nit-picking of qualifying differences and probably undo the hemostat clamp and bleed out...........

[Mark_Fine]

Just had this sent to me today.  Is this restoration or renovation or - you tell me.  I call this primarily restoration.  This course was almost fallow when Scott Witter and I first saw it.   It would have became a housing development on the lake were it not for Jon Urban who lived on the lake and thought the course had the potential to be something special and bought it 

https://golfcoursetrades.com/copake-country-club-turns-towards-100th-anniversary/

[Kalen Braley]

So what this a restoration or something else? 

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/napoleon-imperial-barge-scli-intl/index.html

The original barge, which had fairly muted decorative elements including an eagle on the prow, was kept in Brest from 1814 onward.

The more elaborate elements we see today -- a figure of Neptune on the prow, figures at the bow carrying imperial weapons, and the large gold crown supported by four angels on the roof -- were added in 1858 prior to a visit from Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie.

[Sean_A]

The restoration/renovation debate reminds me of my great grandfather's hammer. It's had a new head and two new handles, but it's still great granddad's hammer.

Ciao

[Mark_Fine]

I think we all know what is or isn’t restoration.  There will always be varying degrees especially when you are trying to restore something that changes every day whether we like it or not. 

[Ben Hollerbach]

The restoration/renovation debate reminds me of my great grandfather's hammer. It's had a new head and two new handles, but it's still great granddad's hammer.

Ciao

Once the head has been changed it became a new hammer, all be it still owned and used by your great grandfather.


If you kept the shaft on your driver but put a new head on it, even if it was the same make/model, wouldn't you say it was a different club than the last?