I'm writing it for Wednesday - The Immediate Need in GCA

[Peter Pallotta]

One of the greatest jazz recordings of all time is Coleman Hawkins' rendition of "Body and Soul", three minutes of wholly improvised genius tossed off as the last song of the recording session, late one night in 1939. 

Fairly popular before that, after Hawkins' version of "Body and Soul" became a huge hit the original song itself was quickly deemed -- as has forever remained -- a classic, a true jazz standard. For years afterwards, the song's composer, Johnny Green, was constantly asked about it, i.e. whether he knew he was writing something special, and that it would be a hit.

Later in life, Johnny Green said: “You know, I was interviewed a lot about ‘Body and Soul,’ and these klutzes would always say, ‘Tell me, when you were writing Body and Soul' did you know that you were writing a classic?’ And I say, ‘A CLASSIC? What are you talking about? I knew I was writing it for WEDNESDAY!'” [A new Broadway show was starting rehearsals on a Wednesday and producers needed one more song right away.]

Over the last 15-20 years, have architects been designing their courses "for Wednesday", or instead have they been determinedly/consciously trying to design a "hit"? In the original golden age, was designing for Wednesday more common (or less common) than it is today? What do we gain / lose when courses are designed for Wednesday?    

[Craig Sweet]

I don't think any creative person sets out to create a "hit".  They might have an idea during the process that they are on to something good, but until the public hears it, sees it, reads it, plays it, and weighs in... it simply is...nothing is a "hit" in and of itself.

[Tom_Doak]

I don't think any creative person sets out to create a "hit".  They might have an idea during the process that they are on to something good, but until the public hears it, sees it, reads it, plays it, and weighs in... it simply is...nothing is a "hit" in and of itself.

Are you kidding?  Popular recording artists are constantly under pressure from record companies, agents, and their fans to produce a hit. 


That’s not why anyone starts making music, and they know it - creativity for the sake of it is Stage 1.  Stage 2 is when the commercial pressures come in.  Some become very cynical about it, because they know that’s not the right approach to great music, though it has certainly been accomplished by such an approach.  (But, more often than not, NOT accomplished.)


Golf architecture has most of the same commercial pressures, from the client and often from the designer himself, who wants to step into the big leagues (or maintain his status).


However, once you have succeeded at building a hit, I think most architects are self aware enough to recognize how rare that was and how many things had to go right.  So if you’re smart, you reach Stage 3, and go back to “designing for Wednesday,” and not worrying about the rankings much anymore (even though everyone around you will constantly ask about them because they themselves are still in stage 2).


Stage 3 is more likely to produce hits than stage 2, in my personal experience.  And so is stage 1 😉.

[Ira Fishman]

It strikes me that there is a difference between a “hit” and a “classic”. There have been plenty of chart toppers that faded from view just as there have been plenty of courses that debuted as ranked highly and then descended. So I definitely understand how commercial pressures lead to Designing for Wednesday, but there must be circumstances where an architect is shooting for a classic which are rarer. By the way, I would bet that Green knew Body and Soul was a terrific song as he was writing it.


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

It strikes me that there is a difference between a “hit” and a “classic”. There have been plenty of chart toppers that faded from view just as there have been plenty of courses that debuted as ranked highly and then descended. So I definitely understand how commercial pressures lead to Designing for Wednesday, but there must be circumstances where an architect is shooting for a classic which are rarer. By the way, I would bet that Green knew Body and Soul was a terrific song as he was writing it.

Absolutely you know whether you are working on something terrific.  But, since that's a matter of opinion, you can't be too certain it will be a hit.


So often in GCA, it comes down to other things.  St. Andrews Beach was a better piece of land for golf than some of my more highly-ranked courses, and I think it's some of our best work, but I knew from the beginning that being so close to the ocean without being able to see it would hold the course back in the rankings.  We didn't try to overcompensate for that.

[Thomas Dai]

Oh to be privately wealthy like say a Tom Simpson and be able to pick and choose.
1’s and 3’s only?
Atb

[Peter Pallotta]

'So if you're smart, you reach Stage 3, and go back to designing for Wednesday'.

I don't know, Tom. I don't think there are all that many smart and self aware architects (or writers or pop musicians) around. I just don't see it or hear it or read it in the work that's out there.

And I have the impression that Johnny Green himself likely spent much of his later career trying to write another Body and Soul/classic/hit (in part because the greats of the business, like Cole Porter and George Gershwin and Irving Berlin,  were able to do just that).

But I'm glad the professionals here treat their earnest and eager interlocutors more nicely than Green did his; I don't remember any of you ever calling any of us klutzes -- at least not to our faces!!

[Mike Nuzzo]

nice topic and story Peter


so what conflicting interests may impair a designer's abilities during stage 2?


forced to respond to a client about specific design decisions
marketing to a broader audience
being too busy to focus on the processes that created the work during stage 1
bigger budgets that allow for overproduced or overdone work
fear of changing what was successful


peace

[Jeff_Brauer]

Many projects (not those dream projects most of us get only once in a lifetime, if that) usually have both design and construction deadlines, and each can put you in the Wednesday camp for some period of time.


In design, you either have to get plans out for a bid or in house construction start to meet planting dates six months distant.  A week time loss at the front end usually costs a month on the back end of finishing the project, so no, you can't design leisurely in most cases.  You can put out only the drawings (and more important, quantities for clearing, grading, drainage, etc.) that will be close to what is final and then draw plans or make decisions as you go within that framework, which give a bit of flexibility, but there are some limitations.


And ditto for construction.  You just can't be out there obsessing over every little diddle bump for too much time.  At some point, you have to call it good and get on with the next phase of construction.  Theoretically, that can limit design creativity.  In practice, it's really mostly a matter of both knowing what you want to do and showing up to supervise at timely points.


As to broadening the market Mike N talks about, but I find in many cases, I might be considering whether to make an internal green contour another 2" higher.  Then I realize I am only trying to impress Golf Club Atlas, and the super shows up and asks me "What the hell are you thinking?" and I get on with the project, LOL.


As to design itself, Mike N alludes to the fear of changing a style.  It reminds me of a Fleetwood Mac concert I once attended.  they said the record company tells them they want every album different, but just not too different, and usually balk at something radically new. to related things.


Over 20 years here, I have seen many comments about designers selling out, kowtowing to clients, etc., and the music analogy is a good one.  That said, business aspects sooner or later creep into everything, and its not always a bad thing, at worst, it is what it is.  No one can work in the perfectly conceptual realm in today's - or probably any era's situation.  Maybe George Crump?

[Tim Liddy]

Neil deGrasse Tyson, "You cannot be productive and creative at the same time."

[Jeff_Mingay]

Tim,


That is a great quote.

[Kyle Harris]

Heh.

Most popular music follows similar formulae and rules for what sounds good. We gush over pedal points and certain chord progressions and resolutions. They work. You add a hook and put a voice to it. Add some sex appeal and bam.

Hmm. Formulas redressed to suit a site or context but essentially the same?

Seth Raynor, Charles Banks, and CB Macdonald. The original Pop GCA.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Heh.

Most popular music follows similar formulae and rules for what sounds good. We gush over pedal points and certain chord progressions and resolutions. They work. You add a hook and put a voice to it. Add some sex appeal and bam.

Hmm. Formulas redressed to suit a site or context but essentially the same?

Seth Raynor, Charles Banks, and CB Macdonald. The original Pop GCA.

Pop or cover band?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Neil deGrasse Tyson, "You cannot be productive and creative at the same time."

There is some truth to that.  Of all the associates I have had (trained to go on their own ) over the years, the ones I felt were creative types were always slower than the productive ones who liked to sit and produce what they did the last time to speed things up.


Like Kyle, I have made the music analogy a few times (largely only use 4 chords, etc., and still come up with literally a million different songs over time)  Many things have become sort of standardized in gca, (not bad, its after they have been found to work well) and it is always easiest to return to some "slightly modified to fit the site" idea than it is to endlessly try to come up with something new.  You know it works, at least if you fit it well.


That's one reason I start designing on plans, it gives me more time to come up with the new over waiting until I get in the field and hoping inspiration strikes because I know once under construction, you are always working for Wednesday.

[William_G]

It strikes me that there is a difference between a “hit” and a “classic”. There have been plenty of chart toppers that faded from view just as there have been plenty of courses that debuted as ranked highly and then descended. So I definitely understand how commercial pressures lead to Designing for Wednesday, but there must be circumstances where an architect is shooting for a classic which are rarer. By the way, I would bet that Green knew Body and Soul was a terrific song as he was writing it.

Absolutely you know whether you are working on something terrific.  But, since that's a matter of opinion, you can't be too certain it will be a hit.


So often in GCA, it comes down to other things.  St. Andrews Beach was a better piece of land for golf than some of my more highly-ranked courses, and I think it's some of our best work, but I knew from the beginning that being so close to the ocean without being able to see it would hold the course back in the rankings.  We didn't try to overcompensate for that.

similar to RCD and Portrush? never been to SAB

[Don Mahaffey]

Neil deGrasse Tyson, "You cannot be productive and creative at the same time."

I’m not buying it.  The idea that having more time makes one more creative might be accepted by some, but not me.  It seems to me that the longer the ideas get mulled over, the more the real creative stuff gets wiped out in favor of what Jeff described with the Supt who wants it all dumbed down so it’ll be easy to care for.  I haven’t met that guy yet; I find most Supts very open to creative ideas.   


Tyson’s quote may mean you have to be careful about reaching an unhealthy balance between creativity and production, but I also think one has to be careful about thinking every creative idea must somehow be explainable.   Which is why being productive by getting the creative ideas built quickly before everyone reviews them is often the best way to build something different.

[Tom_Doak]

Neil deGrasse Tyson, "You cannot be productive and creative at the same time."

I’m not buying it.  The idea that having more time makes one more creative might be accepted by some, but not me.  It seems to me that the longer the ideas get mulled over, the more the real creative stuff gets wiped out in favor of what Jeff described with the Supt who wants it all dumbed down so it’ll be easy to care for.  I haven’t met that guy yet; I find most Supts very open to creative ideas.   


Tyson’s quote may mean you have to be careful about reaching an unhealthy balance between creativity and production, but I also think one has to be careful about thinking every creative idea must somehow be explainable.   Which is why being productive by getting the creative ideas built quickly before everyone reviews them is often the best way to build something different.

Totally agree with this take.  I often find myself being more creative when I’m on deadline.  But I do have a safety net:  I always try to organize things so if I have a hole I’m not happy with, we can skip over it and come back to it later.  Some contractors argue about that, but they are just trying to win a power struggle - it is very rare that you really have to finish and plant the 3rd hole NOW instead of going to the 4th and 5th and then coming back to it.

[Peter Pallotta]

To continue the analogy:

Johnny Green planned a set of chords/chord progression. Coleman Hawkins improvised on that progression. The golf architect needs to be both Green and Hawkins.

PS - Green's chord progression was solid and fundamentally sound, but yet quite unique. [Unlike the progression of Gershwin's 'I've Got Rhythm', it didn't later serve as the basis for hundreds of other songs.] Hawkins' solo was rich in technical mastery and improvised musical ideas, but it stayed very firmly rooted in the chords/chord progression, ie more of a harmonic-vertical-deeper kind of creativity than a melodic-horizontal-linear one.

PSS - oh heck, if you have 3 minutes here it is. [You'll note that Hawk barely mentions the melody.]
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkvju_DlP8A&list=OLAK5uy_kmDPxEmNCbc9NoGzbtn14epuzYbICEWWU

[Tom_Doak]

Many projects (not those dream projects most of us get only once in a lifetime, if that) usually have both design and construction deadlines, and each can put you in the Wednesday camp for some period of time.


In design, you either have to get plans out for a bid or in house construction start to meet planting dates six months distant.  A week time loss at the front end usually costs a month on the back end of finishing the project, so no, you can't design leisurely in most cases.  You can put out only the drawings (and more important, quantities for clearing, grading, drainage, etc.) that will be close to what is final and then draw plans or make decisions as you go within that framework, which give a bit of flexibility, but there are some limitations.


And ditto for construction.  You just can't be out there obsessing over every little diddle bump for too much time.  At some point, you have to call it good and get on with the next phase of construction.  Theoretically, that can limit design creativity.  In practice, it's really mostly a matter of both knowing what you want to do and showing up to supervise at timely points

Honestly, sometimes I think we must live on different planets.  Most of my projects take so long to get from routing to construction that I could walk across America in between!


Out of 40 courses I have done there waxx as exactly one - Charlotte Golf Links (NLE) - where they wanted to start two months after I saw the property, and I just had to quickly draw a plan and commit to it - and then we hit rock and had to change holes on the fly, and I was not proud of the result.  So, never again.  If a client can’t give me enough time to do a plan I’m happy with, I don’t want the job.


(Which is why I don’t get clients like that.)


I do agree with the last paragraph- there comes a point where you have to make a decision about the 12th hole, and if you can’t decide by then what’s the best option, that is your own fault.  Sometimes it takes me another trip a month later to figure out the right answer, but if there is a hole like that, I’m going to organize things so it’s toward the end of construction, and just keep looking at it every trip until I figure it out. 


(As I have mentioned here before, the 18th at Stonewall (Old) was like that.  Most people assume I changed the Fazio routing in order to put the 18th up against the buildings, but I signed up for the job in March and I didn’t have the “Eureka!” moment until July!  I changed the routing to make the 9th and 10th better.)

[Tom_Doak]

To continue the analogy:

Johnny Green planned a set of chords/chord progression. Coleman Hawkins improvised on that progression. The golf architect needs to be both Green and Hawkins.

Peter:  No not at all!  The golf course architect just gets all the credit.  There are several other people working on every project who might improvise in a way analogous to what Coleman Hawkins did, and if they come up with something cool, it’s going to stay.


PS. Incidentally, I have refrained from mentioning it for years of these analogies, but my associate Eric Iverson’s father was a jazz musician of some renown, and people like Brian Slawnik and Jeff Bradley and Brian Curley are also musicians in their non-golf time.  I on the other hand can’t play a note, but I think they are all particularly well suited to the sort of collaborative approach we take to construction.

[Ira Fishman]

In fact, in music, it often is the musician rather than the composer who gets much of the credit.


I enjoy and find useful the analogies to music, but when it comes to the productivity/creativity dynamic, they do diverge. A composer/musician can offer multiple songs on the same recording that is produced in a relatively short time. Viny/digital imposes minimal limits on quantity. A gca works against different limits. Producing multiple “takes” is not feasible. Perhaps the reason for the admiration for Ross is that he produced so many courses at such a high level of quality.


Ira

[Kevin_Reilly]

Heh.

Most popular music follows similar formulae and rules for what sounds good. We gush over pedal points and certain chord progressions and resolutions. They work. You add a hook and put a voice to it. Add some sex appeal and bam.

Your post reminded me of this video.  With 67 million views, I imagine most have seen it, but it is still good:


https://youtu.be/5pidokakU4I

[Jeff_Brauer]

Neil deGrasse Tyson, "You cannot be productive and creative at the same time."

I’m not buying it.  The idea that having more time makes one more creative might be accepted by some, but not me.  It seems to me that the longer the ideas get mulled over, the more the real creative stuff gets wiped out in favor of what Jeff described with the Supt who wants it all dumbed down so it’ll be easy to care for.  I haven’t met that guy yet; I find most Supts very open to creative ideas.   


Tyson’s quote may mean you have to be careful about reaching an unhealthy balance between creativity and production, but I also think one has to be careful about thinking every creative idea must somehow be explainable.   Which is why being productive by getting the creative ideas built quickly before everyone reviews them is often the best way to build something different.

Don,


My experience is that time can help, but only if you use it to put away the project in a drawer somewhere and come back to it later.  Time off often gives us a fresh perspective over toiling all night to come up with the perfect combo of holes, or what have you.  Most of the time when you are trying to crank out new ideas in a quick row, you are really going back to nearly the same idea you drew up the last time, or maybe earlier in the evening.  Then someone pulls it out and you see you haven't budged an inch in your thinking. 


When you do start working on a plan after a delay, you often wonder why you got stuck on one particular facet, and find that if you ignore that, or change it, the whole design comes together.


Of course, as to working better when on a deadline, many old sayings come to mind, including, "if you want something done, give it to someone who is busy" and "Necessity is the Mother of invention."

[Tom_Doak]

Neil deGrasse Tyson, "You cannot be productive and creative at the same time."

I’m not buying it.  The idea that having more time makes one more creative might be accepted by some, but not me.  It seems to me that the longer the ideas get mulled over, the more the real creative stuff gets wiped out in favor of what Jeff described with the Supt who wants it all dumbed down so it’ll be easy to care for.  I haven’t met that guy yet; I find most Supts very open to creative ideas.   


Tyson’s quote may mean you have to be careful about reaching an unhealthy balance between creativity and production, but I also think one has to be careful about thinking every creative idea must somehow be explainable.   Which is why being productive by getting the creative ideas built quickly before everyone reviews them is often the best way to build something different.

Don,


My experience is that time can help, but only if you use it to put away the project in a drawer somewhere and come back to it later.  Time off often gives us a fresh perspective over toiling all night to come up with the perfect combo of holes, or what have you.  Most of the time when you are trying to crank out new ideas in a quick row, you are really going back to nearly the same idea you drew up the last time, or maybe earlier in the evening.  Then someone pulls it out and you see you haven't budged an inch in your thinking. 


When you do start working on a plan after a delay, you often wonder why you got stuck on one particular facet, and find that if you ignore that, or change it, the whole design comes together.


Of course, as to working better when on a deadline, many old sayings come to mind, including, "if you want something done, give it to someone who is busy" and "Necessity is the Mother of invention."

This is my experience as well.  When I go back to the map a month later, it's like my brain has been working on it while I've been asleep.  You already understand where the dead-ends are, and you have let go of trying to make something work that won't.


"Necessity is the mother of invention" has sometimes led to the best feature of a course, but for others, it can lead to the worst.  Some guys are just not as creative, or not as good under pressure.


From that standpoint, the greatest advantage I've had is the chance to work with big sites that are only about golf.  If I am stuck trying to build a good green in a certain spot, and I can't make it work, I usually have elbow room to move that green and the next tee to somewhere better! 


Can't do that if you are hemmed in by housing, although I smile remembering the conversations I overheard at Long Cove forty summers ago: 
"I want to build a tee back here."
"That's a house lot, Pete."
"I'll buy the lot."
"We've already got you down for twelve of them." 

[Adam Lawrence]

I think most creative people have elements of bipolarity to their personality, even if they aren't clinically bipolar. How else can you explain the creative rush that comes over you every now and again, except as some form (even if a mild one) of mania?


On the flipside of that, being creative to order is one of the toughest things. What I do is only tangentially creative, but sitting in front of a blank screen and knowing that you only have a certain amount of time to fill it with words, hopefully decent ones, is just flat out hard.