Okay, so we all agree then? The Golden Age jumped the Shark with the Lido. Good . . . now lets get back to talking about the ratings . . .
I can see by everyone's reaction that I bumbled my initial posts, which were carelessly written and not well thought out. Obviously I should have better heeded Mr. Klein's advice . . . But before I concede the match, let me try to hack it out and salvage something. Here is what I am NOT saying:
-- I am not saying that the Lido was anything but an exceptional golfing experience. In fact, with MacDonald at the helm, I'd be very surprised if it was anything but excellent.
-- I am not saying that there was any sort of causal link (direct or indirect) between the Lido and the demise of the Golden Age. Nor am I saying that the Lido was the last Golden Age Course. Nor am I saying that the Lido caused WWI or II. I am talking in a symbolic sense only.
-- I am not assuming or defining specific values of Golden Age architects. I did used the word values above, but probably should not have. [I do think that 'procedural' values are involved but that is likely to tangential to get into, I think.]
-- I am not trying to equate Golden Age golf with Socialism, Minimalism, or any other sort of -ism.
So what am I saying?
1. As I understand it, prior to and after the Lido, all of the Golden Age architects worked within the constraints of the natural terrain. Sure they moved dirt and drained water, but they didnt move mountains or create continents. They were faced with the challenges of a particular topography, and they solved problems, reacted, dealt with adversity, improvised, invented. Much like a golfer, they pretty much played the ball as it lay.
2. With the Lido, MacDonald took a decidedly different approach. As Mr. Bahto explains it, he took on the project only because it offered him the chance to design with no one looking over his shoulder. He was given freedom to design and build what he wanted. But he wasnt just free from the constraints of the developers, he was also free from the constraints of nature itself. As MacDonald put it: "To me it was like a dream. The more I thought it over the more it fascinated me. It really made me feel like a creator." The Lido gave MacDonald the chance to play God, and he took it.
3. So where does the Golden Age fit in to all this? Well one could argue that MacDonald started the Golden Age by building NGLA in an attempt to to import strategic gca to America. As Ran notes, architects were routing courses and shaping land to create strategic interest. But, nature still presented a large part of the challenge-- to both the golfer and the architect. Architecture complimented nature, to bring out its best points and to hide its weak points. A make-over, if you will.
The Lido was not a make-over, It was a from scratch creation. Contrived purely in the mind of C.B. MacDonald. George Bahto describes this as "the reverse of the usual process." Nature is no longer guiding man. Man is guiding nature. So the the process is running in reverse. In this way, if no other, the Lido is antithetical to the rest of Golden Age architecture.
Put it another way. MacDonald may have given us the substance of Golden Age architecture with NGLA, but with the Lido, he abandoned the proven procedure which in the past had produced the substance he so loved.
Query: Why did MacDonald build MacKenzie's prize winning hole, while, as far as I know, MacKenzie never did? My guess is that MacKenzie never did because he never found land suitable to build it. MacKenzie apparently accepted this, and went on designing holes with the natural conditions as his general guide. Unlike MacDonald, MacKenzie chose not to play God.