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THuckaby2

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #50 on: February 13, 2003, 09:07:04 AM »
No thanks, Mr. Hunter.  I don't feel like being tested, nor was the purpose of my mention of your book to elicit another debate on its merits.  I've already done so with a great fan of yours, Mr. Naccarato.

So I suppose we can leave this by saying I meant no offense, and again, the problem with the book is most likely mine, not yours.

TH
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Lou Duran

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #51 on: February 13, 2003, 10:11:19 AM »
We've gone from not being able to write (for dubious reasons) to corresponding with dead guys.  Where is this thing heading?  Some folks learn by reading, others by doing, and the two are certainly not mutually exclusive.  Personally, I find few instances where too much information is a negative, except when it is being forced on an unappreciative audience.  Fortunately, on this forum at least, this is never the case.  I can't think of a single time when my enjoyment of a round of golf was negatively affected by having specific knowledge of gca.  Quite the opposite, some warts can be overlooked when one has a better understanding of the whys, and the real genius behind certain features appreciated all the more.  Personally, I derive a lot of pleasure from the harmless exercise of second-guessing the architects, even on their best courses.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #52 on: February 13, 2003, 10:39:47 AM »
TomH:

First, when I said; "So it seems that Golfclubatlas is two things really", I was talking not about golf course architecture (GCA) but Golfclubatlas, the website. I generally just write out the website's name so as not to confuse it with the other.

But as to what comes first or second to anyone, playing golf or having a singular interest and fascination in the art of golf course architecture, I don't think that's something that we need to get into in this discussion. They are two different things and can be looked at as such.

Of course we all recognize that playing golf and golf course architecture are interconnected in many ways that other art forms aren't. They are interactive because golf is the game and golf course architecture is the playing field the game is conducted on. But in many ways they are two different things and should be looked at as such, in my mind.

Golf, the game, may even be looked at as the master that golf architecture serves, I suppose. But even if that's somewhat accurate the master and the servant are not the same entity, they are two.

If one chooses not to see it that way then I suppose I could see them not making any distinction at all between golf the game and golf course architecture.

Possibly if one looks at it that way then a hole is a hole is a hole may become a reality to that person (this is what Rich Goodale has said on here). I'm not meaning to be rude to Rich about that, and I'm not trying to be uncivil either, but if he feels that way that's his own good right.

Rich has also said on here that he doesn't see that golf course architecture is an art form or even could be. That's his good right to think too. Do I disagree with him on that? Yes, of course I do, particularly if I'm understanding correctly that that's what he really feels and means to say.

Do I want to sit here and proselytize Rich and convince him to think the way I do about golf architecture? No I do not. If he asked me to explain something to him, as he did on the match play vs stroke play thread, I'll try for a while but if he doesn't understand me, doesn't agree with me or whatever else that's fine by me.

That's probably why I occasionally quote;

"Golf and it's architecture is a great big game and there's room in it for everyone".

By that I mean to say that I think that golf and golf course architecture are supposed to be different things to different people. I think the best architects understood that full well.

There's hardly any other way a rational mind could interpret something like this following quotation and not come to that conclusion (I happen to believe obviously that this quotation is perfectly accurate regarding golf and golf architecture);

"Whether this or that bunker is well placed has caused more intensely heated arguments (outside the realms of religion) than has ever been my lot to listen to. Rest assured, however, when a controversy is hotly contested over several years as to whether this or that hazard is fair, it is the kind of hazard you want and it has real merit. When there is unanimous opinion that such and such a hazard is perfect, one usually finds it commonplace. I know of no classic hole that doesn't have its decriers."
C.B.Macdonald

That to me is an example that is perfectly representative of all of golf architecture and maybe golf too. That's just as it should be, in my opinion.

But I completely understand where you're coming from when you say that golf comes first for you, the playing of it, and architecture, and the study of it comes second. And yes, I think ChrisB feels the same way and explained it very well. Maybe Rich does too.

That's fine with me and I understand it because that's the way I was--bigtime. But I'm not anymore. Still today playing golf and really noticing and appreciating architecture is hard for me to do, but I'm well aware why.

Studying architecture, walking courses to do it is now more important to me. That doesn't mean that one way or the other is better or worse, but it's different, at least to me. I even hope my former interest in playing golf will return, I really do but I see no reason to force it now--I see no reason to ever force it. Studying architecture now is a real interest that's probably supplanted playing to a large degree.

And reading those who built it and about those who built it and wrote about it interest me too--very much.

You mentioned a guy like Robert Hunter and his book "The Links" and you say that in reading it you really didn't learn anything you didn't already know from playing the game.

I don't doubt that may be true. But perhaps you view what you play and see as somewhat more static than you should or could. I don't think I do that anymore. I look at architecture (and even the game) as an evolution and a very fascinating one at that.

Although no great seminal truth may have jumped out at me either from Robert Hunter's book, it's important to me to realize and to really understand that that book was written in 1926, 77 years ago. And I look for and very much apprectiate how someone like Hunter and the others he worked with brought the artform of architecture from where it had been (extremely rudimentary) maybe not much more than 20 years previous to where they took it to.

And if someone was to tell me that that wasn't particularly important because the artform would have gotten to the same place they took it anyway I would definitely disagree with that.

And when I see that evolution, I sort of look very carefully at where it got to then and how and why and I look to see where it went to since then and how and why and examine that evolution for a number of reasons.

If you do it that way, I find it becomes fascinating in a comparative sense. And it becomes even more fascinating when one concludes that we may want to, even need to RETURN to much about that time, that era, that particular phase in the evolution of architecture.

It's certainly not just me that seems to long for a degree of restoration, even renaissance in architecture, and we can all see it happening now to an interesting degree.

That's probably why some of us read--not because their books hold some great truths that nobody noticed or completely missed. But it might be true to say that many forgot, unfortunately.

And then there's Max Behr. There's no question in my mind that he alone went maybe ten times farther into the pysche of the golfing man and came up with some fundamental truths concerning what the sport of golf (as opposed to man's construction of the "game" of golf) can do to the pysche of the golfing man in particular ways revolving around the way the game is both played and the architecture it's played on.

As far as I'm concerned Behr gets right to the heart of man's (in a general sense) overall relationship to both Nature and his fellow man in this context.

Obviously some don't see it that way. Perhaps they don't want to see it that way. Behr would probably be the first to admit that the world he was delving into in some of his writing about golf and architecture was almost wholly the subliminal world of the golfing man.

But even though it might have been subliminal or even because it probably was makes it no less valid--maybe even more so.

Those architects that made some of those enduringly fascinating courses back then and those that may be doing the same today are probably plying an artform that has a great deal of pleasurable subliminal stimuli in it but mostly based on the truths that a man such as Behr explained.

Frankly, I think the best architects both then and now ply that very subliminal world of architecture far more than others. I'd even try to get into some of the whys and hows sometime.

But I recognize that some don't want to see these things or care to, and that's fine, because,

"Golf and its architecture is a great big game and there room in it for everyone (to see it any way that makes them happy)".
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

THuckaby2

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #53 on: February 13, 2003, 11:35:21 AM »
"Golf and its architecture is a great big game and there room in it for everyone (to see it any way that makes them happy)".

Damn right - that is a wonderful "truth" about this great game.  Very well said above, Tom - all of it - and I surely do appreciate the time and effort.

Please understand that while I do look at all this quite differently from you and others for whom the study outweighs the play, I have nothing but admiration for your intensity and passion.  

And I do now better understand your take on the nature of all this.  I do like the master/servant description... My only difference would be that I believe this master (golf) has many other servants besides the one discussed most often here (golf course architecture), and I believe the master is inexorably interwined with ALL of the servants, not just this one.  Oh, this one is a fascinating subject... but focusing on it to the exclusion of the others is still beyond me.  Nevertheless I can understand the devotion to this servant, as I say, "she" is intriguing.

TH
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

GAP member

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #54 on: February 13, 2003, 11:52:41 AM »
Tom Huckaby
Profound....where is the writer's block when you need it? All these servants and masters...masters and servants...give me a French maid and screw the golf.



stronger than dirt
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

THuckaby2

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #55 on: February 13, 2003, 12:05:38 PM »
Hey GAP member - I OBVIOUSLY wasn't the one that was complaining about writer's block!

I enjoyed your post, in any case - it did get audible yuks.

TH
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #56 on: February 13, 2003, 12:10:46 PM »
Tom Huckaby:

If you actually read that entire long post of mine--I just want to congratulate you for that alone. And if you decide to actually read the articles of Max Behr I promise you I'll spring for your first one dozen visits with Dr. Katz.

After that, you're on your own.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

THuckaby2

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #57 on: February 13, 2003, 12:16:18 PM »
TEP - I did read the entire thing!

Now re Max Behr, well... I've read Geoff's Masters of the Links, there's Behr stuff in there, right?  And I've read the various quotes in here from time to time... and well... I may need Dr. Katz as it is.   ;)

TH
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #58 on: February 13, 2003, 12:18:31 PM »
GAP Member:

Don't for a second think this stuff on here is a priority of any kind.

The master/servant analogy may seem a stretch or even an attempt at depth but give me a German maid that looks just like Heidi Klum and I'll say screw golf and golf architecture forever. (At least forever in the wintertime)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Mike_Cirba

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #59 on: February 13, 2003, 12:40:47 PM »
All of this French Maid discussion is making me wonder if there isn't really another, external reason for my seeming "writer's block" concerning golf this winter.  8)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

George Pazin

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #60 on: February 13, 2003, 12:47:02 PM »

Quote
PS--if you think those things on your post are "smileys" life must be brutal up in Pittsburgh these days (insert real smiley face here).

 ;D That was hilarious, to me, at least.

It's very hard to convey tone on line. I wasn't trying to be angry, so I'm sorry if it came across that way.

I agree totally with Tom Paul's many excellent points, particularly the observation that very few of us ever seem to change our opinions. I tried to make this same point last week when I suggested we set all the crap aside & just dicuss golf course design - really pursue learning, not just pay lip service to it.

My point re: ChrisB's post (& let me state that I don't know Chris, but I'd be willing to bet that if he's taking the time to post on this site, I'd get along with him just fine at the 19th) & Rich's response to it is that they don't seem to allow for the other side, who chooses to pursue things in a different fashion, but rather lecture the others about how they should do things. If I'm inferring too much in this regard, again, I'm sorry, but that's the problem that I had with those posts.

That, & the fact that it was 3:45 a.m. & I was a little punch drunk waiting for my dryer to cool down so I could get in my 15 degree car for the ride home. :)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »
Big drivers and hot balls are the product of golf course design that rewards the hit one far then hit one high strategy.  Shinny showed everyone how to take care of this whole technology dilemma. - Pat Brockwell, 6/24/04

CHrisB

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #61 on: February 13, 2003, 01:12:47 PM »
Quote
My point re: ChrisB's post (& let me state that I don't know Chris, but I'd be willing to bet that if he's taking the time to post on this site, I'd get along with him just fine at the 19th) & Rich's response to it is that they don't seem to allow for the other side, who chooses to pursue things in a different fashion, but rather lecture the others about how they should do things. If I'm inferring too much in this regard, again, I'm sorry, but that's the problem that I had with those posts.
George,

Apologies if my posts came across that way--they certainly were intended to be an explanation of why I take the approach I do w.r.t. playing the game and studying architecture, which I never really thought of in such detail until I read that passage I cited from JakaB.  It is just not in my nature to lecture anyone, particularly on how to derive enjoyment from the game of golf; it like many other things is a very personal pursuit.  I just thought this was a good forum in which to share the realizations about myself that came into my head and why I have the preferences I do (I think you'll see this if you read my words again).  I objected to Tom M taking my thoughts and throwing me in with the rest of the unenlightened pop culture golf masses, simply because I have a difficult time looking at design critically during an actual golf round.  I actually wish I could do both, but as I said before it is difficult for me.

Trust me, I wouldn't want too many people to do things the way I do--I want to be different.  And if it weren't for people taking a different approach to this and many other things, I certainly wouldn't learn very much, and I'd probably have less to offer.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

JakaB

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #62 on: February 13, 2003, 06:04:22 PM »
TomPaul,

Nice post...wouldn't you say studying man and his relationship to golf and architecture yourself...and making your own discoveries is more fun and fullfilling than reading the masters discoveries and then simply observing their findings.  Isn't the found epiphimy more rewarding than the observed...this is where I find the study of others dangerous.

In a literary sense I used to love to write until someone had me read Bukowski...he just made me feel like whatever I wanted to say had been said before...and took away all my fun.   Even if my thoughts aren't original sometimes I want to hold them that way.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Slag Bandoon

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #63 on: February 13, 2003, 07:09:10 PM »
J a.k.a.B, you read Charles Bukowski ?   Everything you've ever said is now starting to make sense.  

"It's not that I don't like cops, it's just that I feel better when they're not around."   Bukoski's screenplay for "Barfly" is one of the greatest quote fests of all time.  

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

for_the_record

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #64 on: February 13, 2003, 08:40:59 PM »
The song "Twisted" that Slag Bandoon quoted (My analyst told me...) was written by Annie Ross and Wardell Grey NOT Joni Mitchell.  She was just one of many people who recorded it, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross made it famous. Attributing it to Mitchell is like attributing Oak Hill to Tom Fazio.

You can now go back to your nonsense.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #65 on: February 14, 2003, 05:15:49 AM »
"TomPaul,

Nice post...wouldn't you say studying man and his relationship to golf and architecture yourself...and making your own discoveries is more fun and fullfilling than reading the masters discoveries and then simply observing their findings."

JakaB:

I certainly would. And I think Max Behr would too. He simply made the observation that there might be some interesting relationships in golf and golf architecture involving man's inherent relationship to Nature vs man's relationship to man.

As to what those relationships turn out to be in any man, he didn't exactly deal with except to say that man may face Nature (unaltered by man's hand) less critically that he might a constructed course with obstacles put there clearly to challenge him by another man.

It was an interesting observation and to whatever degree it's true is interesting for any man to consider. Had I not read Behr I doubt I ever would have thought of such a thing but maybe you would or someone else would. But I wouldn't have so I'm glad I read it.  
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Scott_Burroughs

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #66 on: February 14, 2003, 07:08:52 AM »
Am I the only one who finds irony in Tom Paul contributing to this thread?  I guess Tom is the Doyen on how not to have writer's block, so only advice can be given here, Tom!   ;)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

JakaB

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #67 on: February 14, 2003, 08:04:31 AM »
TomPaul,

Thats a solid defense of your position....so I give you that the reading of Behr has enhanced where you want to be in relation to architecture...I would put yourself into the camp of Creationists....whereas I am more interested in being a Revelationist.   A Creationist would be one who is interested in the possible creation of architecture from both virgin and existing sites...looking for the better in what he sees.   While a Revelationist is one who takes joy in the revelations that exist....looking for the good in what he discovers.   The true most basic difference is some of us put ourselves into the hands of the architects while other put themselves into the architects mind.   I might be so bold to say that it takes a greater appreciation of golf course architecture to put yourself into the hands of the designer and discover the subtle nuances as they are revealed than to become muddled in intent and conjecture.   You just can't get away with saying its a big ole game if you're stuck trying to prove the smallest of points.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

Mike_Cirba

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #68 on: February 14, 2003, 08:11:13 AM »
Some really great conversation going on here....nice thoughts and writing guys!  ;D

Makes me glad for mentioning my affliction here in the first place.  
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #69 on: February 14, 2003, 12:16:06 PM »
Scott:

No irony at all in me being on this thread. I'm on every thread whether I have anything useful to say or not.

But just look at this thread. All you weak fingered, uninspired little frozen moles out there with writer's block just stick with me and as you can see in no time flat you're all three pages into anti-writer's block.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by 1056376800 »

TEPaul

Re: Writer's Block
« Reply #70 on: February 14, 2003, 02:39:32 PM »
JakaB:

I always knew you had it in you Pal to come up with just about the ultimate post on Golfclubatlas and about so much of what goes on here which mostly is just talked around the edges of. Or maybe I should say what is really in the back of the minds of so many on here without the ability to say it--

And goddamn if I don't think you just about did that!

That 11:04am post says so much about what's fundamental in the way so many of us look at things or maybe try to without succeeding.

Creationists and/or Revelationists is a great way to put it.

But I think one can look at it both ways, but only if they really want to, and I do. I can allow golf courses to reveal things to me without overthinking much of anything but at the same time (or maybe at another time) I can also wonder about how those that built them did it and what they were thinking about.

But I definitely have to take issue with your last couple of sentences because I don't believe they state my feeling about this stuff or Behr's or many of the other good designers and thoughful writers;

You say;

"I might be so bold to say that it takes a greater appreciation of golf course architecture to put yourself into the hands of the designer and discover the subtle nuances as they are revealed than to become muddled in intent and conjecture.   You just can't get away with saying its a big ole game if you're stuck trying to prove the smallest of points."

It's completely crystal clear to me from such as Max Behr that he didn't want to put you or me or anyone else in his hands as an architect to have revealed to us anything that he necessarily intended us to do.

Almost just the opposite in fact. When he talked about hiding the architect's hand from the golfer he could just as well have said he wanted to hide the fact that any architect was ever even there.

To me that's the reason he talked so much about raw Nature and the look of it in architecture. It's why he thought if an architect had to do something architecturally he should try so hard to imitate nature in doing it so no golfer would really know the difference.

But that was a smaller point to the overall idea that in the sport of golf as opposed to the game of golf a golfer should do no more than get into his own mind (not the architect's) and come up with his own unique ideas--his own unique strategies, challenges, successes (and unfortunately failures too).

It's pretty difficult for an architect and architectural writer to try to persuade any of us that something like a fierce looking bunker is not really penal--but that's what Behr tried to do. But why?

Apparently to persuade us to make a call upon our own intelligence, to challenge the fierce bunker but avoid it instead of looking at it as a mirror or our own inadequacies.

'To make a call upon our intelligence' (Behr's term) is such a beautiful and encouraging suggestion to any golfer, in my book (his book). It's basically spurring us on, encouraging us to think for ourselves, challenge ourselves to think positive thoughts, to do good, not to think negatively and do bad. To inspire our ownselves and soar to our own heights of challenge and reward--definitely not to the architects (the man, and the man's hand).

Probably little in modern golf would be as sickening to a guy like Behr or any of the other thoughtful, nature imitating architects than those little handbooks by today's architects explaining to any golfer how to play their golf courses. It would make Behr puke--it's the opposite of all he believed in with the "sport" of golf vs what he referred to as the man dictating, directing and restricting "game" of golf!

And finally, when you say;

"You just can't get away with saying its a big ole game if you're stuck trying to prove the smallest of points."

I don't think I am trying to "prove" any points, certainly no small ones. I'm just trying to express my own opinion on things. I may be trying to prove one large point, though, that I believe I get from some of those architects that built and wrote so well.

But that point is probably only about the same one that you might be making that anything about golf architecture should not be provable for all--that it only needs to be interesting and meaningful for a single golfer uniquely--any one single golfer in and of himself. If no one else sees it his unique way--so what--frankly what could be better? That may be all I'm trying to prove, as the best way.

But you're right, at this point I just can't help trying to get into some architects' minds, but not to see how I think they wanted me to play some hole but just to see how they built it and why.

Sometimes I stand looking at a green of an old course from say the late teens from 150 yds away to see how well everything might fit together for golf in the architecture--to see what various golfers might see and think and maybe what they were supposed to see. I think of that as sitting in an audience and looking at the play on the stage.

But these days I just can't help going behind the greens on some of those old courses (that didn't tie in their architecture everywhere) and look at the stage from the opposite direction, from behind the curtain so to speak. And that way you can sort of see all the strings that make the illusion of things from the correct direction work so well.

Maybe I should just play the game and not think about those things or about all the things that the architect may have been thinking but I can't help it.

Creationist is a great way to put it. Maybe I can't even be only a Revelationist any more, like maybe you can but that's OK with me.

Maybe we're at the same point, John, where our own opinions about some of these things are such that we don't need to have them reinforced by additional consensus, if that ever mattered. That would be fine too.

I hope that's not sounding arrogant to say and I sure wouldn't want it to mean that we won't always want to keep learning.

But that was a terrific post of yours. I don't care very much, as you know, to discuss things like why is Pebble's #1 and Pine Valley's #2 but conversations and discussion like this one is what I look for.

But anyway, one last thing about Max Behr. Unlike all the others who wrote about architecture, he probably wrote about the nuts and bolts of architecture per se much less than the others. What he did do, the best of all of them, I think, is write about golf and how architecture related to it as a state of mind.

But that state of mind about anything or everything to do with it all was best if it was uniquely that golfer's own. Apparently he must have thought that's the way any man must have always looked at Nature, I guess, in his own unique way. And if he looked at a course like he did Nature he would face it and it's challenges more willingly and less critically.

This was a really long one--sorry about that.


« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:02 PM by -1 »

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