Brett,
I appreciate your response and your views.
You have your view I have mine - should everyone think the same?. You may think I am wrong thats your opinion isn't what this Discussion Group is for? TD work is to me is becoming more and more repetitive (thats my opinion whether its right or wrong) irrelevant of the size of the greens, location, landforms that existed before and so on etc.
Some people think TD has done different things golf course design wise thats their view mine is different. Colt, Braid, Simpson and even M+E have certain design traits (for example the sand wastes becoming common ) that continue over time or see in many of their designs. Architects have this as well - very few have made me go wow I didn't think of that or thats a beautiful detail - you may think my standards are too high - we all think differently.
Every site is unique it does make the course or holes look different from the bigger picture thats why I can see why people think 'oh wow thats different he hasn't done that before' or thats 'pioneering' however for me its the details - naturalistic, smooth, curves, soft touch, minimalistic - a number of TD trademarks which are visible to me but not to others on this site whether they are simple or OTT with no complicated detailed drawings which is their approach and rely on great shapers which some are used repetitively that certain approach/details seen on multiple courses not just one.
I just see things differently - it may baffle (or frustrate ) most of you - its what it is. My view is that C+C are in a similar mould to TD - I would say Hanse has more variety out of the Big Three.
If I had the choice of visiting a new Doak course (knowing what he and his shapers are more likely to do) or an unknown who looks like their work is different to others - I would go to the unknown its what I am. I know its more likely that most of you would rather go to a new Doak course than an unknown who has done something different. It's the same for me in Architecture as well as Boony would testify.
Regarding sand in this thread - some think its OTT and others think its awesome. Some prefer Trump and others prefer Biden, Republican or Democratic/Conservartive or Labour in UK. Variety is the spice of life, everyone has different views and I do know I am in a very small minority on this site which others may think my views are warped.
Cheers
Ben
Ben,
I certainly appreciate your tone and civility. It's a lot better than several others on this site and certainly in the broader world of discussion forums. So thanks for that. And I agree that variety is the spice of life...which is part of the reason why I've been banging on about restoring Pine Barrens in the other thread.
I think that a problem with a lot of your posts here is that people are giving some pretty extensive responses to your arguments and you're kind of just shrugging them off and saying 'eh, we have a difference of opinion.' I agree with you that we have differences of opinion and probably most people here understand and respect that people will have differences of opinion and that ultimately there's no right answer in something like this.
But when someone makes an extensive argument against your points, you either have to argue back in detail or concede defeat in walk away. I wrote a few hundred words on why I think your point about Doak's work being repetitive is wrong. Instead of trying to rebut it, you just repeat that his work is repetitive. I can't respect this as a difference of opinion at this point because I've provided what I think is pretty good evidence against that. So you either need to (1) admit that I'm right and that your claim is wrong, (2) dispute my evidence, and/or (3) present some new evidence to support your argument.
I also addressed the point about naturalistic shaping, but not in as much detail. Here I admit it's a real matter of personal preference. But I still wonder what you want Doak to do. Do you want him to start shaping courses like Pete Dye? Or Jim Engh? Or Mike Strantz? I would argue that we have plenty enough examples of Dye's work, at least from the 80s and 90s. Doing something like that would be repetitive. I'd argue against copying Engh for a variety of reasons that I won't get into. Maybe he should do a maximalist style like Strantz? One could argue, as I have, that some of Strantz's courses could have really benefitted from some editing. Do you think that any of these guys' work was repetitive?
Ultimately a big part of the variety comes the fact that there are different guys working in this area. I don't think that Doak's work is repetitive but even if it were, he's just one guy out of dozens who have been operating over the last 100 years. And he's done far fewer courses than most of the big names over the past 100 years. Given the number of Tom Fazio, Pete Dye, Arthur Hills, etc. courses that we have, I think we could still use a few more Doak and Coore/Crenshaw courses.