Critics or Critiques

[Tom_Doak]

Being a good critic and identifying things I did or didn’t like made me a much better designer, whether or not it changed anyone else’s minds about the courses I critiqued.

And I'd suggest that if you *hadn't* gone on to design your own golf courses, and specifically the courses you have, the influence/impact of your critiques -- as insightful as they were -- would've been even *more* limited!

If you were not a designer-creator yourself, you would not have changed almost anyone's mind, and very few distinctly new kinds of golf courses would've been built -- and certainly not enough to have us talking about a renaissance.

I think that might be what Bernstein was trying to say, i.e. that an art-craft moves forward/evolves and continues to make manifest great new works not because of any critics *words* but because of the created *works themselves*.

It is the art-craft *itself* that engenders the masterpieces, not the many opinions *about* the art-craft.

I was a big fan of Roger Ebert too, and am happy to see his statue. But Martin Scorcese and Quinten Tarantino and Francis Coppola made the great films they did not because they were *listening to the critics* of their day but instead because they had *watched the great films* of years gone by.

That's the theory.

PS to Jason and Sean: yes, ideas foster more ideas and critics engender more critics -- but none of that is building great golf courses. And if/when a dramatically *new kind* of golf course is indeed built, it won't be because of ideas-critics at the Fried Egg or gca.com, but because of one brave and talented architect who *doesn't listen* to the critics!

Niall does have a point.  Besides all the useless p.r. and branding, someone has to say the course is good, whether it’s a professional critic or just the word of mouth amongst golfers.


But I do agree with you, that none of that enables a designer to actually create the successful product that engenders the praise.  It’s the same reason talk of rankings frustrates me - some speak as if the ranking was somehow as important as the work that garnered the ranking!

[Sean_A]

Being a good critic and identifying things I did or didn’t like made me a much better designer, whether or not it changed anyone else’s minds about the courses I critiqued.

And I'd suggest that if you *hadn't* gone on to design your own golf courses, and specifically the courses you have, the influence/impact of your critiques -- as insightful as they were -- would've been even *more* limited!

If you were not a designer-creator yourself, you would not have changed almost anyone's mind, and very few distinctly new kinds of golf courses would've been built -- and certainly not enough to have us talking about a renaissance.

I think that might be what Bernstein was trying to say, i.e. that an art-craft moves forward/evolves and continues to make manifest great new works not because of any critics *words* but because of the created *works themselves*.

It is the art-craft *itself* that engenders the masterpieces, not the many opinions *about* the art-craft.

I was a big fan of Roger Ebert too, and am happy to see his statue. But Martin Scorcese and Quinten Tarantino and Francis Coppola made the great films they did not because they were *listening to the critics* of their day but instead because they had *watched the great films* of years gone by.

That's the theory.

PS to Jason and Sean: yes, ideas foster more ideas and critics engender more critics -- but none of that is building great golf courses. And if/when a dramatically *new kind* of golf course is indeed built, it won't be because of ideas-critics at the Fried Egg or gca.com, but because of one brave and talented architect who *doesn't listen* to the critics!

Niall does have a point.  Besides all the useless p.r. and branding, someone has to say the course is good, whether it’s a professional critic or just the word of mouth amongst golfers.


But I do agree with you, that none of that enables a designer to actually create the successful product that engenders the praise.  It’s the same reason talk of rankings frustrates me - some speak as if the ranking was somehow as important as the work that garnered the ranking!

But the rankings are part of pr which is important if making money matters. Sure, its not as important as building the courses, but rankings and all the bits and pieces in mags and social media definitely aid the success of courses which then makes it possible to build more courses. The two are hand in glove.

Ciao

[Jeff Schley]

The internet has democratized access to courses as people can now know more information than ever before without actually traveling themselves. In the old days (pre internet I guess) we would send for a travel guide from one of the tour companies or trusted source that was a pamphlet or book we could use to plan our trips and get to know courses. Tour operators had much more value then with insights on "hidden gems" and sequencing of an itinerary. Like the travel agent, I'm sure their business isn't as big today.


The down side is almost anyone can post their opinion on a course, so it is up to the reader to decide what is a trusted source or not. I see the positives far outweighing the negatives. Just have to have a quite dense strainer to filer what is out there. This site being one such resource others rely on.

[Kyle Harris]

I learned something in this thread...

David Fay apparently owned a bunch of US Open venues at one point. Were the members aware?

[Tim Gavrich]

Re: Peters original post, I bet someone builds a statue of Jonathan Gold someday: https://www.eater.com/2018/7/23/17600982/jonathan-gold-best-work-reviews-writing.


One of Gold's adorers in that article describes him as "gentle," which cuts against the typical image of a critic: perpetually suspicious, always waiting to say something negative, almost hoping to be disappointed. By contrast, I wonder the extent to which Gold's generosity ended up being part of the reason why he won a Pulitzer.