Cult Courses, Architectural Wastelands, and Serious Criticism

[Tom_Doak]

 the fragmentation of media outlets and the audience likely means we won't soon have another Jon Landau "I have seen rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen" moment, or see a Pauline Kael able to single-handedly reverse the critical response to 'Bonnie and Clyde'.

It wouldn't matter in golf, anyway, because of the rampant dishonesty.  For years, it has bothered me to find that what golf writers and p.r. people and podcasters say about courses "off the record" is radically different than what they will say on the record.  Architects, too, for that matter . . . they can be very catty in private!


It took me a few years to understand that one reason The Confidential Guide was so often quoted as "controversial" was that was an easy way for the writer to put something critical about a course they didn't like into print, and then pretend to defend it from my biased essay.  Had they actually liked the course, they would never have mentioned my review!

[Peter Pallotta]

the fragmentation of media outlets and the audience likely means we won't soon have another Jon Landau "I have seen rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen" moment, or see a Pauline Kael able to single-handedly reverse the critical response to 'Bonnie and Clyde'.

It wouldn't matter in golf, anyway, because of the rampant dishonesty.  For years, it has bothered me to find that what golf writers and p.r. people and podcasters say about courses "off the record" is radically different than what they will say on the record.  Architects, too, for that matter . . . they can be very catty in private!

It took me a few years to understand that one reason The Confidential Guide was so often quoted as "controversial" was that was an easy way for the writer to put something critical about a course they didn't like into print, and then pretend to defend it from my biased essay.  Had they actually liked the course, they would never have mentioned my review!

Well, that really brings this thread back full circle, doesn't it?
A very good thread, with lots of insightful posts and nuances and perspectives.
But re: your initial "serious criticism" question, it does indeed seem to come down to a basic fundamental, i.e.
Being honest, in all that you write and say.

[Ira Fishman]

The public's appetite for harsh reviews is waning.  I think I know the reason why.  Though it happens very slowly, times are actually much tougher than they were fifty years ago.  The future looks dim in comparison.  Sitting behind a computer and offering a withering critique is less tolerable.  People still do it sometimes.  If a prominent golf course project opened with water everywhere, flat greens and a ten mile walk around the course, you'd be compelled to identify the offending architecture and exclaim, "that's bullshit."

Waning hunger for brutal criticism as a symptom of the perceived deteriorating condition of Man is something I had not considered. I think that's really interesting, and probably has some truth to it.


Ira, I understand the position, but I guess I'm a little uncomfortable about the potential for collateral damage from a high-profile public bashing. To what extent should we empower a restaurant critic to potentially affect the livelihoods of the buspeople at the Guy Fieri joint via a devastating (rhetorically and, potentially, financially) review when he could simply decline to write that review and instead submit one of another restaurant he'd recommend?


I will say the Per Se review is a little different than the Fieri one, because at Per Se, Wells was adding his view into a discourse where that restaurant had been regarded as among the very best in the world for several years. By contrast, if I remember correctly, Fieri's place had opened recently, and it seems more like Wells was pouncing on an opportunity to create a bit of a sensation by punching down at a relatively plebeian restaurant. He certainly got more social media action by etherizing Fieri than he would have by propping up, say, an underrated Nepalese joint he'd recently discovered. Is that the highest use of his platform?

Clutch observation Tim.

Exploring this a bit further. Generally I believe that the onus is on the reviewer (and the critic too, maybe even more) to review/critique as if there will be those that prefer and those that don’t prefer the thing they’re reviewing. Approaching golf architecture critiques as an objective good vs bad debate is boring and doesn’t serve to identify the qualities of the architecture. As a reader, sure, I can make that distinction. But I think it’s important NOT to make that distinction as a matter of criticism/review.

Well, almost.  I take a lot of flak for having the "0" score as part of The Confidential Guide, but don't you think there are some courses where you wouldn't recommend that anyone bother to play them, if it's not cheap?

I don’t remember reading much flak about the Doak 0, but I can only take you at your word. I think the Doak 0 was more of a pejorative for your book thirty years ago and also in what Peter above called the “manifesto” days of GCA. In that way, it served its purpose I suppose. It’s certainly provocative and I think it absolutely makes a point about the art and your opinion of what golf architecture shouldn’t aspire to.

But does the scale really need it? Only you can answer that. As you’re fond of pointing out, other people’s Doak ratings don’t really matter since it’s *your* scale.

Perhaps the existence of the Doak 0 does a pretty good job of explaining what I was trying to explain earlier about the difference between a critique and a review.

I do remember a bit of a foofaraw about Tom giving the Castle Course a 0 in a version of the Confidential Guide. I think for the sake of consistency in my position my alternative would have been to simply not proffer any review of the course at all, and let that omission speak volumes (I consider that a fair strategy in my own course writing - give more paragraphs/better position in the piece to the courses I liked, don't dwell on the ones I didn't and let the savvy reader understand the implications). But I can't deny that the ensuing debate/drama was interesting to view from afar!


The Castle Course was changed/softened a bit after that review, wasn't it? If so, I suppose it ended up functioning as a sort of the activism that I've supported as a goal of criticism in this day and age.

Tim,


Actually the restaurant reviews for NYC have boosted many off the beaten path restaurants. Pre-COVID (and let’s hope soon post-COVID), several publications provided at least 250 word reviews of restaurants around the city on a regular basis. But as it relates to Gca, NYC does indeed support in one way or another probably 15000 restaurants because residents and visitors need to eat every day. No one needs to play golf every day, but real reviews (positive and negative) versus rankings would still be beneficial for golf.


Ira

[Joe Hancock]

the fragmentation of media outlets and the audience likely means we won't soon have another Jon Landau "I have seen rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen" moment, or see a Pauline Kael able to single-handedly reverse the critical response to 'Bonnie and Clyde'.

It wouldn't matter in golf, anyway, because of the rampant dishonesty.  For years, it has bothered me to find that what golf writers and p.r. people and podcasters say about courses "off the record" is radically different than what they will say on the record.  Architects, too, for that matter . . . they can be very catty in private!

It took me a few years to understand that one reason The Confidential Guide was so often quoted as "controversial" was that was an easy way for the writer to put something critical about a course they didn't like into print, and then pretend to defend it from my biased essay.  Had they actually liked the course, they would never have mentioned my review!

Well, that really brings this thread back full circle, doesn't it?
A very good thread, with lots of insightful posts and nuances and perspectives.
But re: your initial "serious criticism" question, it does indeed seem to come down to a basic fundamental, i.e.
Being honest, in all that you write and say.

I wonder if some might view diplomacy (ability to hold one’s tongue when it might be wise to do so) as a form of dishonesty/ disingenuousness. Honesty is a virtue, to be sure. I’m also glad my wife doesn’t *always* tell me what she thinks of me every time I do or say something foolish.

[John Kirk]

Tim,


Actually the restaurant reviews for NYC have boosted many off the beaten path restaurants. Pre-COVID (and let’s hope soon post-COVID), several publications provided at least 250 word reviews of restaurants around the city on a regular basis. But as it relates to Gca, NYC does indeed support in one way or another probably 15000 restaurants because residents and visitors need to eat every day. No one needs to play golf every day, but real reviews (positive and negative) versus rankings would still be beneficial for golf.

Ira

Hi Ira,

It seems to me the ultimate triumph for a professional critic (or reviewer) is to find that hidden gem, be it music or food or golfing experience.  It is the greatest contribution a critic can make to society.  Having early knowledge of something new and special bestows a certain credibility on a person.  It's worth a lot.


Tom and all,

We've talked about Bill James being a primary inspiration of this type of popular criticism.  It occurred to me this week that Roger Ebert preceded James by a few years, and is perhaps just as influential to this modern culture of "recreational analysis".  Gene Siskel was excellent, too, but I always though Ebert was the brightest star of the great duo.  Before I was buying Baseball Abstracts (first one in 1982), my Dad had clued me in to Siskel & Ebert at the Movies on PBS, and I was watching them regularly by the late seventies. 

[Ira Fishman]

John,


One of the reasons I enjoy NYC restaurant reviews even though we do not live there is that finding the gem is so much more possible in such a great food city.


Your reference to Roger Ebert is completely on point. An extremely thoughtful critic. Plus he was completely unpretentious—he used to spend time at a bar in Lincoln Park where he could care less if anyone knew who he was and never expected anyone to pick up his tab.


Ira

[Edward Glidewell]

No one needs to play golf every day, but real reviews (positive and negative) versus rankings would still be beneficial for golf.


Ira

I agree with you. However, I don't know how such reviews would ever gain any significant audience.

I think the vast majority of golfers that do any reading about the game at all do it in the form of the golf magazines (Golf Digest, Golf, Golfweek, et al.). Those magazines have a vested interest in avoiding any serious negative commentary about a course, because that could cut off a revenue source in the form of ad buys. They just don't have much reason to engage in that type of commentary. A golf architecture critic could self-publish, or create a website where they post their reviews (and those websites exist), but they're unlikely to ever garner a large audience that way.

Most of the other types of criticism that have been discussed here exist in newspapers or other publications/mediums that allow for frank criticism in a way the major golf publications do not, because they're not so reliant on what's being criticized for revenue.


I suppose that leads to a follow-up of whether the overall reach even matters, though. Does it really make a difference if such criticism is limited to a small niche and thus is never heard by the majority of golfers as long as it exists for the people who want it?

[Tom_Doak]

I suppose that leads to a follow-up of whether the overall reach even matters, though. Does it really make a difference if such criticism is limited to a small niche and thus is never heard by the majority of golfers as long as it exists for the people who want it?

No, it doesn't.  My first attempt was for an audience of forty!


The more disturbing part is that the stuff in the mainstream is so misleading.

[Tim Gavrich]

 the fragmentation of media outlets and the audience likely means we won't soon have another Jon Landau "I have seen rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen" moment, or see a Pauline Kael able to single-handedly reverse the critical response to 'Bonnie and Clyde'.

It wouldn't matter in golf, anyway, because of the rampant dishonesty.  For years, it has bothered me to find that what golf writers and p.r. people and podcasters say about courses "off the record" is radically different than what they will say on the record.  Architects, too, for that matter . . . they can be very catty in private!

Tom--


As a member of the writing class, I understand this perspective but I'm not sure it's quite this black-and-white.


You may be relying on an assumption that what a writer says off the record both 1) is a truer take and 2) would ultimately be a more useful take to the public than what he or she ends up writing on the record. I'm not certain that is always the case (I grant it probably is sometimes). A short, searing off-the-record take might well be the product of a knee-jerk reaction that the taker ultimately finds a little overheated in hindsight when the time comes to actually say something cogent and public about the course.


In your own conversations with people about golf courses, have you ever felt as though some of them might be trying to play your game a little bit, turning the rhetorical heat up a notch or two on their true opinion of a course as a product of their interpretation of your style in the Confidential Guide? I don't know if that's true in practice, but if there's a kernel of truth to it, it might make certain off-the-record takes less than completely authentic. It's human nature to be eager to impress people we respect and whom we see as experts on something we're passionate about. Perhaps some of that is at play sometimes?


I think there's another general reason why the off-the-record takes can sound different from the on-the-record dispatch. The off-the-record hot take is ephemeral and disposable in the way a tweet is. That doesn't necessarily make it unreliable, but the brevity of it also usually doesn't make it complete, either. It's also more likely to be grounded in personal opinion/biases in a way that the longer-form piece probably shouldn't be, at least not as much. I have written about golf courses I don't personally love several times, but for reasons I've given previously in this thread, I have a bit of a philosophical problem with letting them infect my writing too much, because I know that many people authentically do enjoy them, and that dissuades me from wholesale dismissals. Person-to-person conversation and public writing are fundamentally different forms of communication. It doesn't surprise me that there isn't complete overlap.


All that said, I think you have a point re: difference in private expressions of opinion vs. public writing about golf courses. Hoping I'll be able to do a bit more of it this year, it's something I will bear in mind.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom--

As a member of the writing class, I understand this perspective but I'm not sure it's quite this black-and-white.

You may be relying on an assumption that what a writer says off the record both 1) is a truer take and 2) would ultimately be a more useful take to the public than what he or she ends up writing on the record. I'm not certain that is always the case (I grant it probably is sometimes). A short, searing off-the-record take might well be the product of a knee-jerk reaction that the taker ultimately finds a little overheated in hindsight when the time comes to actually say something cogent and public about the course.

In your own conversations with people about golf courses, have you ever felt as though some of them might be trying to play your game a little bit, turning the rhetorical heat up a notch or two on their true opinion of a course as a product of their interpretation of your style in the Confidential Guide? I don't know if that's true in practice, but if there's a kernel of truth to it, it might make certain off-the-record takes less than completely authentic. It's human nature to be eager to impress people we respect and whom we see as experts on something we're passionate about. Perhaps some of that is at play sometimes?

I think there's another general reason why the off-the-record takes can sound different from the on-the-record dispatch. The off-the-record hot take is ephemeral and disposable in the way a tweet is. That doesn't necessarily make it unreliable, but the brevity of it also usually doesn't make it complete, either. It's also more likely to be grounded in personal opinion/biases in a way that the longer-form piece probably shouldn't be, at least not as much. I have written about golf courses I don't personally love several times, but for reasons I've given previously in this thread, I have a bit of a philosophical problem with letting them infect my writing too much, because I know that many people authentically do enjoy them, and that dissuades me from wholesale dismissals. Person-to-person conversation and public writing are fundamentally different forms of communication. It doesn't surprise me that there isn't complete overlap.

All that said, I think you have a point re: difference in private expressions of opinion vs. public writing about golf courses. Hoping I'll be able to do a bit more of it this year, it's something I will bear in mind.

Hi Tim:


Yes, perhaps it is true that sometimes they are lying to me about their opinions, instead of lying to their readers. 


I understand your points, but I'm talking about people saying directly to me that they don't like the being part of the chorus of sycophants for X or Y, but they can't risk taking the opposite line for career reasons.  They search out other stories, instead, but then they have to cover the "big stories" that the major media cover:  for example, you couldn't NOT write about Streamsong, and you couldn't say much bad about it, either.


Ron Whitten was often handcuffed because he was having to write up the results of a GOLF DIGEST panelist vote about new courses, and even when he disagreed with the results [which seemed to be about 50% of the time], he had to feign enthusiasm about the winners so as not to cast a shadow on their whole process.  They rarely let him just write on topics of his own choice and that was a shame.

[BCrosby]

Ron Whitten was often handcuffed because he was having to write up the results of a GOLF DIGEST panelist vote about new courses, and even when he disagreed with the results [which seemed to be about 50% of the time], he had to feign enthusiasm about the winners so as not to cast a shadow on their whole process.  They rarely let him just write on topics of his own choice and that was a shame.

Interesting. The most plausible explanation I've heard why the quality of writing on architecture in mass circulation mags is (and has been for a while) so markedly inferior to writing on architecture during the Golden Age. In fairness, the comparisons are tough: - Darwin, Simpson, Campbell, Fowler, Croome, Ambrose, Crane, MacK and others. But still... too much anodyne modern stuff.


It makes sense that a mag's course rankings limit the commentary that the mag will publish. Whitten and others were in no position to discredit the same rankings they oversaw.


OTOH, now that Whitten is retired, I'd love to read his 'tell-all' on the state of modern golf architecture.


Bob