[Sven Nilsen]

Discuss.

[David_Elvins]

It's architecture, which is based on principles of both art and science. 

but is it a cult or a religion?  

[Sven Nilsen]

David:

Are you talking about the practice or the study of it?

Sven

[Matthew Essig]

It is like yin and yang.

You can't have one over the other, or things are out of balance; you could say this results in a bad course.

Too scientific and the course is dull and unimaginative; it isn't special.

Too artsy and the course may not be strategically interesting along with poor drainage, etc.

[Sven Nilsen]

Matthew:

Can you break down the components of a course on whether or not they fit into one or the other?  Do some fall into a middle ground while others are purely in one camp or the other?

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

To follow up on David's post, do the principles of architecture as set forth by Vitruvius apply to golf course design?

"Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry, Propriety and Economy."

Let's start with Order:

"Order gives due measure to the members of a work considered separately, and symmetrical agreement to the proportions of the whole. It is an adjustment according to quantity. By this I mean the selection of modules from the members of the work itself and, starting from these individual parts of members, constructing the whole work to correspond."

[Ally Mcintosh]

Really I look at architects in terms of two triangles.

The primary triangle has its first two corners represented by Technical and Creative. I know plenty of architects who are excellent technically who I don't think are particularly creative.... And I know others who flip around from that....

The third corner is practical. i.e. those who can realise their technical and / or creative plans and vision in to  the final product that they had in their mind's eye....

The secondary triangle is about breadth of skills and has design, maintenance and construction as its three corners.

[Philippe Binette]

Here's an answer that Rod Whitman said at Sagebrush:

"It's 10% philosophy or whatever you want to call it, the rest 90% is just WORK."

Amen

[Tom_Doak]

Actually, I think golf course design is a weird form of engineering.  You have to take all your knowledge of the game of golf (shot values, trajectories, abilities of different players), and apply those to a piece of ground with all of its topography and wetlands and restrictions.

There is some art to it, and some science -- but it is really neither.

And this is from someone who wrote a book with the subtitle "The Science and the Art of Golf Course Design"

[Philippe Binette]

Or Pete Dye writing: Golf architecture is about making drainage look good.

[Mike_Young]

It is really nothing more than a figment of ones's imagination.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Jb2CA_xx8

[Chris Johnston]

I'd say its both, or now all 3.

From my perspective, an additional question would be "If you were fortunate to build a golf course and could choose only one of the following, what would you look for?  An artist, scientist, or (nod to Tom) an engineer?  Mind you, you would probably get a mix of all three in the choice you made as all are part of the product.  Each hole (and all holes together) and theme can be art, routing (and team management) are probably science, and the important details like ("look" and corresponding irrigation theme, drainage, efficiencies, etc) are engineering.  All go together.

Seems to me that without a strong bias to the artist, you may not have your dreams realized.  The artist (or artists) can be viewed by others (on the outside) as temperamental and uncompromising for what he or they want.  Give me passion and heart.  It's a good thing - it's their art.

[John McCarthy]

Commerce.

[Peter Pallotta]

I think somehow over the years we've narrowed down the concept/definition of 'creativity'. Today we tend to think of the creative person almost exclusively as the painter, the poet, the musician, in short, in terms of what someone does. (And many of the creative people themselves, including golf course architects, share that idea.) It's a shame we don't think more holistically, i.e. in terms of an attitude, one that is fully participatory: heart, soul and mind, and a mind not divided against itself in terms of right brain and left brain, art and science, but one that values and lives out of the whole person, moment by moment and in every aspect of life. The creative person participates in life and in the people and events and tasks they face, responding freely and without undue restrictions and constructs in the infinitely varied and unique ways that life's varied and unique people, events and tasks call for. The golf course architect who 'turns off' his creativity the moment he walks off a site probably isn't bringing much true creativity to the task in the first place.

Peter




  

[Josh Tarble]

Does it have to be one or the other?

No one can (or should) argue that places like Kiawah Ocean, Sagebrush, Cape Kidnappers, etc., etc., etc.  are not works of art.  They stir a gamut of emotions from everyone.  And yet, no way any of them could have been built without scientific/engineering prowess.

[Tom_Doak]

Does it have to be one or the other?

No one can (or should) argue that places like Kiawah Ocean, Sagebrush, Cape Kidnappers, etc., etc., etc.  are not works of art.  They stir a gamut of emotions from everyone.  And yet, no way any of them could have been built without scientific/engineering prowess.

I do think that's where the art comes in.  There are lots of designers who just don't think that way about golf courses.  They are all over the shot values and the drainage, but almost never think about whether they are building something beautiful or causing the golfer to get excited about a particular feature.  It's sad to say, but there are some golf course architects who don't have much fun at golf.

[Mike_Young]

Does it have to be one or the other?

No one can (or should) argue that places like Kiawah Ocean, Sagebrush, Cape Kidnappers, etc., etc., etc.  are not works of art.  They stir a gamut of emotions from everyone.  And yet, no way any of them could have been built without scientific/engineering prowess.

I do think that's where the art comes in.  There are lots of designers who just don't think that way about golf courses.  They are all over the shot values and the drainage, but almost never think about whether they are building something beautiful or causing the golfer to get excited about a particular feature.  It's sad to say, but there are some golf course architects who don't have much fun at golf.

AGREE

[Mike_Young]

'It's a profession that demands a rare blend of characteristics: the heart of an artist, the mind of an engineer, and the soul of a golfer. Alister MacKenzie.

[Tom_Doak]

I think somehow over the years we've narrowed down the concept/definition of 'creativity'. Today we tend to think of the creative person almost exclusively as the painter, the poet, the musician, in short, in terms of what someone does. (And many of the creative people themselves, including golf course architects, share that idea.) It's a shame we don't think more holistically, i.e. in terms of an attitude, one that is fully participatory: heart, soul and mind, and a mind not divided against itself in terms of right brain and left brain, art and science, but one that values and lives out of the whole person, moment by moment and in every aspect of life. The creative person participates in life and in the people and events and tasks they face, responding freely and without undue restrictions and constructs in the infinitely varied and unique ways that life's varied and unique people, events and tasks call for. The golf course architect who 'turns off' his creativity the moment he walks off a site probably isn't bringing much true creativity to the task in the first place.

Peter

Peter:

That is a great quote and it reminds me of Pete Dye and Desmond Muirhead, more than anybody else I've met in the business today.

I wish it reminded me of myself, but the truth is that I spent a lot of years so busy with my work and all the travel and the toll that took, that it didn't leave much room to live the rest of that full life you describe.  I'm afraid that's the nature of golf architecture, because it is not just an art but a demanding business, too.  I have spent a lot of time the past couple of years trying to get over that hump, with some success, but it's only doable once you stop caring about "success" -- either because you don't care to get to the top of the business, or because you've already succeeded beyond your wildest dreams.

To be honest, I've never been sure if I qualified as a "creative" person.  But I am excellent at solving puzzles and very good at composition, and that's taken me a long way in this business.  

P.S.  I am not sure that some of the famous artists of the past fit your description, either.

and P.S. to Mike:  That's a great quote from MacKenzie, which I didn't remember.  Assume it's from his book - but from what part?

[Mike_Young]

Tom,
It is in his book but can't remember where. I have had it on my FB page and website and copied it from there...I will find it in book and relay.

[Philippe Binette]

To be creative, you need to master a craft

[Sven Nilsen]

MacKenzie:  "Golf architecture is a new art closely allied to that of the artist or the sculptor, but also necessitating a scientific knowledge of many other subjects."

I was mulling over the yin and yang concept proposed earlier in this thread when I stumbled across this quote.  The issue I was struggling with is if using the word "balance" was the right way to describe the process.  It seems to me that two sides, the art and the science, are so closely entwined that you need to excel in both.

As has been noted, a technically sound course built with little imagination is not going to be fun to play, and the drainage examples show how the most innovative of designs can be unplayable without the application of a degree of technical proficiency.

The question I'm left with is where does the creation of strategy fall into the equation?  Was MacKenzie's ideal hole an example of the application of preconceived principles, and thus a form of science, or is this process of working with the land to craft a landscape that allows for those principles to come into play an art?  In other words, how much of design is an "outside the box" process, or how much is an exercise in applying what you know will work in the right places.

I also found this quote to be worthy of consideration:  

"In any case, the possession of a vivid imagination, which is an absolute essential in obtaining success, may prevent him attaining a position among the higher ranks of players.  Everyone knows how fatal imagination is in playing the game."

More to follow, including a comparison of Vitruvius' thoughts on "economy" as mirrored in the words of Alister MacKenzie.



 
 

[Sven Nilsen]

One additional thought.

I think the comparisons of golf course design to art and sculpture fail in principle due to the nature in which the party experiences the work.  We interact with a golf course in a physical manner, in that we propel a ball over the land with the hope of achieving a desired result.  It is the process of attempting to "figure out" what will happen on any given shot that is the essence of the experience, which in and of itself is a mental exercise.

The visual arts, on the other hand, are purely mental.  There is no physical component other than the act of observing (and in the case of music, listening).

Architecture in the traditional sense has a component of function, or use.  But there is little in the way "figuring out" how to use a building.  The architect has dictated the use in the design.  

It is this concept of interaction that I think is key to trying to define golf course architecture.  And it is the ability to maximize the intensity of the mental and physical exercises that makes for great design.

[V. Kmetz]

Stimulating theoretical topic, yet possesses fundamental obstacles that send us back to mere opinion:

1.  the terms Art and Science are not in competition or exclusive of one another, as if we were discussing apples and oranges and all we could say are: "both classified 'fruits', 'both have these nutrients,' both have....etc, etc"

2.  Art is "ars" or "making, creating'" Science is "knowledge, study, analysis of that which is"  Do not blame me, blame the ancients who distilled these terms and passed them, or their Eastern and/or sub-Equatorial equivalents, on to us.

*if that is acceptable at all, then GCA is an art, for it is "a making" and all that "artistic purpose" implies:   (mimesis...communication...expression...facility)

3. As is compatible with the sage quotes included in the thread...the "Making," the "Art," requires the "Study" the "Knowledge," the "Science" of other elements to be produced...to come into being.  Agronomy, Climatology, Hydrology, etc are fundamental to the "Making" in this case, and if we think of courses where one element of that "Science" is woefully lacking, we find a poorly received golf course, one that is easily destroyed by reputation or disuse.

3a. This is perfectly fluent with what traditional "Fine Arts" artists do in their particular disciplines.  No, the painter need not be a scientist per se to acheive a painting, but he/she must have a "studied knowledge" of their mediums and its properties... How many times must the canvas be Gessoed, will oil or acrylic or water-based paints require different canvas treatments to last, basic geometry...what about the operation of pigments in concert with one another...You can tell a knowing painter/critic by what they examine...the experts,  spend a great deal of time looking at the back of a painting as its front. In GCA, the canvas is massive, 150 acres and so the level of science and expertise needed to support the "making" is commensurately enormous.

4.  another indication, for me, that terms "art and science" are not mutually exclusive, not an either/or, or equation of proportion is the work of modernist painting critic Clement Greenberg, who indicated that what painting did to go from Gainsborough to Jackson Pollack was to consider what exclusive properties "Painting" had, that it shared with no other "Art," no other "Making."  His answer was: Flatness...the surface... That the emotions and information communicated from a Rembrandt were available, perhaps even more expressive to the viewer, in a modernist style that focused on the reduction of what a Painting is...the interaction of paint on a 2-D plane.  This was put forth by Greenberg to quantify and qualify the move away from human subject and precise representations from the Renaissance Age to the age of the Machine and modernity. 

If these determinations have any traction with you, then you still might ask:

A.  What about that element, synonymous with the arts...the "beautiful," the aesthetically engaging" the "traditionally 'creative'"? 
B.  In GCA, where is the coordination between "the sciences behind the making?" AND "the fact that is a playing field for a particular activity?"

i'll address those two in a follow-up, if interest seems to compel it.

cheers

vk

[Sven Nilsen]

Care to extend those thoughts into discussion of the Jungian archetype of the artist-scientist? 

Or, who is the Leonardo or Ben Franklin of GCA?

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