Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Mike_Cirba on February 10, 2003, 09:39:20 PM
-
Perhaps it's just the winter...
Perhaps it's just the fact I haven't picked up a club since mid-November, my longest golfing hiatus in memory...
Perhaps it's just the fact that the professional driving distance competitions masquerading as tournaments this winter have left me sitting stupified in numb disinterest...
Perhaps it's just a healthy realization that there are other things in life besides golf...or just being too busy to divert enough attention to the subject to germinate useful or interesting thoughts worth sharing.
However, the bottom line is that I've continued to read this board over the past couple of months without being able to muster anything more than a brief comment or two.
I recall John Conley afflicted with a similar syndrome some months ago, and likewise wondering what might be the cause. So, I've decided to come here and ask others if they sometimes suffer comparative lags in activity, and what they do about it when they feel they are losing touch with this discussion group.
On one level, I miss it, but I'd rather sit on the sidelines for awhile than risk becoming reiterative, boring, negative, or otherwise irrelevant.
Perhaps I just need to smell the freshly cut grass again, or be inspired by the look of a bunker face or green site that is particuarly finessed and complementary with its natural surroundings. Perhaps I need to feel the flush feel of the ball compressed against the clubhead, and watch the ball soar as if by magic and destiny towards its target. Perhaps I just need to look out over some particularly interesting land that is now draped in man-made golf features, and wonder what the architect was thinking when he first arrived at the raw site...
Perhaps I just need Spring.
-
Mike, For someone with writers block, you certainly did an excellent job of describing your symptoms and possible cures.
I myself, find that there are times to just sit back and let the Jack-ass-a-bee's (Just kidding John) of the world carry the board. I run for cover inside my warm and fuzzy shell, and READ BOOKS. It all adds to the learning process, and this way I find countless other subjects to post on or start, and then don't.
So Mike, have you made any attempt to read or re-read Architectural Side of Golf or gotten into tyour automobile and made the drive to the Not So Far Away Far Hills and studied a bit?
There is little excuse for your behavior, and I want bring back a few memories of the travails of one Robert Downey Jr.
I was being compared to the Great Party Animal himself a few years back, and found that I needed to be GCA-free for a spell. It was exactly like rehab. It got to the point that I was 42 days GCA-free, but then, it all started-up again.
This living Hell.
And just like Robert Downey Jr, who is in fact still getting movie roles despite all of the internal melt-down and psychological problems, I'm still on GCA posting, and getting in more and more trouble everyday.
So, I can only suggest to run and run fast and far. California is the place you want to be because the weather is warm and the girls are beautiful, and there is really only one golf course left of any substance that Tom Fazio hasn't changed. (Rustic Canyon) We have Game there, and it is totally awesome as you know. To Hell with staying indoors because it is too cold.
So I say to you Mike Cirba, get out of your shell and be like Led Zepplin, by "Going to California with an achin' in your heart"
Gotta go now, the jaccuzzi's looking pretty good for this achin' back!
-
Men, take as long as you need on your hiatus.
Don't know how we can do it, but we will try to keep this thing together until your return.
::)
-
Jack-ass-a-bee;
I certainly meant no offense to anyone here. You fellows are doing a fine job in my absence and I've enjoyed reading any number of threads.
I just feel a bit badly that my creative juices for participation have dried up a bit over the long winter.
A musician and lyricist suffering from writer's block was lamenting to a friend about his condition, and his friend suggested that he "write a song about Writer's Block". That guy was Billy Joel, and although the outcome of his first efforts led to the little known song "If I only had the words to tell you", it did break the ice and led to the hugely successful "Piano Man" album.
I'm just trying the same approach here. :-/
-
MC,
Can't think anything to write about? A lack of inspiration? Or is it just positioning for the KP ("winter", "haven't touched a club since November", etc.)? BS on gca making you a better golfer but not a player. You'll have a hard time hiding your new Tigeresque physique, suntan, and callouses on your hands. I suspect that John Bernhardt will have one strong competitor for the title of most "new and improved". Which means that I better plan an extra trip to the bank before heading out west.
-
Well said, Lou. I have never seen such a plaintive wail for sympathy strokes. Writer's block indeed. ;)
The real problem is the melancholy and dementia that comes from exposure to sun that's not supposed to be here in winter. I need 15 shots at least come March 15. And yeah, I can't think of anything good to write here either.
TH
-
Enjoy the respite. Recharge your batteries. Work on your putting stroke. Take your daughter to the library. Read a novel. Spend more time in Corning ;)
It will come back. The site seems to have times of great challange & intrigue and times of limbo. If your in a literary purgatory, sit back and take for a while. Your time will come soon.
Before you know, it'll be May you'll have a list courses to see a mile long and you'll be wishing for more of this time.
BTW - It is the weather!!!
-
Lou/Tom;
Realizing that mid-March is just a short month away, I picked up my putter this past weekend, and wanted to try a few four-footers just to get the feel again.
My first attempt, best described as a spasmodized, St. Vitusian body hurl of a stroke, hit the cat sitting in the corner 20 feet away.
Did I mention my chronic rotator cuff problem?
My sniffling allergy to Cypress trees?
My jet lag?? ;)
Oh...I want strokes!!! (giving my best plaintive wail) :'(
-
Mike, you get whatever # of strokes you want just for use of the term "St. Vitusian". That did elicit audible yuks out here...
;D
TH
-
Mike, perhaps only you and Huckaby actually would know which St. is patron to those who suffer the Sydenham's Chorea, (St Vitus' dance-characterised ceaseless body motion) known in modern times as the yips, or which sacrificial ritual one must undertake to ward them off :P
http://saintvitus.com/
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintv07.htm
-
Dick:
Canonization proceedings are under way even as we speak, so that Blessed Hogan becomes St. Hogan and thus St. Hogan's Disease gets its rightful honorific. I believe the only way to ward off the effects of St. Hogan's Disease is full exorcism, and even then it's an iffy proposition. ;)
BTW, if you are into our Catholic saints, check out the wonderful one after whom I am named....
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintt04.htm
TH
ps - I mean no offense to Hogan re this, hey I'm Catholic myself and I'm just having fun here.
-
Tommy,
Thanks for the laugh as I am the real JakaB.....I feel sorry for myself and those who have had to muddle through my lack of positive attitude for the last six months....I have struggled with why people like MC leave this board after so much time....The best reason I have come up with struck me yesterday when I asked ms if he really learns anything from his study or if he just forms opinions....he didn't answer me...but in truth I don't really deserve an answer because I've never attempted to learn anything...so I might be wrong.
So it comes down to this simple fact....in search of trying to learn about architecture we find that there really isn't anything to learn except what we like. There are no facts, no formulas, no solutions...just stuff we like and stuff we don't...kind of depressing really that such good effort can be wasted because with age we might even start liking what we used to not....It all makes for good and sometimes clever discussion but after a year we find our tastes are our tastes and it really becomes quite boring caring what anybody else thinks. That is unless you have convinced yourself you know what everyone else should like and believe the effort to shape their likes is worth the effort.
-
JakaB
Beautiful prose! I enjoy reading writing poetry....no facts, no formulas, no solutions....I think I will blow my brains out.
-
JakaB,
Man, you got to start taking some calcium and getting some sunshine. It can't be that dismal up there. You are wrong, wrong. We all learn something from playing golf and studying architecture. Even those obstinate types like me have an epiphany now and then. Ten years ago I believed that hazards should always be on the sides, the driving areas should be remarkably flat, the target should always be visible, and a balanced routing with variety should be ideal loops of 4-3-4-5-4-3-4-5-4. Now I like some blindness, quirk, irregular bounces, and hazards which orient me away from the middle of the fairway (line of instinct?). And who can argue with a routing like CPC's? I've even learned a little bit about playing from folks on this site (reading putts from off the fairway). So, quit being so pessimistic, get your airline tickets, and put in your two cents worth.
Mike, Huck, and Dick,
Now that you've made us aware that there are a scientific and popular names for the dreaded disease, and that there is a patron saint to appeal to, is there a special prayer that's superior to the usual after-the-fact utterances (G-- D---, SOB, etc.)? Not that I am personally having any f-----' prrrrrrrrrrroblems!
-
Mike
Post pics!
(if a pic is really worth 1000 words, I'm up with Tom Paul!)
-
John, Do you think for one minute I'm going to believe that BS? ? ? ?
But you do bring up a point. The fact is that I do think people should have opinons of what they see, as well as describe what they are seeing. So many seem to be consumed with their own game, and not consumed about the feature which dictates all sorts of play and challenges.
Yes, it can be about personal likes and dislikes and experiences and traumas. Such is life! We hit a golf ball, and if it succeeds in our quest of challenge, GREAT! If it doesn't I can only hope to try again! I guess so many are so consumed with their score-card mentality we forget why we are here in the first place.
It moves me to see Donald Ross' quirky features that dictated his style; or Dr. MacKenzie's abilities to mix natural settings with artificial ones and not know the difference. (sadly you can really only experience this nowadays at Cypress Point or Royal Melbourne, because so many of his courses have changed so drastically.) There was Tillie and his uncanny ability to change design styles from site to site and still capture the strategy and beauty of Nature's themes. Then there was Captain George C. Thomas, whose abilty to apply all of the same principles of all of the above mentioned names, and translate them so perfectly for golf. He was the very best of amateurs at this trade. Unfortunately, you probably haven't fully gotten to appreciate his works, even from afar, because-(1) so little of his original work is left, and (2) You have the biggest name in Modern Golf Architecture screwing-up his masterpiece--Riviera. Tell me John, after so many people talking on this website about Golf Architecture In America, have you actually picked it up and read it, and where you could actually make the statements above and get away with it?
There is also C.B. and Seth and Banks and Bende. Colt & Alison, Wilson and Stanley; Flyn was also "in" and so many more I can't begin to type, all that priacticed their art with great passion and without spite. Yes, some of them did it for money and for a living. But there are others that didn't even think about presenting a bill.
Do you actually think for one minute that C.B. MacDonald designed courses in the same reasons as Tom Fazio? What about George Thomas as compared to Rees Jones?
I have been surprized many times by people that have mentioned an architectural feature here or there, that I either missed or had never even fathomed seeing. I can learn from the most meager to the most humble to the most arrogant, just as long as I have an open mind to learn.
In closing-----
I have spent the majority of this night, not looking at Golf Club Atlas, but actually studying an aerial photo from 1938 of a mundane local public course that is now 83 years old. It was a 12 hole course up until the 40's, and due to the bright reflected light of the aerial, you can't make out a lot of features. However, a while back I located some softwear for free off of the internet that allows you to not only layer a transparency over the newer Mapquest aerial, it allow you to adjust the band colors which block out some of the reflected light; which has allowed me to see holes that were once Redan's, chevron-shaped bunkers, and horseshoe-shaped greens that have disappeared over that 83 year period of time.
Does any of this sound like I haven't tried to learn a thing or two about golf architecture? I hope with your VERY smart, wise and creative mind you can see where I'm going with this.
-
So Tommy, are you saying that we cannot help but learn, even though we are just out for fun? A heinous byproduct through passive osmosis? Next thing someone's gonna blurt out is that it's healthy. Or that chicks dig golfers.
On writer's block....
"A blank page is God's way of showing us how hard it is to be God." Unk.
-
I get writers block all the time, hence the stealing of other peoples' words. I even have a quote that ties writers block and golf together:
"The only equivalent plunge from genius I could think of was Ernest Hemingway's tragic loss of ability to write. Hemingway got up one morning and shot himself. Nicklaus got up the next morning and shot 66."
--Ian Woolridge (British journalist, on Nicklaus shooting 83 in the first round of the Open Championship)
On a semi-regular basis I've prepared followups to posts, and then never sent them, realizing that so many of them are arguments I've made in the past.
I've become bored by my own convictions. Maybe I should work on developing new ones.
I'm also having a tough time getting out and playing golf. It's been months since I've played, and since I'm in California I can't blame it on the weather. I've told Geoff it is his fault, since I've had very little urge to play since returning from Rustic Canyon. I just don't want the typical Northern California round to ruin the feeling I had after playing Rustic.
Dan King
P.S. Slag, nice Dobereiner quote. I don't believe I've ever seen that one.
P.P.S. For the Hogan comments:"I never saw any of man's baser acts of inhumanity to man. I never saw screaming 'witches' burned at the stake, Christians tossed to starving lions, maidens pushed over the edge of active volcanoes. I never even saw a man going to the electric chair. But until I do, watching Ben Hogan walk up to a five-foot putt is my idea of cruel and inhuman punishment, only a Hitler would enjoy. You feel like saying 'Go home to your wife and kiddies and don't look upon this terrible thing!'"
--Jim Murray (on Ben Hogan with the yips)
-
When you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's research.
-
Writer's block?
What's that?
-
Dan King:
The world doesn't revolve around Rustic Canyon. You know darn well there are several places up here you could go play and get that same feeling, or more, cuz it's more "home"... get back out to Stevinson Ranch... go down to Pacific Grove Muni... go out early at Sunol, for God's sake... the game remains great, Dan, and this ennui of yours is getting scary.
Mr. Papazian: there will ALWAYS be a place for you in THE KING'S PUTTER event. So can I now count you in and add you to the list? Will you be playing Saturday at Pasa and Sunday at Pajaro, or one or the other? Please do let me know as soon as you can.
TH
-
That original post was way too sappy for a 'topic'.
Pull it together.
Play golf, enjoy it.
-
Michael Angus;
Sappy, huh?
Your second post on GCA, with a whole wealth of topics to post on and that's all you can think of? ::)
Dude...you'd best birdie the next few holes because you're at least +2 at this point. ;)
-
Well said...
but...
if your other 2,061 posts are as 'sappy', I would prefer to not participate.
Get those clubs out of the closet, play some golf!
:)
-
Hahahaha....good one, Monsieur Anus...er..Angus.. ;)
-
Writer's block?
What's that?
Classic.
-
Tommy,
Its difficult for me to continue a disjointed conversation as I have been busy since my last post so I will answer your questions....
No I have not read any book on Architecture and doubt if I ever will...I just don't see how knowing the why will provoke me in deciding how to spend my where. I want to enjoy cross-bunkers, quirk, blindness and the like for there own sake and not due to any intent or predisposed formula that may or may have not led to their creation. I need to eliminate the critical aspect that may try to spoil my enjoyment of a recreational moment and it concerns me knowing what should have, could have or would have been has no place in what is...and I'm only there to play what is. This does not make me consumed in my score as for the first time in my golfing life I can have the greatest of days based on the simplest of single shots...or bounces...or the perfect mix of rain and warmth...or a fresh slice of tomato with the perfect amount of Miracle Whip on a diagonal cut ham sandwich on really, really fresh bread and a super chilled diet root beer in a bottle....or my most favorite...34 degree windless weather on hard frozen bent grass fairways and frozen greens...I just got to much good going to read about it...but I might be a bit jealous that you find so much happiness and passion in something that really shouldn't break your heart....speaking of that on to Fazio.
Questioning the desire or motives of modern architects when compared to classic architects should be beneath a serious student of the game like yourself.....Greatness survives and pop culture thrives so what is gone and what is being done should eventually create what is left...if this is what the majority of consumers in a capitalist society choose to allow...its only survival of the finest. Now if this breaks your heart you are just another casualty of love...baby.
-
I need to eliminate the critical aspect that may try to spoil my enjoyment of a recreational moment and it concerns me knowing what should have, could have or would have been has no place in what is...and I'm only there to play what is.
Wow, these words jumped off the screen at me. This is exactly why I hesitate to become too deeply immersed in the study of golf course architecture, because I consider myself a player of the game first and a student of the game (with GCA being just one of many important subjects) second. The last thing I would ever want to happen is for me to become distracted from the thrill of playing the game by a course or feature that I didn't like. I guess this is why I can play courses like the Preserve or Spanish Bay and say, "Wow, that was really enjoyable.--I really liked x, y, and z about the course...", while others can't get it out of their mind that the courses could have been better than they were.
...what should have, could have or would have been has no place in what is...and I'm only there to play what is."
These words hit home with me. In considering courses and architecture, and certainly while playing the game, I'm most interested in what is.
In earlier threads on the Preserve, as an example, I really tried to detail what I liked about the course, its holes, and its strategies. While there was much criticism about the course, the vast majority of it could basically be summed up into "few strategic options; he could have gotten much more out of it", without much detail about what exactly it was he could have gotten, or what should have been there in place of what actually is there. I'd rather have discussed what is there--"here's what I like and don't like about hole #9"..."what are the strategic options of the 15th hole?"...etc. (this seems to be what Adam is trying to do with Spanish Bay on another thread)--instead of discussing in vague terms that it wasn't as good as it could have been.
It would be a shame to play a good golf course, miss what is there because you're too busy imagining what could have been there, distract yourself from a good round of golf, and come away disappointed. But I know it happens.
But there is another danger to which I am more vulnerable; that is, missing wonderful architecural details because I am too immersed in playing the game. One of my regrets in golf is that I was too busy trying to post a score at Dornoch that I missed a lot of its genius. I wish I had it to do over, but Dornoch is a long way from TX...
-
I don't think the average golfers of the so called Golden Age were any different than JakaB or ChrisB. I'd guess the majority of them didn't care too much about golf architecture. Maybe due to the smaller more closely related golf population, there may have been a slightly higher percentage who cared, but certainly not the majority.
Like Barney said there is always going to be popular culture. Through the years we can look at certain pop fads, golf is not immune to the pop mentality. Not only is golf effected by it, every one of us effected by it to a large degree. Today we love our fast food, our favorite TV shows are reality shows, our radio shows combine humor and shock, very few read, very few vote, life is pretty good, we have so many leisure activities, we expect to be entertained--thinking and leisure really aren't conducive. Many of today's golf architects are either products of this mentality or are tailoring their work to this way of thinking. Golf architects of yesterday had it much easier, less competition, it was simpler day, I don't think they cared if they satisfied ChrisB or JakaB, I get the impression they designed more to satisify themselves.
-
Mr JakaB:
Do not consume yourself with such critical and self critical thoughts and posts. Put yourself in my care and I can almost warrantee you that you will be hunky doo doo in a most very short time.
Yours truly,
Dr. Katz
-
Tom M,
I don't think you intended this, but someone reading your last post might conclude that JakaB and I would rather just play the game, that we don't/can't mix thought and leisure, that we exhibit the pop mentality w.r.t. golf course architecture, and that we don't care too much about it. After reading your post it sounds like you are saying "Alas, not everyone can be enlightened as we experts wish them to be", but again I hope that's not what you're really saying.
I won't speak for JakaB (could anyone?), but I can tell you that my appreciation for golf course architecture is closely intertwined with my passion for playing the game. And you can't cleanly separate one from the other. Quite simply, great course architecture above all else serves to make playing the game more interesting, ideally for all levels of play. And you better believe I seek out and appreciate courses whose design and features (not to mention things like setting and routing which set the context in which the round will be played) make playing the game more interesting.
But--and this was my point in my last post--I am reluctant to let my enjoyment of playing the game be hampered by focusing too much on course features that I don't like or what I think "could have" or "should have" been done. And that is the danger as a student of GCA. This is especially true in tournament play, where it really behooves me to judge how the course features will affect my strategy, but not to evaluate them as good or bad architecture. I don't mind reflecting on courses I've played and evaluating them and their features, but during play I try to read everything relevant to strategy, appreciate what is there, look for the good and focus on the interests and strengths of the course (no matter how difficult they might be to find!).
"Today we love our fast food, our favorite TV shows are reality shows, our radio shows combine humor and shock, very few read, very few vote, life is pretty good, we have so many leisure activities, we expect to be entertained--thinking and leisure really aren't conducive."--Agreed, but just be careful, Tom, whose name you attach closely to a statement like that. You'd have to know someone pretty well to attach his name to that.
"Golf architects of yesterday had it much easier, less competition, it was simpler day, I don't think they cared if they satisfied ChrisB or JakaB..."--Tom, I'd be interested in reading, based on what you know about me and what I have posted, of what you think I need out of golf/architecture to be satisfied. Please answer, because I'd like to know what impressions I am creating.
If you are really interested in exchanging ideas and increasing knowledge about an interesting subject (which I know you are), then I'd rather see you ask questions and get thoughtful answers from me instead of making assumptions, making generalizations, and slapping on labels.
-
"This is exactly why I hesitate to become too deeply immersed in the study of golf course architecture, because I consider myself a player of the game first and a student of the game (with GCA being just one of many important subjects) second. The last thing I would ever want to happen is for me to become distracted from the thrill of playing the game by a course or feature that I didn't like."
That says it all and there is nothing wrong with that attitude. You are in good company.
-
ChrisB
I don't know anything about you, all I can do is read your words. Your agreement with Jaka's ramblings combined with you own comments tell me you are not unlike most golfers. The way I look it, golf is a great game, I can enjoy myself on the worst golf course, that enjoyment of the game does not prevent me from appreciating and focusing on great golf architecture, and looking at a design critically.
I do not believe the architects of the past worried about artisiticly satisfying the average golfer. I think they were interested in satisfying themsleves, as well as satisfying their colleagues and critics. If they satisfied themselves, their colleagues and critics, they knew everything else would fall into place.
-
ChrisB
I don't know anything about you, all I can do is read your words. Your agreement with Jaka's ramblings combined with you own comments tell me you are not unlike most golfers.
But Tom, that's not all you can do--you can also ask questions and get thoughtful answers. My agreement was not with JakaB's ramblings but with the particular phrase I cited. Don't become so confident with the subject and your ability to read people online that your perceptions are always accurate. I can assure you that I am quite different from the vast majority of golfers (and people for that matter), but you'll have to take my word on it!
The reason I am hesitant to become too critical of a design while playing it probably relates to the fact that I am a very deep thinker (to a fault sometimes) and tend to focus quite narrowly on things in which I am interested. This definitely helps my competitive golf, but it means that I am reluctant to let anything else "in" while I'm playing the game unless it enhances my playing experience. For me, I'm concerned that being overly critical of a course, hole, or feature might affect my playing experience, simply because it is generally more difficult to play well on holes/courses that you dislike. So I try to evaluate what is there without looking at it too critically until later.
Just be responsible and considerate with your posting, Tom. Normally your posts are thoughtful and enjoyable to read, but just make sure you know what you're talking about before you put it out there for all to see. You just can't jump from
"This is exactly why I hesitate to become too deeply immersed in the study of golf course architecture, because I consider myself a player of the game first and a student of the game (with GCA being just one of many important subjects) second. The last thing I would ever want to happen is for me to become distracted from the thrill of playing the game by a course or feature that I didn't like."
to
"I don't think the average golfers of the so called Golden Age were any different than JakaB or ChrisB. I'd guess the majority of them didn't care too much about golf architecture."
and
"Today we love our fast food, our favorite TV shows are reality shows, our radio shows combine humor and shock, very few read, very few vote, life is pretty good, we have so many leisure activities, we expect to be entertained--thinking and leisure really aren't conducive."
HUGE difference between not wanting to become too immersed and not caring, or not wanting to think. Might as well say there is no difference between being careful not to drink too much and giving up drinking altogether.
Hopefully I've explained myself and you know me and my position just a little better.
CB
-
In my mind there is no difference, between become too deeply immersed in the architecture for fear of becoming distracted from the thrill of playing the game and not letting thought/discernment interfere with your most basic satisfaction.
-
Dr. Katz, I think I'm developing a case of Reader's Block.
"My analyst told me
That I was right out of my head.
He said I need treatment.
That I was better off dead.
And that I was the kind
That was most inclined
When out of his sight
To be out of my mind. ..."
Annie Ross & Wardell Grey
-
I'm not sure how a thread on "Writer's Block" morphed into this, since, from JakaB and ChrisB at least, there has been some excellent thinking and writing. (Do the "B"s represent "Brothers separated at birth?").
Chris, I like you, am continually frustrated by participants who post hit and run accounts of courses or holes they don't like--for what ever reason--rather than explain why they don't like them and why this dislike should be of any importance to us, as students and players of the game, and its architecture. This superficiality (whether caused by laiziness and/or arrogance) detracts from making this site the great learning experience it can be, when it is at its best. Unfortunately, too often it just resembles a relatively articulate pissing contest. Perhaps that is why some of us get "writers block" form time to time..........
Jaka, as usual, you comments make me think. To me there is more love for and appreciation of golf course architecture in your writing than many of your antagonists are capable of recognizing or even willing to admit to. Keep up the good work.
-
Chris, I like you, am continually frustrated by participants who post hit and run accounts of courses or holes they don't like--for what ever reason--rather than explain why they don't like them and why this dislike should be of any importance to us, as students and players of the game, and its architecture. This superficiality (whether caused by laiziness and/or arrogance) detracts from making this site the great learning experience it can be, when it is at its best. Unfortunately, too often it just resembles a relatively articulate pissing contest. Perhaps that is why some of us get "writers block" form time to time..........
How do you get from ChrisB's post to this????
He states that he does not want to go too far in depth in thinking the course through. That's great - for him - what about the people who want to go further?
How can anyone learn anything under these guidelines???
P.S. didn't mean the smileys - got caught up in pat's multiple question marks.
-
George
I'll let Chris speak for himself, if he wishes, but my reading of his posts tells me that he very much appreciates GCA and all the other aspects of golf, but is frustrated by the generalities which characterize much of the discussion about GCA, particularly from many of the so-called "experts" and the righteous sarcasm of some who seem to think that Chris' way of enjoying and learning about GCA is somehow inferior to theirs because his methods of doing so are different.
These things frustrate me too.
I don't at all hear him saying anything at all about "not wanting to go into (GCA) in depth"--just that there are different ways to do this, with different emphases placed of different sources of learning, based on one's experiences and predilections.
This seems fine to me to.
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).
-
RichB
I don't think Chris liked me telling him he was like the majority of golfers of today, or yesterday for that matter, who would rather enjoy the game without thinking too deeply about the architecture. I'd put you in the same catagory, in fact you may be president of that catagory. Like I told him, he is in good company.
-
Man, I'll tell you, this website really amazes me sometimes. Golfclubatlas has the potential to produce some amazing stuff I doubt you'd ever find anywhwere else.
Others seem to have developed some writer's block recently. I know I sure haven't. Then I noticed a reference by Slag Bandoon to reader's block--that's me.
So I decided to really read this thread, particularly the exchange between JaKaB and TommyN, and those commenting on that exchange.
It's just great stuff. Many contributors to this site seem to get frustrated and then annoyed if other contributors don't stick strictly to discussing architecture per se. That kind of frustration and annoyance has always been interesting to me in and of itself because I can't really figure out what's annoying them.
But we get contributors like JakaB (whose posts and writing I've certainly always really enjoyed--if for the very least it amazes me what actually goes through his mind and how interestingly he puts it down in text here--but frankly from the very beginning when he was flipping through various names to use here I've felt there is truly much to ponder in what he puts on here--very much). TommyN, I know very well and I'm quite certain I know pretty well where he's coming from on architecture.
Some constantly question why some of us keep trying to get so deep into the heads of architects (and their work) who have been dead for 50 -75 years. And why we read so much about them and their thoughts on architecture. Others question why some challenge the motivations of architects today.
So it seems that Golfclubatlas is two things really. A site were people really do like to discuss the particular merits of architectural things per se but also where contributors come to test and understand some things about themselves. These people, certainly including myself, are looking to have their own sometimes vague ruminations about golf and even architecture turned into stronger convictions through the consensus of others.
Is this learning? I suppose it is---although it's a rather self consumed way of going about it because it almost seems to demand agreement. It's not that often that a regular contributor who runs some vague rumination by this site actually appears to change his tune and accept in whole a contrary opinion or position of another contributor. That alone we all should wonder about. And of course, we should always ask ourselves--is it even necessary (as maddening as it may appear to be to others sometimes)?
But as to the architects and their products that we sometimes discuss per se in detail--how do they and what they were thinking about their products as far as our opinions of it come into this? Did they expect consensus and agreement on it by all golfers? That's a great and complex subject for another time, for sure.
Just some of MacKenzie's well known statements about truly trying to create controversy by what he offered in his architecture might be an interesting place to start that subject.
I gotta go, and don't think I won't have a lot more to say on this extremely interesting thread--I will.
But for the time being, I'd make the suggestion, maybe even the plea that we all try a bit harder not to proselytize with our own opinions and try harder not to bolster our own egos looking for consensus of the things we may think or even need.
And let's try to remember as much as possible something that most good architects must have felt deep in their bones for a whole variety of reasons, and that is,
"Golf and it's architecture is a great big game and there really is room in it for everyone!"
-
Thanks, Tom P
I agree that there are many ways of approaching GCA and that disagreement is one of the essential stimuli for learning. I personally find that disagreeing civilly and with respect for the opinions of others is far more productive than the alternatives, but others seem to disagree with that opinion.
-
This is great stuff, and I think it's hitting at the heart of my own personal "issues" re all of this, but you guys have me sort of confused. I have said many times in here I do NOT consider myself a student of "golf course architecture" as a separate subject... but I always thought I was a student of "golf"... To me there's a big difference there that is very fundamental, but that I've never been able to adequately explain.
In any case, this hits very close to home for me:
"This is exactly why I hesitate to become too deeply immersed in the study of golf course architecture, because I consider myself a player of the game first and a student of the game (with GCA being just one of many important subjects) second. The last thing I would ever want to happen is for me to become distracted from the thrill of playing the game by a course or feature that I didn't like."
And I am very grateful to ChrisB for these. This is the best explanation of exactly how I feel that I've yet seen. I'm not sure if I'm the "good company" to whom Tom M. refers, but I am company here anyway. It hits me like a lightning bolt now that what I've always been trying to say is I am a player first, student second, and gca is just one of the subjects of the "study" in any case. Thanks again for the clarity, Chris. This might seem simple to you but damn it's always been very tough to nail down for me, and you've done it, my friend. Your clarifications after that post are golden, also.
My confusion comes from where people went after this.
Tom P: you state GCA is two things... you explain very well the first thing, which is the study... is ChrisB's "way" the second thing?
Rich G: You state:
"I agree that there are many ways of approaching GCA and that disagreement is one of the essential stimuli for learning. I personally find that disagreeing civilly and with respect for the opinions of others is far more productive than the alternatives, but others seem to disagree with that opinion."
What are the "alternatives"? Coming to consensus?
My final question is for any of the many people from whom I do learn so much here. I like to read about golf quite a bit. I devour all books I can find on the subject of the greatest game there is. But golf course architecture books in general leave me cold... I learned nothing from Hunter's "The Links", for example, and TommyN often cites that as one of the seminal works on the subject... To me it was just archaic and said nothing I hadn't heard many times in many other places... Not picking on that one example, my query is this:
I prefer to learn from experience, and ChrisB's quote might as well be my mantra for my approach to golf. Yet, I also do like to read about the game, hell it's part of the experience... Like Chris, I never want to become so immersed that I walk courses rather than play them, with no offense to those who do choose to do this - it's just not my way. So with all this long-winded explanation, the question is, what am I missing in the works of these old masters? I swear I've read nearly all, and haven't gotten much out of any....
I ask this humbly and with a goal to learn and to get more out of them as I do find them interesting, anyway. But keep in mind that player first, student second is always gonna be the way for me.
Or does that answer the question?
TH
-
TomH
Great post. What I was trying to say is that the "alternative" is to disagree without civility and without respect for the opinions of others. I've probably been guilty of this in the past, and for that I say mea culpa. Unfortunately, I am not the only one with such guilt.
Rich
-
Rich - very cool, you know me, I always assume there's something I'm missing. OK, yeah, disagreeing and sniping and the like sure is the other way... and hell, we all fall to that from time to time, I know I have also. Some find that fun but it surely doesn't help the learning process. Well said.
TH
-
In most cases too little is yet given to the beauty, harmony, and grandeur of the finished product. When we build golf courses we are remodeling the face of nature, and it should be remembered that ‘the greatest and fairest things are done by nature and less by art’, as Plato truly said. What garden of the world equals some of the pictures nature paints? What modern golf course equals in beauty the seaside courses, and especially those which have been left from the touch of the architect? If there has been improvement in the art of constructing golf courses, it has been largely due to the willingness of the best architects to imitate humbly and lovingly what nature has placed before them . . . And when the finished product appears it so blends itself with the surrounding landscape that few can tell where nature ends and art begins.
-
Good stuff, Mr. Hunter. And I surely love your work on the ground in my area.
But the end result of reading that is... ok, that's great, but no lightning bolts. Your whole book does that for me, no offense. Maybe in the 30's it was revolutionary stuff, but it's all been said so many times since... perhaps not with your flair nor skill, but said nonetheless.
TH
-
This has been said before....by whom?
No lightning bolts, help me to understand what exactly that means....you said you learned absolutely nothing from my book.....what books have you learned from? What did you learn?
-
Mr. Hunter:
I said it has been said SINCE, not before. I guess the problem is mine - I read your book only after reading many others and living a long time in and around this game... So what I'm saying is, what you said may well have been revolutionary at the time of writing, but it is not now. Thus I question the relevance of your book today as anything but a neat historical jaunt.
Please understand I am a great admirer of your work though, and it thrills me to converse with you through this paranormal electronic medium, in any case. :)
BTW, no lightning bolts means no "revelations". My apologies for the poor phrasing... I am a humble player of the game, bear with me.
TH
-
I'll bear with you, please bear with me. Who has said it since?
What books have produced these lightning bolts for you? Share with us some of your revelations.
-
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
-
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.
-
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)".
-
"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
-
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
-
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
-
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.
-
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
-
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)
-
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)
-
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. :)
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
"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.
-
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! ;)
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.