Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Dan Kelly on January 02, 2003, 09:51:24 PM
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Bernard Darwin, "The Golf Courses of the British Isles," Chapter XIV:
"There are several very excellent courses in Wales, but I am quite determined to put Aberdovey first -- not that I make for it any claim that it is the best, not even on the strength of its alphabetical pre-eminence, but because it is the course that my soul loves best of all the courses in the world. Every golfer has a course for which he feels some such blind and unreasoning affection. When he is going to this his golfing home he packs up his clubs with a peculiar delight and care; he anxiously counts the diminishing number of stations that divide him from it, and finally steps out on the platform, as excited as a schoolboy home for the holidays, to be claimed by his own familiar caddie. A golfer can only have one course towards which he feels quite in this way, and my one is Aberdovey."
Which course is your one -- the one your soul loves best? And, naturally, why?
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Dan,
I have been lucky enough to play a lot of great courses in the last year or so from Pine Valley to Sand Hills to TOC to Kingsbarns plus many others but the one course I am truly in love with is North Berwick.
I have a good friend called Geoff who also has played many great courses but we love giving Sam the starter a ring when it is raining hard in Edinburgh to find out how the weather is and hearing it perfect at North Berwick. We jump in his car drive 40 minutes to find blue skies and a smiling Sam waiting for us.
Geoff and I relax more on North Berwick than any other course I have played on. The members are relaxed and kind the pro shop is friendly and professional as well as helpful. The bar is great and ovelooks the course as well a beautiful view of the ocean.
Pine Valley changed my attitude to golf but North Berwick puts my mind at peace like no other course I know. No disneyland golf here unlike St.Andrews just pure links in a small town full of real loving golfers.
Brian.
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Dan,
I can undestand why B. Darwin loved Aberdovey. I played the course in 2000 and loved it too. Aberdovey was an AOTD some time ago and I put some photos of the course on a website for you. Here is the link again:
http://de.geocities.com/golfplatzarchitektur/Aberdovey.html
To your question: My homecourse is definitely the course I love best. It is not the best designed course in the world but having played soooo many rounds of golf on this course I have a lot of nice memories to it.
I remember playing holes in one, eagles,... , triple-pars,... someone throwing his 8iron into a tree and not finding it back although we were searching for it more than half an hour :), someone got run over by his own remote controlled trolley (without getting hurt), sleeping in a tent on the first tee 8),.......
It is not only the course itself why I love the place!
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Great quote Dan, for me I have always enjoyed going to the European Club south of Dublin, its got a great story behind it and one thing i really like doing when i play there is how i would re-position the fairway bunkering and touch up the greens complexes to create a really wonderful strategic challenge to add to the delightful routing and scenery that surrounds the golfer.
I always love stepping on the Jubilee course at St.Andrews because it brings back memories of some of the best matches i've enjoyed in St.Andrews (and i am already looking forward to going back to Kingsbarns where i caddied).
And my home course Ratho here in Tasmania, which is Australia's Oldest Golf Course, is always nice to come back to after playing some much more dynamic, but no less interesting golf courses elsewhere.
Greg Ramsay
www.barnbougledunes.com/new_site
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Dan
For me it is obviously my "home course." $Even though it has never been my "home." I feel completely at home there--in terms of people, vistas, feng shui, memories, thoughts about the future, etc.. What else is there? The fact that it happens to be one of the finest golf courses in the world is irrelevant.
Rich(ard)
PS--Even just snippets from Darwin show that the pretenders to his throne, such as Behr, Longhurst, Jenkins, Wind......even Kelly......are just that, pretenders. They only sit at the very floor of the pantheon in which he is now ensconced.
PPS--I have never been to Aberdovey, but it is a course that has very "homey" significance to me........
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“The course your soul loves best?”
What an interesting way to ask the question.
I thought about that for some time and I would say Mallow G.C, Mallow, Ireland, certainly not a course to win any awards from anyone.
I spent a week in Mallow, found out about the little Mallow G.C that sits on a steep hillside falling down to the river that runs through the town. After introducing myself I played Mallow every morning at daybreak, alone, and was home before breakfast or even before anyone was out of bed and before a single car arrived in Mallow G.C parking lot.
There was never any of the other things to think about involving golf I’ve become so used to—other players, competition, talk, waiting, whatever. Just the early Irish mornings, the expanse of the Irish countryside, the river and town below, the super fast, quirky, hillside course of Mallow, me and my excited thoughts about the possibilities of the bounding ball doing things and going places I was learning and loving more about each day.
I know I’ve never come that close to what I consider the true essence of golf must be—but I hope I do again someday!
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Dan
For me it is obviously my "home course." $Even though it has never been my "home." I feel completely at home there--in terms of people, vistas, feng shui, memories, thoughts about the future, etc.. What else is there? The fact that it happens to be one of the finest golf courses in the world is irrelevant.
Rich(ard)
Rich - wow, that Aberdour really must be something. Can't wait to see it some day. ;)
TH
ps Bernard Darwin is and always shall be the best - well said. After reading a new book about Ouimet's win called "The Greatest Game Ever Played", Darwin is now also a hero to me... he's a big part of that story....
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If I'm not mistaken I believe Darwin was Ouimet's scorer on that great day in Boston--I believe Darwin's signature is on Quimet's card.
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You are not mistaken, TEP - Darwin was Ouimet's scorer. Assuming we can believe the accounts given by Frost in this new book, he also picked out Ouimet earlier as an American to watch out for after Ouimet's impressive showing in a loss to Travers in the US Amateur. Frost's account also just makes Darwin out to be a great guy... by my read anyway!
TH
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Dave
Darwin was very much talking about his "home" course. If Itasca doesn't do it for you, neither Medina nor Rye will really qualify.
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Excellent clarification, Rich.
Which just makes me even sadder - I don't have a course that meets these qualifications... Somehow no course that I've called my "home" stirs my soul as Darwin describes. The courses that get me excited and give me cause for blind and unreasoning affection are all other people's homes. Such is the curse of the public course golfer... oh well. :'(
TH
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Dave
My understanding of Darwin is on the same level as my understanding of my own golf swing, i.e. intuitive, usually OK, but occasionally tragically wrong.
I'm pretty sure that Darwin came to Aberdovey fairly early in his life, probably on holidays, and throughout his life saw it as a peaceful bolt hole from the helter skelter of London. Just the concept of taking the train from London to the Aberdovey station instills a great sense of peace in me, even though I have never taken that route, nor even ever been to Aberdovey. I think that Bernie was a Captain of the club.
From all I have heard about the course, it is OK, but not in any way of Rye standards. But, who really cares? What matters, at least to me, and I think Bernie, is a place that when the stationmaster (literal or figurative) calls out "Aberdovey!" there is a rush in your blood that fills your soul with a holistic warmth that overwhelms even the feeling of standing on the 16th tee at Cypress. If the golf course is more than just OK, that is just a minor bonus......
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Rich, you sell yourself short, you're a tremendous slouch.
Sorry for that last part - had to be said for Dave's sake - Caddyshack line.
In any case, your take on Darwin seems to jive with a little bio I found:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/golfonline/history/features/darwin.html
His club afflitiations are described thusly:
"It was not only in golf literature that he was prominent. At the Royal and Ancient he was Chairman of the Rules of Golf Committee and in 1934 Captain of the Club. He was a member or honorary member of numerous well-known clubs, of which his favourites were St. Andrews, Hoylake, Rye, Woking and Aberdovey in Wales, where he regularly spent his summer holiday."
TH
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Darwin's mother was Welsh, her family - including his grandmother - lived nearby Aberdovey. BD's father was introduced to golf by his wife's brother, he and another brother (Bernard's uncles Richard and Arthur) actually laid out Aberdovey. (Similar to Hutchinson, whose uncle helped to establish Westward Ho!) BD played most of his early golf at Felixstowe, Cromer and Eastbourne, but the trips to Aberdovey evidently made the greatest impression.
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golf2002, great post and thanks for the link.
Dan, you didn't tell us yours.
While I want mine to be Wild Horse, under the rules I will gladly accept the Ed Lawrence Packard designed course I play week in and week out, Brown County Muni. I would be happy to take any of the GCAers to the course without having reservations that it isn't good enough. It will give them all that they can handle and would impress them sufficiently. But, for the reasons golf2002 states, it is the memories of good times playing it with the buddies that really makes it special. Even the 10 minute drive out there, whether alone or with one of the regular men's club 4some is filled with quiet anticipation and thoughts of how to attack one of the holes that has been getting the best of you lately. Driving in the parking lot and seeing all the old regulars cars and knowing that everyone is blessed to be in place for one more day of golf comraderie. The course is so good, that any one of the holes can become your new worst nemisis. And, the one that was beating you up previously, has started to yield to your play, if only temporarily, until that little thing starts to happen in your head that needs to be reworked in your pre-slumber ponderings. Still looking for the hole-in-one memory however...
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Tom IV
I have always been a great slouch, and being of the same birth year as the creator of Caddyshack (and Animal House) I have a contemporaneous sense of both films that wet-behind-the-ears youngsters such as you and/or Dave S. will never have. Thankfully, unlike Doug Kenney (RIP), I am still alive, although if and when I do go, doing a double gainer with 3 1/2 twists off a cliff on Maui ain't bad. Is there a comparable place at or near Kapalua?
As for geezers such as Tom III "....the trips to Aberdovey evidently made the greatest impression...." MacWood, there still may be some hope...........
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Rich:
Touche. I should have known better than to doubt you re anything important, and Caddyshack certainly qualifies there!
Contemporaneous sense or not, you do NOT want to mess with Mr. Schmidt when it comes to Caddyshack knowledge, however. He is to that what Tiger/Jack/Bobby Jones combined are to golf.
TH
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Now wait just a gorse-pickin' minute!
This course of your soul needn't be your home course! It needn't be one you play often! It needn't be in your own hemisphere!
For Dave Schmidt, it's Rye! No need for it to be any other. His need to travel to Rye (along with the approach thereto) is, it seems to me, perfectly parallel to Darwin's travels to Aberdovey; his affection for Rye, spiritually kin to Darwin's unreasoning fondness for Aberdovey. It matters not one whit if Shivas is ever a Captain (or even a Member) there. That's the course his soul loves best!
(Thanks, Golf2002, for those terrific pictures of Aberdovey. I like them all, a lot, but especially the one with the railroad tracks in the foreground, the two greens in the middleground, and the sea in the background; I like that one so much that I've made it, at least temporarily, my computer "wallpaper," replacing a picture of the magnificent vista provided by Nos. 17 and 18 at Sand Hills.)
For Tom I, it's Malone G.C. -- where he has spent but a week of his life! It's not Merion, and it's not Pine Valley, and it's not even Gulph Mills. And I say: Beautiful, Tom I! Even though my presence would have wrecked your solitude (solitude being a beautiful thing on a golf course, especially at dawn or dusk), I'd love to have been there with you on that empty course, learning to love the bounces.
And as for me? It's one of three courses, none of which I've played enough -- in enough conditions, at enough stages of my life, with enough different sorts of people -- to know for sure that it's my soulmate. One (Sand Hills), I've played for two days in 1996; one (North Berwick), I've played only one round, in the late fall of 1999; and one (Hazeltine), I've played just once since high school, when I played it pretty regularly (and quite cluelessly; this was long before the game became an obsession for me).
Sand Hills and North Berwick are wonderful golf courses in spectacular settings. You all know that. I loved Sand Hills' being in the middle of nowhere; I loved North Berwick's being in the middle of town -- or even more than that: BEING, it seemed, both the physical and the spiritual center of town. (I'm delighted to hear, from Brian Phillips, that the club's friendliness is a habit; that I didn't just get lucky the day I was there. I wish I'd known to say hi to Sam the Starter -- though he may not have been there that day; I was one of a very few players on the course, on a beautiful November Sunday.) Hazeltine, by contrast, is a fine, fine golf course, on wonderful rolling farmland, under those wide Midwestern skies -- not spectacular, I suppose, speaking as objectively as possible, but spectacularly representative of the part of the world that's my my part of the world: big, open, honest, straightforward, unpretentious. I've spent 21 wonderful long dawn-to-past-dusk summer days at Hazeltine (1970 and 1991 Opens, 2002 PGA), walking the course and watching the best in the world show how the game can be played. And after all three tournaments, I hung out there as long as they'd let me, this past summer walking the holes one last time, feeling bereft -- as though I were leaving home -- and aching to play the course again, just the way Dave Schmidt ached to play the forbidden Medinah.
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OK.
I'm big on definitions today. ;)
If we're basing this on Darwin's quote, it seems to me Rich is right - it has to be a home course. That's the gist of what Darwin is saying.
If we're just asking about courses that stir the soul, for whatever reason, then it's Sand Hills without a doubt for me. The drive from N. Platte would equal the train ride to Aberdovey.
Pebble Beach qualifies for me also - many important life events have occurred for me there, so it always has a strong place in my soul... and the drive south to it, 101-156-merging into 1 - off at 17 mile drive - this would always stir the soul....
But neither is close to being my "home."
I wish that they were!
TH
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I'm big on definitions today. ;)
If we're basing this on Darwin's quote, it seems to me Rich is right - it has to be a home course. That's the gist of what Darwin is saying.
Not to mince words (or initials, even), Tom IV, but --
B.S.!
Darwin was using the word "home" metaphorically. He's a writer, man!
He said that every golfer has one course for which he feels a blind and unreasoning affection, one course that every golfer's "soul loves best of all the courses in the world." That course, Darwin is quite clearly saying, is, by definition, "his golfing home" -- no matter where it is located, no matter the golfer's connection (or non-connection) to it!
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Dan: that was Clintonian. Home doesn't mean home. OK, I get it now. ;)
Actually I do understand what you're saying. Home is where the heart is, not where one plays most of his golf or is a member.
Aberdovey was one of the courses where Darwin was a member, that's all. To me that holds more weight than his metaphor, or any diagram of the sentence. When you know this, the quote takes on the meaning I've given it... At least I think it does.
One's golfing home is the course that his soul loves best of all the courses in the world. This was Aberdovey for Darwin, a course at which he was a member, and thus his "home course" by our modern definition. That's the assumption behind the quote - we all have a home course like his, that we love the best - with "home course" meaning a place we're a member at, not where our heart wants to be. That comes from being a member, from being at our home - not the other way around.
That's why I thought I can't claim Sand Hills no more than Dave can claim Rye, sadly.
But hey, I'm happy to have it if that's what this is about... that's just a far easier question than sticking to the way Rich interpreted it.
TH
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that's just a far easier question than sticking to the way Rich interpreted it.
Wrong again, Tom IV!
If your "soul course" has to be, in your terms, your "home course" (course at which you're a member), that makes the question immeasurably EASIER ... unless you're one of those freakish characters who are members at great courses here, there and everywhere.
Listen, I'm deciding here -- and shall brook no more dissent :o : Darwin meant what I say he meant. His actual Membership at Aberdovey (among many other courses, apparently) is entirely beside his point!
Course your soul loves best = your golfing home.
Ergo:
Your golfing home is Sand Hills.
Dave Schmidt's is Rye.
Tom I's is Malone GC.
Brian Phillips's is North Berwick.
Dick Daley's is Wild Horse.
Rihc's is Royal Dornoch.
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I'd like to thank my lawyer and editor for returning my soul home to Wild Horse!
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Well ok, now that you've made the autocratic proclamation, than I ought to nod a simple assent.
But as the great Lee Corso says, not so fast my friend.
Sand Hills is only one that does it for me. There are likely 100 others. That's why at least for me, it's a very easy question. I could go on all day.
I guess just to get off the fence, I could say a great triumvirate of Cypress/Sand Hills/NGLA stirs my soul more than any other courses, with Pebble stirring it for more personal reasons. Then add to that Studio City par 3 course, where I learned the game as a kid and just won a stirring father-daughter foursome match this past weekend with my 7 year old partner... that course has no hole longer than 130 yards but it stirs my soul for greater reason even than any of the great triumvirate.
But none of these places is "home", not for me anyway - I have no home course really.
So for me, it's easy to say all these great courses stir my soul - except for the par3 course, they'd stir ANYONE'S soul.
The harder question is where one really is "home", in a golf context.
And sadly, that for me remains nowhere, as I see it.
But you're the boss. So give me basically any course discussed on this site, and it stirs my soul for one reason or another.
TH
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Interesting stuff.
Dave
You needn't spend so much time trying to parse what I say and hire linguistic consultants (Mr. Goldman?) on top of that! Just look at the quotation marks/inverted commas that I put in when I typed "home course." Dornoch is no more my "home" than was Aberdovey to Darwin. However, to be a "home" course, I think (and I think that Bernie would agree) that it has to "feel" like "home." What would Aberdovey be to him if when the train started to pull to a halt there was no caddy waiting for him, and when he walked up to the pro shop/starter they said to him: "Darwin? Sorry, sir, have you booked a round for today? Very sorry, but the course is hired out to Alliance & Leicester for their annual Spring Texas Shotgun Scramble."
Well, you know what it would be to him? Yes, his "home" course. He'd brush off the fact that he couldn't play that day. Go up to the bar to swap lies with his pals, and look forward to playing tomorrow.
I love Rye and North Berwick and Brora and Stanford and Pebble Beach and Woods Hole and Spyglass Hill and Ballyliffin and..........many more, as well as I love Dornoch, But none of them are "home." As much as I loved the 36 I played at Rye nearly 22 years ago in the early Spring, if I were to pull up to their gates tomorrow would I love the feeling? Yes. Would I be full of anticipation? Yes. Would I feel at "home?" No.
Dan Kelly
Think of George Carlin's bit comparing baseball and football. In football, you SCORE!!!! In baseball, you come home.......
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Dan Kelly:
I find the terrific thing about Golfclubatlas is the conviction of opinion! Things aren't what most people think they are they're only what some of us say they are! And that's final---end of discussion!!! It's a shame people like MacKenzie, Tillinghast, Cliff Roberts and John Arthur Brown couldn't be on here.
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Tom Paul
Is Mackenzie the architect of your "soul course", Malone?
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Here's a little trivia question to momentarily take your minds off what Darwin meant by "home".
Who was the only man to lose an overtime match in the Walker Cup?
(Hint--Darwin was there).
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Paul Turner:
I really am losing my mind. I didn't mean Malone G.C. (although I did go there last year). I meant Mallow G.C in Mallow Ireland. Apparently it was remodeled with nine added by John Harris. As to who built the original nine--I have no idea--maybe the local bartender.
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Mr. Paul -
As we all know, J.W. Sweetser lost to C.V.L. Hooman in overtime at the 1922 Walker Cup.
I am unemployed and snowbound.
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You're the man, Michael.
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Think of George Carlin's bit comparing baseball and football. In football, you SCORE!!!! In baseball, you come home.......
Rich --
I'm thinking of it -- and it's not helping me understand this one little bit! (Of course, I keep thinking of the Seven Dirty Words.
Tom I --
Sorry, pal, but it's not "You're the man, Michael."
It's "You da man, Michael."
Even Patrick/Perry knows that.
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Dave:
Dammit, you are right again. Not since Professor Pilkington-Smythe at St. Albans in the Marsh have I read of a better description of 'spiritual home.'
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Dan
Let me help you out, ole' buddy!
"Scoring" is a one night stand, "Coming Home" is a marriage bed (for better or for worse....)
"Scoring" is playing 36 holes on one day at Rye, "Coming Home" is playing no holes on a rainy day at your "home" course
etc.
If you aren't familiar with Carlin's Baseball/Football series of analogies, do so. It is one of his best routines.
You were right about one thing--Darwin was a gifted writer. It was not for nothing that he compared the feelings he got on his annual train ride to Aberdovey to the feelings he had when a schoolboy returning home for the holidays. It was not for nothing that he used the words "blind and unreasoning affection." It was not for nothing that he used the word "home" twice in that short paragraph, with subtly different usages of the word.
I never meant to propose or imply in my replies on this thread that "the course that (one's) soul loves best" has to be one's home course, which is why I used the quotation marks. However, I think that Darwin was not saying, in effect:
"Golly gee, I've played a lot of great tracks around the world, but that Aberdovey is just somethin' else. Can't wait to play there again!"
I personally think that he is saying something much deeper, which relates to the different values which we all place on familial and familiar things vs. those things which we know to be transitory or just give us momentary pleasure.
That, at least to me, is the difference between "scoring" and "coming home."
Dave
In your initial post you referred to Rye and then shifted your thoughts to Medina. One this board, you once changed your sideboard from "...dreams of Rye..." to "....dreams of NGLA...." Maybe you have not yet found your golfing "home," or maybe you are just a golfing polygamist!
Tom P
Being nearly as old as you, I forgive you for your confusion in the name or your soulmate course, but I must ask you--if Mallow is really to you what Aberdovey was to Darwin, why have you not gone back there since your original brief encounter? Surely you have had the means and the opportunity to do so. Obviously, you have not had the motive to do so. If this is the case, how can it be the "course that your soul loves best?"
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(http://home.earthlink.net/~tommy_n/Mvc-028f.jpg)
Bernard Darwin at "The Cader" on his beloved Aberdovey Golf Links
Bernard Darwin's passge on Aberdovey in Golf Course of the British Isles is one of my favorite chapters in golf literature. There is clearly an exhuberance and feel that he, unlike no other writer, is able to project. He speaks to reader (us) as if we are riding that same train as he has so many times before--looking forward to another trip to the Aberdovey Links, and, another magnificent challenge.
Darwin's soul is clearly part of this game, he loved it so. However, Rich, I find it hard to beleive that you could so easily discount Max Behr, when, most of don't even know where to exactly find his equally wonderful written works.
Both men clearly loved the Game, and both have left a legacy on which to further construe the exact meanings of the Game itself. Read GCOTBI and it is clear that Darwin loved a lot of golf courses. Then get ahold of an excellent modern book--Mike Miller and Geoff Shackelford's Art of Golf Architecture to read some of the Behr quotes.
You will not be disappointed!
The Art of Golf Architecture--Max Behr
We are too apt to mistake which is pretty, or picturesque, for the beautiful. Prettiness, although pleasing, is a transient thing incident to the fancies of the moment; but beauty rests upon the fundamental--its lineaments are the surface revelation of a perfection that lies beneath. Where beauty is lacking there must likewise be a lack of intelligence. Indeed, beauty may well prove to be the economic solvent to that continual evolution in the he way of innovations and alterations to which most all golf courses are subject. If the holes have been most advantageously routed in the beginning, beauty practically always accompanies economy of structure. When we perceive it, we first become aware of truth; and only in the presence of truth do we recognize stability and permanence.
What, then, is art in golf architecture? What are the values we should seek, and the method we should adopt to arrive at them?
If we examine courses in general, we shall find that whenever the modifications of the ground have been so inwrought as to seem inevitably a part of their surroundings, not only are they liable to manifest beauty, but we can be relatively sure the work promises to endure. Experience has taught us that courses constructed with no higher end then merely to create a playground around which one may strike a ball, present the golfer with little more then a landscape brutalized with ideas of some other golfer.
We forget that playing golf should be a delightful expression of freedom. Indeed, the perfect rhythmic coordination of muscles to swing the club makes of the golf club an art. And, being such, it is apt to induce an emotional state, under the stress of which human nature is not rational, and resents outspoken criticism. It follows that when the canvas of Nature over which the club-stroke must pass is filled with holes artificially designed to impede the golfer’s progress, these obvious man-made contraptions cause a violation of that sense of liberty he has every right to expect. This accounts for the checkered history of every artificial appearing golf course.
But, if we look closely, we shall discover that the changes rarely involve natural hazards. Indeed, the vice veriest tyro is unconsciously aware that the golf is a contest with Nature. Thus, where he meets her unadorned, unblemished by the hand of man, he meets her without criticism.
Golf Architecture is not an art of representation; it is, essentially an art of interpretation. And an interpretative art allows freedom to fancy only through obedience to the law which dominates it’s medium, a law that lies outside ourselves. The medium of the artist is paint, and he becomes its master; but for the medium of the golf architect is the surface of the earth over which the forces of Nature alone are master.
Therefore, in the prosecution of his designs, if the architect correctly uses the forces of nature to express them and thus succeeds in hiding his hand, then, only has he created the illusion that can still all criticize.
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pebble beach.....as a young greenskeeper in the early 70's,i was able to play every day ,thanks to the enlightened managements perception that if one played the game he would better care for the course he maintained.unfortunately most people can not afford that kind of access.this was a time before the rough was irrigated, wall to wall cart paths,etc......the sun rising over carmel...mist, rain and fog...seals barking in the bay ,worked 5:30 till 2 then off to play.moonlight permiting,we would play before work, carying just 5,8,10 irons and putter....balls lost in the dark cost a stroke,regardless of location.......i doubt this course exists anymore.........
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"Maybe you have not yet found your golfing "home," or maybe you are just a golfing polygamist!"
Rich Goodale to Dave Schmidt
Great stuff--amazing thread! This stuff should be copied and pasted into some graduate class somewhere for perusal and discussion!
Rich:
Good question about Mallow G.C. and why I wouldn't go back there regularly as Darwin might have to Aberdovey.
One reason may be that I took from Darwin's passage only what I felt like taking from it at the time I read it.
I too think Darwin was one great writer but I'm never that concerned about what others may think of what EXACTLY he MAY HAVE meant about something, some word or reference. I'm only concerned about what it means to me that seems important and then I just go with that. And I fully appreciate whatever it might mean to them, although maybe very different from me is what they should concern themselves with.
That is basically all the art of communication with a writer such as Bernard Darwin is to me--and the beauty is it can mean different things to different people and consequently create wondrerful dynamic of thought and opinion, any of which can touch various people in various ways obviously personally. That I feel probably is the best effect of great writing, like Darwin's.
Mallow to me was a wonderful experience for a solid week at a particular time and place. It may be that it IS so precious to me that I may not want to go back and compare it to "returning home", even metaphorically. My feeling is I would love to have another experience something like that somewhere else, some other course in the world. It may not be the same, but it may be even better in some way, somehow. That's the way I look at golf and maybe even architecture--I love the differences it can apparently offer and maybe that's what I want to seek out.
Bamberger's section in "To the Linksland" on seeking the "essence" of the game and feeling he may have come near to it at Cruden Bay may be something similar--but I don't think what he found and felt about it is diminished at all because he may not have returned.
TommyN;
Thanks for that passage of Max Behr. Behr was not a writer on golf like Darwin was--Behr offered entirely different insights into the essence of the game. It doesn't mean to me it's better than Darwin, or Darwin was better than him--they are very different, and there are extraordinary things in what Behr wrote, at least to me--amazing insights.
Sometimes Behr's writing is convoluted beyond belief but if you consider it closely I think there's some wonderful meaning but obviously his writing can and does create huge differences in interpretation and opinion. So what?
Something like his mention or art (art in golf architecture) as not representation but interpretation is such a thing. Different people could and probably will have huge differences of opinion on that alone.
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Tom
Great post. I think you are really onto something in your "comparison" of Darwin and Behr. For one, thing it is not at all "odious." For another, you say convincingly that it is not a question of "D vs. B" or "D or B." It is "D and B" both with their different insights and writing style.
Reading the Behr passage that Tommy N. posted, it seems clear to me that Darwin could never have written anything that complex, nor could Behr have written anything as simple as Darwin's paean to Aberdovey. Maybe one or both was capable of copying the other's style, but I very much suspect that neither one of them really wanted to. Looking at the picture of the Cader bunker, and remembering Darwin's description of it, which relates mostly to his play of the hole and the interplay of him and the caddies on the hill and very little of its architecture, I wonder how Behr would have described the hole. Actually, my mind boggles at the thought. I guess that every little hump and hollow in that massive dune facing the golfer would have been poked and prodded by Behr's fertile mind and the peice would have gone on for hundreds of pages.
To me, Behr represents the side of GCA that prefers to look at the details of golf courses and use this analysis to develop generalizations on what golf courses are and ought to be. Darwin represents the side of GCA that prefers to look at the totality of the golfing experience, including architecture, but focusing less on GCA itself and more on how design interacts with players. All of us--even me!--have some understanding of both sides of this continuum, but each of us probably has a preference for one side or the other. Hopefully, each of us can learn from both Behr and Darwin and not tune our minds out to what either is trying to say.
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Dan
Let me help you out, ole' buddy! ...
You were right about one thing--Darwin was a gifted writer. It was not for nothing that he compared the feelings he got on his annual train ride to Aberdovey to the feelings he had when a schoolboy returning home for the holidays. It was not for nothing that he used the words "blind and unreasoning affection." It was not for nothing that he used the word "home" twice in that short paragraph, with subtly different usages of the word.
I never meant to propose or imply in my replies on this thread that "the course that (one's) soul loves best" has to be one's home course, which is why I used the quotation marks. However, I think that Darwin was not saying, in effect:
"Golly gee, I've played a lot of great tracks around the world, but that Aberdovey is just somethin' else. Can't wait to play there again!"
I personally think that he is saying something much deeper, which relates to the different values which we all place on familial and familiar things vs. those things which we know to be transitory or just give us momentary pleasure.
Thanks for all of that -- except for that "right about one thing" part. Hell, I've been right about a lot of things! (Goofy smiley.)
I certainly hope you never meant to propose or imply (because if you did, you'd be cuttin' me to th' quick, man!) that THIS is how I was interpreting Mr. Darwin's fine lines -- which wouldn't have merited posting if they'd meant, merely: "Golly gee, I've played a lot of great tracks around the world, but that Aberdovey is just somethin' else. Can't wait to play there again!"
Here's the divide:
Like Mr. Darwin, you (and, I'm guessing, many others in this DG) have been lucky enough to find a "home" (note the quotation marks!) soulmate course -- a course that your soul loves best and that you also play regularly enough that it can give you the schoolboy-returning feel every time.
I, by contrast (along with, I'm guessing, many others in this DG), have not been so lucky as you and Mr. Darwin. The courses where I have played regularly do not thrill my soul in the way that I know a golf course can thrill my soul. This is my curse! Don't you understand that? (Rhetorical question.) The courses that my soul has loved best (Sand Hills, North Berwick, Hazeltine, Lahinch, The Old Course) -- the courses that my soul knows, as a soul can know the unknowable, would be candidates to be my "home" course if I had the opportunity to visit them enough -- are courses that, by necessity (certainly not by choice! I'd have married any one of them in a New York minute!), have been of the one-night-stand variety.
Would that it were otherwise.
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Rich:
Very interesting! I was prepared to have you say I must have things totally mixed up--which may be true anyway and frankly is probably the only way I can manage with my inherent boneheadedness and mental feebleness.
But seriously, you aren't justa kiddin' that Behr's and Darwin's writing styles were poles apart. As for some of what they were writing about and trying to get at, I'm not so sure though.
I think both had a great facility for looking very deeply into what some of us might call the essence of golf (as well as how architecture effected it). But they certainly had different ways of going about that and styles of doing that.
You, of all people, should read Behr very seriously and with consideration because my feeling is that you and Behr share real similar thoughts and feelings about what golf or its "essence" may truly be.
Behr wrote about a lot of diverse things to do with golf (and architecture) but his articles that deal with the "restrictions" man has placed on golf--with or by golf's architecture are some of the best of him. He was probably the greatest of all the "non-restrictionist" thinkers who wrote about golf and golf architecture. His underlying principle seemed to be that man could and should play the game in nature (or what the golfer preceived to be nature unadorned and unrestricted by the architect's hand) with as total a "freedom of expression" as could possibly be achieved with architecture (and the regulatory bodies).
But he went much farther than that and tried to show why he felt that was necessary (to man) and also almost exactly how that could be done and at the same time still encorporating and considering the "necessary restrictions or limititions" of golf and it's architect on nature (particularly the necessary man-made elements and features of tees, fairways, greens and bunkering all of which he considered inherently site unnatural or just unnatural elements).
Behr's premise for all this was pretty simple really but probably very fundamental. He just felt that man was more likely to 'uncritically' face nature unaltered and unadorned by man (the hand of man) than he would if he perceived it (golf and courses) to be a series of obstacles that some other man placed before him!
In this way Behr's thoughts and writings were very much an allegory of man's varying relationships to nature on the one hand and to his fellow man on the other!
His ideas on "line(s) of charm" ("line of instinct") is one of the most ingenious but basically simple applications of how to achieve "freedom of expression" (for the golfer, not necessarily the architect) in the context of the inherent (but sometimes necessary) restrictions of architecture to nature's unquestioned primacy and probably dominance!
Of course, those of us who really are interested in Behr, like GeoffShac, TommyN and me are the first to admit that Behr's writing style is bizarre (but not the message). He was probably on booze or drugs when he wrote some of his articles the construction of his sentences are sometimes so tortured.
I heard that little Max Behr's elementary school English teacher said to him:
"Little Max, I don't know whether to give you an "F" or send you up to a class for truly gifted childern?"
To which Little Max responded:
"Madam, that would depend on whether you're talking about representation or interpretation, but in this case and class the freedom of expression on the meaning of that is yours, not mine because only you control the "inherent restrictions" on me and this chair I sit in at this particular time!"
And so it continued to go, I guess.
Did you know what a good player Max was, by the way? He was the proverbial second place finisher though, never winning the big one!
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Rich:
As for what Behr's description of the Cader bunker (in the photo) may have been--on that I do diametrically disagree with you.
My gut feeling is he would have faced that bunker (and probably played over it with inspiration and freedom) wordlessly and joyfully. Why? Because it either is or certainly looks like nature unadorned by the hand of man.
That's the kind of feature or element on a golf course Behr would have approved of thoroughly and recommended architects use for inspiration to mimic the look of nature.
But if Behr faced a bunker with tons of sleepers supporting it, or probably immaculately maintained, with rakes and hand perfected maintenance within and such, he very well may have written hundreds of pages of how and why that insulted and corrupted the sensibilities of a golfer either concsiously or subliminally.
Behr would probably have had some choice words for the likes of Desmond Muirhead (at least something like Stone Harbor and his other ultra symobolic designs) and probably for an architect like Pete Dye too for fixating and concentrating on the obviously rudimentary aspects of early "man-made architecture" which was so obviously that!
But the great thing about some of the contributions and discussions on this website is after a while it becomes evident that many of these older architects we think of as thinking and working in similar veins, actually didn't.
I'm pretty sure that C.B. MacDonald took a few swipes at Behr (unnamed though) as basically thinking too damn much.
But the thoughts and dreams of some of them to somehow, someday go that extra mile to almost completely hide the "architecture's hand" in golf I find to be fascinating beyond almost imagination.
I'm not sure how they thought future facility (machinery possibly) could do it for them but I believe that's exactly what they dreamed of.
And I think one day it's going to happen. It'll take the right client and architect and the right type of golfer today but if and when it does happen it'll be interesting in just how it's done.
Somehow I can see architects like Doak, Hanse or C&C doing it and it may be somewhat different than some of us imagine. I say that because of something that happened at an Archipalooza when Doak was showing slides of the holes of an old golf course in Europe somewhere. About 3/5 of the way through the slides the old holes ran out and ceased to be recognizable as golf holes with mown fairways and greens and such but Tom kept on going as some of us looked at each other in amazement. What we were looking at didn't look like a golf course just unadorned nature. But they were old holes.
It seemed to me that Doak could have or would have recommended just taking a mower and a hole cutter and just go ahead and play them anyway.
If Behr had been there he obviously would have approved. But neither he nor Doak are so unrealistic as to say that it could never be recognized as a golf course, just one that looked as close to having been created by nature as possible or as close to hiding man's architectural hand as possible.
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Aptly put, all.
Tom, I tend to think much differently on the Behr/Muirhead speculation. You see, Desmond and Behr both were more then likely alike in a lot of ways--well read; highly intellectual; had a verve for wanting the better things in life, and in some cases strove to the excesses to acheive them. I tend to think that maybe Desmond's highly controversial style would have never even been attempted if not for the one single fact--He was doing it for himself, to prove it that he could be controversial yet totally artistic. I have yet to play a BAD Desmond course, they are all highly strategic and in some cases pretty intense from a playing standpoint. Some of them are really good golf courses. I suspect Muirfield Village as one of the GREAT ones, and ultimately Desmond's work with Jack influence. However, I don't subscribe to the thinking of other courses with Viking Sun God bunkers to try to release an inner-vision I had from a previous life while married to the goddess Aphrodite'.
I do know that Desmond was on to something beyond Naturalism. I do think he was striking the boundries of human imagination, existence and golf architecture. And as some of us might know, the parallels are uncanny.
This is something that leaves NO doubt in my mind that Max Behr knew also.
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Rich
While I agree that Behr and Darwin's writing styles are quite different, I would disagree that Darwin did not delve into golf architecture in detail. I have read many Darwin's articles on golf architecture and there have been very few writers who have analyzed the subject more thoroughly. In fact I have my doubts that golf architecture, and the analysis of the golf architecture, would have progressed as it did without the thought provoking essays by Horace Hutchinson and Darwin - they were largely responsible for elevating the art.
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TommyN:
I realize you knew Desmond Muirhead and I understand he was an extremely interesting man and probably very brilliant but some of his architecture needs to stand up to analysis on it's own despite all that about him personally. I've read some of his early writing and it's excellent but that was definitely before he built a course like Stone Harbor and that type of style which was obviously a vast departure from what he wrote about classic architecture.
Stone Harbor is without question golf architecture of real extremes. You're right, some of the holes there are very strategic in a sort of extremely slim "margin for error" sense.
Even some of his radically "symbolic" holes at Stone Harbor are strategic but they're an attempt to take golf architecture, certainly the look of it, to a vastly new dimension.
You're obviously right too to say it might explore the boundaries of human imagination and existence. But there's not a thing about that course and its architecture that comes within a million miles of an attempt to emulate a thing about the natural aspects of the earth or its random formations--very much the antithesis, in fact.
Personally, I'm glad it was done and I'm not even an advocate of having it "softened", as it has been. I think it should have be left as it was simply because it's one of the best examples of the extreme in architecture.
It was obviously a real attempt by Muirhead and his client--who asked for something wholly original--to get attention by its extreme originality.
I sure don't think that everything C. B. MacDonald felt and said should be considered gospel by a long shot but in hindsight Muirhead and his client with Stone Harbor probably should have considered this remark by MacDonald;
'Don't seek an original idea in building a golf course. John La Farge somewhere has said if "an idea were an original one it is safe to say it would not be a good one." '
Muirhead in some of his architecture akin to Stone Harbor sought a very original idea in architecture and it turned out, without question, to be one that was unique but clearly not in the slightest bit enduring.
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Dan
I never set out to find a "home" course, but, like shit, it happened. You are right that I am lucky. One important caveat. The reason that my "home" course is such has about 2% to do with the course itself and 99% to do with all the exogenous factors--people, smells, people, shower heads, people, skies, people...... (and yes, it does add up to 101%--the je ne sais quoi factor at work.......)
Dave
Hopefully you will not go into as deep a funk as JakaB has since I reminded him that the caddies would probably be the first to die in a "nuclear winter." I absolutely love the idea of "Burningbush" as one's home course, although I would say "Bushwood!" No, in the New Year's spirit, let's compromise, "Burningbushwood." None of this Carthage Club/Redan Hills/Strathwhinn purist crap, but a real golf club, with mysterious and often dubious architecture, but real people. Where would you rather spend your time? At some GCA designed club where the evening entertainment was watching a slide show of the thoughtful restoration of the foozle bunkers at some course that Donald Ross located on a topo map 80 years ago? Or at Burningbushwood, where you had a chance to watch Shivas Irons goosing Mrs. Smails when the Judge wasn't looking?
Dan and Dave
Some of my best friends are midwesterners, and they are not slouches either. Think of Dorothy. There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like Prairie Duens, there's no place like Sand Hills, there's no place like Wild Horse, etc. etc.
Tom MacW
I'll take your word on Darwin's GCA credentials. Any particular references that might further enlighten me?
Tommy N and Tom P
I agree that Behr's writing is interesting, but it is very hard going for the reader. Kinda like "Finnegan's Wake" without the pedigree. It is a style of writing that forces one to read and re-read every sentence whilst scratching one's head and thinking--"That sounds OK, but what is he really trying to say? Is it something with deeper meaning, or just some sort of superficial overeducated sophomoric crap?" I'm just not sure, yet, with Behr, or even with Joyce, for that matter............
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Tom,
One of the points I was trying to make was that Desmond's exotic work was anything but Natural. Now please note, I'm speaking of the exotic stuff.
This is the type of architecture that got him a lot of praise in many architectural publications throughout the world and while it maybe not what Max, Doc, CB and all of us may think of as being paticularily groundbreaking, it was for the most part original and to the point. It was celebrated for its originality.
I have said this time and time again, and maybe Doug Nickles or Forrest can add a thing or two, but IMHO, I think Desmond did all of it simply because it was on his terms KNOWING what was going to happen with the game and the business. He left for several years--building one single course--Koralybyn in Australia (And actually designed the city to go with it) then came back to America rejuvenated to start all over again, once again--on his terms. Not Jack Nicklaus', not Gene Sarazen's, and not Arnold Palmer's. He hated gross commercialism and feared it would in fact wreck the game and the art.
When Desmond came back to America, before the first symbolic hole was ever constructed, Desmond felt the need to write about his views on Golf Architecture, and started writing, all the way up to his death, for Executive Golfer magazine.
Not unlike Max Behr, Desmond wrote his views and experiences on the subjects that intrigued him the most, and upon returning to Newport Beach fulltime, (He actually never really left, instead opting to tell everybody he was living in Australia full time, he was in fact spending a lot of time down-under, but never really moved his residence.)
Also, not all of Max Behr's writings were concerning architecture. There were a lot of them that were about the health and the future of the Game of Golf, and interestingly, they were very protective of the Game and its origins, not unlike some of us on GCA today.
There is a lot more I could say, but feel that is probably better left unsaid, simply because no matter what, the character of Desmond Muirhead was original as any man I have ever met. From my reading of Max Behr works, I think it would be safe to say that it would have been just as comparable.
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TommyN:
I hear you on what you're saying about some of Desmond Muirhead's ideas and contributions to architecture. I'm not sure what you meant when you said 'he did it KNOWING what was going to happen to architecture', though.
My only real exposure to Desmond's architecture has been Stone Harbor, fortunately or unfortunately. And again, it's without question original, it certainly can be very challenging and some holes are interestingly strategic.
But unfortunately to be an honest analyst about architecture it should be said that other of the holes, many actually, are shocking architecture, surely some of the most shocking created in modern times. Some of the hideous parallel mounding on about six of the holes is shocking and some of the other earthwork is akin to going so far towards a bad joke as to actually be sort of interesting if not laughable.
Unfortunately, there's just no other way to describe it and explain it.
In an analogy to building architecture a course like Stone Harbor would be analogous to the worst modern residential architecture created in the last fifty years. The value of that type of residential architecture today is virtually nil and I doubt it will ever recover for any reason. I sold real estate and generally if one was to buy a house like those types today they would tear it down and start again.
That won't happen with Stone Harbor, in my opinion, but only because it is so unique, one of a kind--in other words no one else really tried to copy it to that extent and obviously for a very good reason.
But I'm not suggesting that it should wash away or disqualify other things that Muirhead did in his career. Stone Harbor should always be looked at on its own and one needs to consider what he was trying to do and its value to the consideration and study of architecture--if any.
It's no different really than asking the serious question;
"Did the Edsel add anything to automobile styling and its evolution?"
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TommyN;
Just because some people take a specific criticism of a golf course to mean a total pan which I don't mean it to be--I should get into some of the more notable holes at Stone Harbor in some detail.
Holes #4, #6, #7 for instance.
#6 is really a shorter version of MacD/Raynor's Channel hole at Lido with a different green-end and a vastly different look, and with a basic strategic offering that probably doesn't work quite as well as the Lido's #4 might have but I really don't know that (since I never played the Lido). The look of #6 though, although working basically the same as the Channel hole is a vast departure from it in total man-made architectural lines as opposed to probably very natural lines (Lido).
#7 must have been the hole that the client and Muirhead too realized beyond any doubt would get the attention of the golfing world, regardless of the golfing world's impression of it being unbelievably radically bad on the one hand or remarkably interesting for uniqueness on the other.
But I think #4 is probably the most interesting. It really is one of the most strategically interesting and strategically meaningful 175 par 3s one can find. There's a ton of varied shot demand and real visual deception to it too and one of the most unusual tee/walkway designs one will ever see in golf architecture.
But the construction and architectural "lines" of the hole are at the other extreme from natualism. The teeing area and the green is propped up radically in a basic flat grade area may 15 feet or more. As good and interesting as the hole might play (particularly considering the often present wind) the look of the hole gives any golfer a sense of Muirhead saying; "Look how far I can depart from the idea of naturalism in architecture with the blatant use of machinery and some sort of fad-like stylizing.
There's just not another way anyone would describe it--although, again, it really can play great!
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Tom,
By saying KNOWING, I was refering to the blanket commercialism of the Game itself. (i.e. The PGA Tour(Reg. TM) TV, Equipment, etc.
I, personally have never seen in person any of the Symbolism stuff that he did. The closest any of that ever got to California was probably at Big Canyon CC in Newport Beach, which, if I remember correctly, he had redesigned one hole. (I believe it was the par 3 12th) It was met with some pretty unfavorable criticism.
There is one course that I would like to hear some review about that is in Atlanta--Covington Plantation, which from my memory semed to be a mix of some pretty very natural looking golf holes and of course, some symbolic ones too. (A green surrounded by bunkers looking like a sunburst. a eagle-headed shaped bunker, etc.)
(http://www.golfoutings.com/images/Covington_Plantation_GA.jpg)
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Rich
I'm not sure how much of Darwin you've read, but Golf Between Two Wars has an entire chapter on golf architecture, he touches on it in his autobiography (in particular Woking his home course), he contributed to M.Sutton's Book of the Links(1912), wrote the introductions to MAF Sutton's two books on golf design (1933 & 1950), you'll find him in the Wethereds' book The Game of Golf along with Simpson and Hutchinson, he wrote a chapter on golf design in Braid's biography, The History of Golf in Britian with Guy Campbell is another and I'm sure there are others I've missed. He wrote a weekly column for both The Times and Coutry Life (for over four decades) in which he often wrote about golf architecture, golf architects and their newest works. In fact he was largely responsible for making Colt, Simpson, Fowler, Abercromby, Hutchison, etc into mini celebrities.
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Tom, I found this from Desmond in hopes it may further shine a little more information:
When I first started to design golf courses I was interested in their integration into the surrounding community as at Mission Hills in California and Boca West in Florida. After that I was primarily concerned with the quality of golf and the need to give the course a collection of sound golfing principles, including a careful relationship to earth form and wind, together with length, rhythm and playability. My Scottish connection told me that the tradition of golf was plebeian as well as royal; that the game should be made available to working men as well as aristocrats, to high handicappers as well as scratch amateurs and professionals. I like to say that I provide a violin, that you can play any tune you like on it in any key, and that we should always aim for a Stradivarius.
In recent years after a ten year hiatus from golf architecture, while searching for an idea to make it more appealing and less repetitious, I rediscovered symbols. The Old Course at St. Andrews is full of them; bunkers called Hell and Lionsmouth, depressions called the Valley of Sin. I decided to make these symbols over overt and more literal and to attempt to make them into genuine art forms. I found a mermaid on the 11th at Aberdeen in Florida; Jason and the Argonauts in "Clashing Rocks," the 7th at Stone Harbor, New Jersey. A Japanese fan in the 7th at Shinyo in Nagoya, Japan. There were two women in the 6th hole at Long Lake Hill in Korea, a dragon in the 1th at Oak village near Tokyo, Japan, and so on.
These symbols were hard to forget. If memorability is an important aspect of golf architecture, you could remember all eighteen holes just by walking these courses. Among other ideas I added a theme, perceptions from gestalt psychology and a new concept orientation points which told you where you were. Every hole was different. There were eighteen signature holes instead of one. I believe that this has opened a door in the practice of the golf course design.
These golf holes with their sculptural forms led me out of golf course architecture into earth form art. Because of this, I am enjoying golf architecture far more than ever before. In the past I have had to design the surrounding community, even the houses to keep interested. At Boca West and McCormick Ranch it was this relationship which was almost as important as the golf course. Now I can concentrate on the golf course although we still design the surrounding community.
Today my designs may show a broad field of influences but relatively few of them are from golf. They are more often from art and opera, from poetry, philosophy and psychology. From Van Gogh, Uccello and Miro and their forms that stalk our dreams. I owe some allegiance to Moore and Lipschitz, Wagner and Donizetti, Sartres and Wittgenstein, Adler and Jung. I am fascinated by their symbols and archetypes and the associations they give off.
This type of design is not for everybody. These symbols have to have an authentic sense of art and an intelligent explainable reason for being there. There is a thin line between art and kitsch. Badly used and executed symbols become an embarrassment. Well-wrought symbols need content as well as form, essence as well as existence. Like Jung's symbols I wanted mine to have greater power than the experience they came from. Some of them like the 7th at Stone Harbor have almost limitless energy. Suddenly the whole course has acquired an underlying mystique developed from the mystery and the reality of the site.
I am often asked about the design of a great course. One can never design a great course, that takes time, adjustments, famous shots, competitive rounds, memorable tournaments. But we can always design a unique course, an original course, a course that is different.
Design in any field is a fruit of slow maturing. A great golf course evolves gradually like a tall tree filling out its branches. All we architects can do is to lay the foundations. A truly great golf course has an existential, intellectual underpinning, yet fills the senses. It is joyful, tragical, magical, mythical, rational, empirical. Such a course has great power and tenderness.
I only know of one truly great golf course. The Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland. It is at least five hundred years old. We newcomers can only hope that time will be as kind to our courses as it has been to the Old Course.
A unique course on the other hand requires originality, imagination, innovation; and this is where the need for art becomes most formidable. Art is a river both deep and infinitely wide. For those of us on the cutting edge, the river flows fast and you get caught up in it. Some of us swim against the current. There is rough water, rocks, rapids. Your experiments may be unfairly criticized, even pilloried, but there is a liberating sense of triumph when the trials are surmounted. And the way is filled with excitement, happiness, new friends and laughter. The innovator - if he lives long enough - usually also gets the last laugh, and that's the one worth having.
I like to quote Winston Churchill on the subject: "An art without a tradition is like a flock of sheep without a shepherd, but an art without innovation is a corpse."
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Yikes. I leave for two days and all hell breaks loose on this thread... OK, so all the Behr/Muirhead stuff sailed right over my head - that's certainly not the first time nor the last that will happen here - but given I was so hotly involved in this last Friday... all I can say is...
Thanks, Rich Goodale. You eloquently explained what I was so inelegantly trying to say last week. Many of us do have no golf "home"... and you are very lucky to have such at Dornoch. And yes, one's golf home should be 2% about the course, 98% about the people and everything else... Those who have found a home like you, and Darwin, are lucky indeed.
The best point of all is what you said to Dave - hell yes, the preferred golf home would be Burningbushwood, for every reason you say.
TH
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TommyN:
Thank you for posting that article by Desmond Muirhead. I found it honest, very revealing and even touching.
Obviously, he was a thoughtful and quite brilliant man, and that article must have been written at a reflective time in his career. It’s very explanatory, I think. However, I think it shows where and how he may have crossed the line in architectural thinking into areas that may’ve made a portion of his career’s work both very controversial and something that was bound not to endure.
He says, “I rediscovered symbols. The Old Course at St Andrews is full of them. Bunkers called Hell and Lionsmouth, depressions called the Valley of Sin. I decided to make those symbols more over overt and more literal and to attempt to make them into genuine art forms.”
To make a bunker look more literally like a Norse sword or the State of New Jersey?! That’s definitely a real departure in architecture and would be good place to compare Muirhead’s thinking to that of someone like Max Behr.
Clearly, much of what Behr believed as fundamental for architecture was to try to use the earth’s forms and the forces of Nature and where that was not possible to make whatever else was necessary to golf look as much like them as possible. Behr’s reasoning, I think, is really excellent in this regard, when he says, “Indeed the veriest tyro is unconsciously aware that golf is a contest with Nature. Thus, where he meets her unadorned, unblemished by the hand of man, he meets her without criticism.”
Muirhead says, “A unique course on the other hand requires originality, imagination, innovotion; and this is where the need for art becomes most formidable”.
Or, “This type of design is not for everybody. These symbols have to have an authentic sense of art and an intelligent explainable reason for being there. There is a fine line between art and kitsch.”
And, “A truly great golf course has an existential, intellectual underpinning, yet fills the senses.”
While Behr says, “The medium of the artist is paint, and he becomes its master; but the medium of the golf architect is the surface of the earth over which the forces of Nature alone are master. Therefore, in the prosecution of his designs, if the architect correctly uses the forces of nature to express them and thus succeeds in hiding his hand, then, only, has he created the illusion that can still all criticism.”
Muirhead talks about Existentialism in golf architecture, a philosophy that some claim represents a doctrine that individual existence determines all essence or even the universe is absurd, while Behr seems to look at nature and natural forces as the almost exclusive medium of golf architecture.
Interesting outlooks and interesting to compare.
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Tom, Very interesting dissections there.
It is unfortunate that, at one time, Desmond had agreed to do a Golf Club Atlas monthly interview. It was also painly unforutnate that after seeing the questions, he asked me to get him out of it. Desmond for the most part was blown away by the quesitoning and didn't think he could come up with answers. And, the questions were really good! The stuff one would have wanted to hear him answer on.
The truth be told, I think Desmond was at a certain point that it was just too much for him--at that paticular time. He was actually timid on how to answer and felt that many would have torn him apart--something that he didn't want to happen as business was slow for him, and at the time, as well as the fact that he and Ella--Desmond's most loyal and trusted personal assistant were at a crossroads.
If any of you have ever met or talked to Ella, you would know of just how important she was to him. She was the glue that held together this extremely complex man.
I begged and pleaded, but ultimately understood Desmond's reasons. However, it would have been so simple to just go over there, take him for dinner at Newport Fashion Plaza's Food Court for his favorite vegitarian meal, and begged further. This was the one and only time I can think of Desmond Muirhead ever telling me "no, I can't do it."
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Tommy:
There certainly appear to be indications in the article you posted by Desmond Muirhead of where he was at that time, probably the tough cycle he'd been through or was in.
To me, it sounds tragic, to be honest--not the thing you'd want to see for anyone--but as I said last night to you, he probably did get way out there with architecture--and me--someone who thinks that difference in architecture is a good thing for many reasons, but is still able to criticize some of the things he did--like some of Stone Harbor--I still say God love the man for doing it!
Talk about getting outside the box and obviously with passion! I know, on the one hand, it sounds contradictory of me to criticize the architecture of a course like Stone Harbor and maybe Desmond's symbolic era too, and on the other hand actually say I think Stone Harbor should be restored to the way it was when he built it but I really mean that.
As crazy as I think some of it is, I think golf architecture in the overall is better for it--and for Desmond Muirhead too!
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I used to have a home course. When I was a reasonably new golfer, the starter at Santa Teresa in San Jose would let us out before the first tee time. They'd be pissed, but then they'd never see us again. We'd finish up our round, have breakfast, and be driving away from the course, and then finally see the group behind us.
I learned how to play fast there.
Rich Goodale writes:
Or at Burningbushwood, where you had a chance to watch Shivas Irons goosing Mrs. Smails when the Judge wasn't looking?
Will there be a Lacy Underall?
(http://www.cindy-morgan.com/lacey.jpg)
Cindy Morgan makes personal appearances at golf tournaments. Think we can get her for the King's Putter?
If it has to be a charity, I think we should come up with a scholarship fund, if only we knew some worthy student to give the scholarship?
Click here to go to the Cindy Morgan website (http://www.cindy-morgan.com/)
Dan King
"Would you like to tie me up with some of your ties, Ty?"
--Lacey Underall
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Damn it--I knew it was going to have to happen someday and so it has--
Heidi Klum is out and Lacey Underall is in!
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I used to have a home course. When I was a reasonably new golfer, the starter at Santa Teresa in San Jose would let us out before the first tee time. They'd be pissed, but then they'd never see us again. We'd finish up our round, have breakfast, and be driving away from the course, and then finally see the group behind us.
I learned how to play fast there.Dan King
Such is the problem with Santa Teresa, the closest thing I have to a home course. Guys like YOU, Dan King, apparently set the standard for the incredible old boys network that still exists today... There are so many "nod nod, wink wink" tee times given out... people "squeezed in" before and in between existing tee times, the place is a joke for those of us not in the network. They incredibly make our men's golf club jump through all sorts of hoops and screw us out of our legitimate tee times every month... Damn you! I blame it all on you!
Just kidding, hell I would have done the same thing. I frequently do the back nine early thing, and yep, I can play very fast there - 45 minutes to an hour if no one's in my way.
As for Lacey Underall, you now have a task, oh giver of trophy to our esteemed event. We surely have room for a guest "speaker"... ;)
TH
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and I would have thought that by her name only, "Lacey Underall" would have been a Bond Girl ...
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From Bernard Darwin to Lacy Underall -- in one thread.
O, brave new world, that hath such Web sites in't!
Dan King --
The address is CindyMorganWeb@aol.com. But, of course, you certainly knew that.
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In that photograph in Dan King's post--not sure whether it's Cindy Morgan or Lacey Underall, but I was just wondering--
That thing on the right side of her chest (just under the sunlight)--is that a small logo on her shirt or is that something else?
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In that photograph in Dan King's post--not sure whether it's Cindy Morgan or Lacey Underall, but I was just wondering--
That thing on the right side of her chest (just under the sunlight)--is that a small logo on her shirt or is that something else?
Can you imagine how big Nike would be if they'd gone with that instead of the Swoosh?
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!968-1970 Bethpage Green
1970-1982 Bethpage Black
1982-1989 Pebble Beach
1989-1991 National Golf Links of America
1991-1997 Cypress Point
1997-Present Sand Hills Golf Club
(The End.....There will be no other)
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"1997-Present Sand Hills Golf Club
(The End.....There will be no other)"
Gene:
How much do you want to bet?
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Tom
I'll take some of that action!
Gene
With a record of fickleness like yours I'll give you 5-10 years before you fall for the next new girl on the block!
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TE and Rich:
Before one finds his "soul mate" one needs to "date around". For sure, there have been many beauties and a beast now and again.
However, I believe I am now "happily married" and my love for this course will last a lifetime.
I confidently accept your challenges to a wager of, say, a home and home (and home) among the three of us.
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Well said, Gene.
Note that I have experienced Gene's "home" with the man, and I know that he has toured Friar's Head.... that might be the only new one or one he hasn't seen already that might cause him to stray. Of course one can never say never and Messrs. Doak, Coore, Crenshaw etc. are always out there getting new projects...
But give this a reasonable term, and I'll take Gene in this action without a doubt.
Sand Hills is that kinda place.
TH
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Tom IV --
Yes, it is.
Sand Hills is that kind o' place -- emphasis, for me (as always, more than on the course itself or the people at the course) on PLACE, which is why I put it (and the others: North Berwick, The Old Course, Hazeltine) on my very short list of courses I've visited that could be candidates to be my Home Course Soulmate.
These are places I've loved, during my mostly one-night stands. These are places I can easily imagine loving more and more with every encounter.
I tried to convince Rich of his need to go to Sand Hills, most of a year ago now.
He wasn't buyin' it!
Said it sounded TOO idyllic. And maybe it is -- though I don't think so.
Could be that golf courses are like books: You shouldn't recommend the great ones too highly -- lest, having robbed from the recipient the essential experience of discovery, you put him on his guard and diminish his pleasure.
My guess is: Gene sticks with Sand Hills from here on out -- despite dalliances with numerous temptresses.
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Dan K.: Mr. Goodale can (and likely will) speak for himself, but the bottom line as I see it here is that he's often said he prefers urban courses, that is, those like Gullane or Dornoch where the first tee seems to spring out of the town center. Thus I've given up on convincing him of any need to go to Sand Hills - as you can imagine, it wouldn't be his cup of tea...
I also think he's just contrarian enough to NOT want to like it, or make the effort, just because all of us love it this much! Rich seems to me to be a great example of your "warning." ;)
I say that with all friendship, admiration and respect, Rich. ;D
But that is a good warning in any case. Overblown expectations can ruin things...
Just not at places like Sand Hills, or NGLA. Ask Dave Schmidt about the latter. ;)
TH
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Gene:
I think you missed my point a little bit although I sure didn't make it very clear. TomH picked up on it though.
There very well may be something out there right now you haven't seen that's gonna eclipse even Sand Hills in your mind.
But that's not what I was thinking about. There's gonna be one coming someday before all of us hang up our sticks that's gonna be the next real love of your life.
I can just feel it in my bones! I just know it's going to happen!
And I think it's very possible, maybe even likely that it will be something maybe very different, something that we may not have really imagined at this point.
There are so many notes out there, so many possible combinations and that's gonna make it possible for that symphony to get composed that will probably blow us all away.
Other than really good restorations that's probably the reason I love golf architecture so much. The last word has not been spoken--that's the way it is and will be--I just know it!
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Gene
I accept the home and home and home wager. I can't wait to get to play Mallow! I hear it's as urban as Dornoch and idyllic but not TOO idyllic. My guess is that TEP knows something about that place that will make both of us commit GCA adultery. Dan Kelly, you can be the 4th. Just choose one course that is not Sand Hills or Hazeltine or TOC from your list of "home" courses.
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Rich: by "urban" I just meant springing out of a town... yes, Dornoch isn't exactly Metropolis. Hopefully you understand my meaning... isn't that what you generally prefer in golf courses, or have I read that wrong?
TH
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Dan Kelly, you can be the 4th. Just choose one course that is not Sand Hills or Hazeltine or TOC from your list of "home" courses.
Smart-aleck!
Or, I guess: Smart-alec!
Or maybe: Smart-alce!
North Berwick, it is!
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For me it would have to be Enniscrone. It's a fantastic course with beatuiful views. The best thing about it, however, is how proud the members are of it and how they are eager to share it with you. No pretentiousness here, just good times and good golf.
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Rich:
Don't make a trip to Mallow on my account. I can't imagine what you might think of the place. There could be 200 golf courses in Scotland or Ireland alone that many might think are better than Mallow.
For me it probably just had a lot to do with the moment. The early Irish mornings, being alone and playing a course that was about 10 faster than I'd ever seen although the greens were pretty slow but real firm.
I guess some Americans like me don't know that kind of golf very well. And it was also in the mid summer of 1999 in the middle of one of the worse heat waves and droughts Ireland had seen.
A sort of a quirky little course along the side of a lowish mountain and I needed to look real hard at the topography and say to myself--if I hit it 60 yards over there, where's it going to end up, maybe 100yds over somewhere else. How cool is that? You couldn't even hit a normal American aerial shot to the greens--it would be gone.
Maybe that's not for some people but I loved it--maybe even the kernels of maintenance meld stuff was beginning to enter my mind.
Maybe it was a lot more than golf and architecture too--it was the moment!
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Tom
When you say....
"Maybe it was a lot more than golf and architecture too--it was the moment!"
...I think you describe falling in love......
And, love is a very personal thing, which is why we all have different home "courses," for different reasons.
From what everyone (including Gene) has told me about Sand Hills, I can see why he has fallen in love with the place. Of course, this doesn't mean, I assume, that he doesn't still shackup with NGLA and Cypress from time to time too, and might even give wee Mallow a good romp in the hay if and when he got to see her.........
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You think I might be describing falling in love--do you Rich?
Could be, could be, maybe so!
However, no matter how much that might be falling in love I hope I don't feel like taking Mallow or any other golf course to bed with me and having a romp in the hay.
Pat Mucci, on the other hand, even by his own admission, thinks about this type of thing--who knows, he may have done it a time or two.
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I don't feel like taking Mallow or any other golf course to bed with me and having a romp in the hay.
Pat Mucci, on the other hand, even by his own admission, thinks about this type of thing--who knows, he may have done it a time or two.
Maybe that's what got him thinking about double greens! 8)
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Could be, Dan--it could be.
And maybe that's why recently Pat's had trouble getting it in the.....
Never mind!
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Hmmm... falling in love is a good way to put it.
But not fair in the case of Sand Hills.
Methinks if it were open and playable year round and if it were not so remote (ie make it practical) Gene and the others who love it like Dan K. and myself would never need to look elsewhere. All of us want to play different courses - ie romp around - but if there is one course that could keep us happy forever, this is it.
Unfortunately Sand Hills is where it is, the weather is what it is, and Gene lives where he does.
Thus it's natural to wander!
And further, Sand Hills isn't a wife, but more like a damn fine mistress!
TH
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Sand Hills isn't a wife, but more like a damn fine mistress!
I wouldn't know about that. :o
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Obviously Dan, it's just how I would imagine things... ;)
TH
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You see, that's why America is still an uncivilized outpost. In the super sophisticated aristocracies of old Europe the man had the wife and he had the mistress and often the wife and the mistress were better friends than either one was to the man.
We've stiil got a ways to go to get there.
Matter of fact, the man probably wasn't all that attached to either the wife or the mistress since it wasn't uncommon for him to be completely in love with his golf course!
We've got a long way to go to get there. It's called Darwinianism--the survival of the most loving soul and the fittest golf course in true atonement!
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Consider me a convert, TEP. Do we have a flag? A motto?
TH
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No motto yet. That's Dan Kelly's bailiwick--he's the wordsmith.
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Hey TH -
Let's pick out some key concepts from you on two seperate topics ...
Darwinsim - Mistress ...
Spirituality - Playing the local Par 3 course with your daughter ...
Hmmm .... ;)
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Mike: you've figured me out. I talk a big game but the reality is very boring. I also have a vivid imagination and love to live vicariously through others. ;)
TH
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Ahhh, then I should share stories about one of my roomates at Bronco Land ... ;)
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We can swap stories such as that, I'm sure. I too have some to tell about fellow SCU grads....
TH