I prefer courses that use the land over those that build features.

[mike_malone]

I’ve seen a lot of manufactured golf courses online recently. I guess they are more photogenic.


But the sharp edges of so many of the features seem weird to me.


 Courses which predominantly use the land for the hazards  seem to be optimal to me.


There are highly manufactured courses that I enjoy like Hollywood but I would prefer to play Rustic Canyon regularly and prefer the look.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I guess I look for a course that challenges my ability to strategize and actually hit the shots that execute my strategy. I love Bayonne, which might be the ultimate in manufactured courses. I don't mind a manufactured course.

[mike_malone]

Tommy,


 I played Bayonne and enjoyed it but couldn’t get the construction cost out of my mind. Do we really need a course that costs that much?

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tommy,


 I played Bayonne and enjoyed it but couldn’t get the construction cost out of my mind. Do we really need a course that costs that much?

No we don't need expensive courses like that. After I played the course I spoke with an employee that quoted me the building costs. [size=78%] [/size][size=78%]I guess the cost to build was something $100,000,000.[/size][size=78%]I cannot remember exactly but it seems they got some X million cubic yards of sludge from the Hudson when they dredged it. Bergstol was given money to take the sludge. Do you know how much he was paid to take the sludge? I'm not sure what the bottom line was.[/size]

[Lou_Duran]

It all depends.  If I lived in Long Island or around Philly, for sure.  But holed-up in north Texas where golf has often been relegated to flood-prone land with minimal elevation changes, and very poor soils, I'll thank the thoughtful designer for building interesting "artificial" features that drain well and for dolling up the course.  In my two conversations with Byron Nelson on golf architecture, he noted that his major contributions on the courses he served as a design consultant dealt with the landscaping, specifically the use of inexpensive flowering trees (he was a big fan of the crepe myrtle) and the occasional mound and grass bunker to frame the holes and for aesthetics.

[Joe Bausch]

I’ve seen a lot of manufactured golf courses online recently. I guess they are more photogenic.


But the sharp edges of so many of the features seem weird to me.


 Courses which predominantly use the land for the hazards  seem to be optimal to me.


There are highly manufactured courses that I enjoy like Hollywood but I would prefer to play Rustic Canyon regularly and prefer the look.

Well, you are going to love a restored course in the making in PHL.  😀

[Bill Gayne]

Use of the land and natural look is one of the many reasons that I love the ancient links courses.

[David_Tepper]

Calling Captain Obvious!

[JESII]

Mayday - how about all those holes Flynn cut into a hillside around Philadelphia?  Must be 50+ with substantial cut and fill.

[mike_malone]

Mayday - how about all those holes Flynn cut into a hillside around Philadelphia?  Must be 50+ with substantial cut and fill.

Jim,


  That’s true. Our 13th is the most obvious at our course but generally I would have trouble naming the other 49

[Ally Mcintosh]

I’ll give you a nuance that rings as true for me:


I prefer courses that use the land over those that look too “designed”.

[Forrest Richardson]

The word “look” is telling among the comments here. I’ve always advocated “concept” and “interest” well above “look”. Believe me, TOC has plenty of manufactured areas, all inflicted to achieve “concept” and “interest”. I doubt any of the scholars who suggested work there ever used the term “look” as a premise for improvements.

[cary lichtenstein]

I prefer the manufactured look where the land is boring and flat

[Peter Pallotta]

On uninteresting sites, I think there's manufactured for purpose and playability, and then there's manufactured for promotion and prestige. The two can go together. But if the land won't allow for an award winning course, most architects seem to feel there's no money in doing less, or in appearing to.

[Thomas Dai]

Drainage and feature/shape/contour creation that assists drainage?
Atb

[SL_Solow]

Of course anyone would prefer a site that drains well with interesting natural features.  My father in law used to say "it's better to be healthy and rich than sick and poor".  But the question is, what does one do if you don't have everything?  How do you make the best of the site.  I think that most of us would agree that "less is more" and that manufactured features that appear "natural" are best.  G
But then, why the love for template holes or the manufactured look of some of Langford and Moreau's best holes?  Is it the ability to find the "right" places for the templates or the extraordinary cuts and fills?  While the initial proposition is a good rule of thumb, I suspect that there are so many sight specific exceptions that they may overwhelm the suggested rule.

[Sean_A]

I learned a long time ago to ignore built or found architecture and instead pay attention to good architecture. Style doesn't determine quality.

Ciao

[Steve Lang]

   I prefer courses that have some synoptic intrigue, which leads one to ask, "why is that feature there?" Taking on the challenge or avoiding it addresses what game of golf is being played or attempted... nice when you can execute both in play. Now that's fun or simply satisfying, what brings you back for more...

[Ken Moum]

If some hole does not possess striking individuality through some gift of nature, it must be given as much as possible artificially, and the artifice must be introduced in so subtle a manner as to make it seem natural. -- A.W. Tillinghast

[Jeff_Brauer]

I’ve seen a lot of manufactured golf courses online recently. I guess they are more photogenic.


But the sharp edges of so many of the features seem weird to me.


 Courses which predominantly use the land for the hazards  seem to be optimal to me.


There are highly manufactured courses that I enjoy like Hollywood but I would prefer to play Rustic Canyon regularly and prefer the look.

I presume you mean obviously artificial ones (even though most are) like excess mounding, steep banks (a la Dye) etc. 


There are many (if not most) courses that use the land very well, and still have built greens, tees, and hazards.  You have to build those. 


A well routed golf course is one, IMHO, where you don't HAVE TO build excessive fw hazards and at least a few times, don't even need to build green side hazards.   One yardstick of a good routing is how much earth you have to move, with anything under perhaps (and varies a bit by site) 150,000 probably consisting of almost all "natural" holes that don't NEED much work.  Once the framework is in place with routing, architects naturally take different approaches.


Until the "everybody wants to build high end, award winning, photographically attractive" 1980s, the general mantra was use nature whenever you can, like streams, ponds, trees, sometimes natural ridges, and use bunkers only when nothing else was available, but you still wanted some kind of strategic challenge.


Ron Whitten once said my designs reminded him of a Japanese Garden, in which they believed the eye accepted artificiality as nature if the composition was good.  In plainer terms, for most of my career, I had no trouble adding fill for a bunker, greens, tees, etc.  Since they are obviously artifical, the only challenge is to make them look good, and naturalistic, if possible.  But looking good was always the first priority.

[Mark_Fine]

Gil Hanse and I looked at a property together many years ago.  The owners ultimately decided not to sell it but I always remember him saying he loved the rolling featureless farmland the best.  It allowed him to “build” whatever he wanted. 

It is always nice to “find” natural golf holes but the reality is the 99% are built.  Some architects are just really good at disguising their work 


Mike wasn’t one architect called “The Nature Faker” 

[Adam Lawrence]

I have thought quite extensively about this issue.

Why is it that 'natural' quirk is more acceptable that 'artificial' quirk?

Why does the obvious engineering of a Macdonald/Raynor course not offend in the way that the engineering of so many modern courses does?

Here's a couple of photos that illustrate the question....







One looks unarguably elegant, the other (imo) kluzty. Why?

I have come to a number of conclusions. Firstly, and most importantly, building up is a lot harder than building down. Cuts do not interfere with the natural view in the way that fills do (can); when you build above natural grade it is hard, verging on impossible, to not have some impact on the landscape that looks wrong.

Secondly, derived from the first: the Macdonald/Raynor look is low profile. It does not interfere with the landscape in the way that filled mounding so often does. I realised this, I think, when I was at Les Bordes in France last year. I realised I did not like the Old (von Hagge) course at all; and it was quickly obvious to me that this was down to the harshness of the mounding, which stuck out like a sore thumb.

[Niall C]

I'm generally not too prescriptive in terms of what I want to see from a course and agree with Sean that good architecture trumps all no matter the style. That said......


I have taken a liking to old style courses (pre Golden Age) that are generally lay of the land type courses with the exception of the obviously man made features such as tees, greens and occasional bunkers. I'm quite happy with square greens benched into a slope and if there happens to be the remnant of an old stone wall that needs to be crossed then all the better. Of course it depends on the site being reasonably interesting in the first place.


Niall

[SL_Solow]

Adam,  fine observation.  How do elevated greens in areas where there were not natural upslopes, fit into your observation?

[Peter Pallotta]

Von Hagge's mounds seem to say 'I'm here' while MacRaynor's geometry seems to say 'Look there'. It's the difference between engineering for affect and engineering for effect, and between catering to promotion and catering to principle. Reading here over the years, even those who much dislike the MacRaynor form-look acknowledge that it's very much tied to function-playability.