Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Jim Sherma on November 14, 2019, 09:30:00 AM
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In the midst of a PM discussion I attempted to define what was meant when the term "dark ages architecture" is used. I know the time period generally refers to 1950's-70's. Some of the architects associated with the phrase are RTJ/Dick Wilson/William and David Gordon/Ed Ault/etc. Based on my personal experience the attributes that I came up with are here:
- 6800-7100 yard "championship" back tees
- [/size]Generally not built on very inspiring land[/color]
- [/size]9 hole loops returning to clubhouse[/color]
- [/size]Details, or lack thereof, with the intent of saving ongoing maintenance costs[/color]
- [/size]Runway style rectangular tees to ease mowing costs and to spread out wear[/color]
- [/size]Bunkers designed to allow for ease of sand-pro maintenance (Size and shape and access points - clean edges to minimize the need for regular hand raking)[/color]
- [/size]Consistent fairway widths based on throw of more basic irrigation systems (single row down center?)[/color]
- [/size]Generally large greens with multiple pinning areas to distribute wear[/color]
- [/size]Greens generally built up and having more than a single surface drainage direction[/color]
- [/size]Minimal micro-contours in fairways (due to re-purposed farm fields or conscious construction decisions?)
- [/size]Lack of sharp edges around greens to allow for ease of rider-mowing and eliminating the need for much is any hand mowing[/color]
- [/size]Little to no random bunker placement - fairway bunkers define fairway turning points and greenside bunkers close to the putting surface - this does not necessarily mean devoid of strategic interest or misplaced[/color]
- [/size]Land generally not overly blasted out and shaped to remove all blindness, especially off of the tee - full blindness generally avoided on approach shots[/color]
- [/size]Trees planted in rows that separate the playing corridors (this may or may not be a function of the architect's wishes)[/color]
[/size]It seems that a lot of these decisions were made with the intent to save money's on maintenance costs once the courses were operating. Obviously there are courses from this era that were better done than others either due to better land or higher budgets or some combination of the two. Other than the tree planting style I am not sure that any of these traits are inherently bad in and of themselves. The land choice was probably as much a function of available budgets and the sheer numbers of courses being built back then as opposed to any inherent lack of understanding that better land makes for better courses.
What am I missing here? How much did the post-war and post-depression desire for sustainable costs drive the architectural decisions that were made at the time?
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Is it only this website that calls that postwar era "The Dark Ages"?
Tom Simpson called the era 1885 - 1900 "The Dark Ages".
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Jim
Like you seem to be suggesting, I am suspicious of broad stroke painting, especially if negative. However, a few thoughts came to mind.
1. I think of the so called dark ages as post WW2 through the 80s, which would include mass housing estate architecture.
2. I never thought of dark age architecture in terms of saving money.
3. I often associate at least a large percentage of this era with uninspired architecture, over watering and over feeding. I guess architecture as gardens is the best way I can explain it. The work is neither natural or creative. Cookie cutter design.
4. I associate dark age architecture with the rise if TV golf and big advertising... sort of paralleling American society.
Happy Hockey
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I hadn't thought of this before, but maybe the simplest 'explanation' for the so-called Dark Ages of golf course architecture is that the focus was placed almost entirely on increasing participation in the game instead of on enhancing the quality of the design.
There was a post-war economic boom, a sharp rise in the 'middle class', more disposal income than ever and that for more and more people, and so naturally a kind of democratization of the game developed -- and the sheer number of people newly taking up the game required new courses, lots of them: and courses that could be built fast and that served primarily not as examples of (rather elitist and almost precious) golden age principles & philosophies of gca but instead as practical realities for the consumer/end-user, the golfer.
It's the difference between the decadent Jazz Age and the sobriety and middle-class prosperity of the Eisenhower Era.
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Like Ally, I immediately thought of Simpsons definition. Never heard of the term to describe any other period. On that basis I'd suggest the term refers to primitive shaping and penal design.
Niall
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It's described as the dark ages on the home page of this website.
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I would call it 'New Brutalism' of Golf Course Architecture which is a similar time 50s 60s and 70s in UK Post War Architecture era where a lot of concrete buildings were built in a similar form.
RTJ created very difficult courses in that era and created 'monsters' for majors which were seen as brutal.
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I'm guessing the brutal and penal courses are only a small part of the equation for this time period...the bigger part being as Pete pointed out where golf was quickly rolled out for the masses, template style, resulting in thousands of featureless, uninspired, and blah DS 1-2 courses.
P.S. It'd be interesting to see data on how many courses existed in America at the end of WW2 vs how many in 1980...
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To me, Jim nailed the era with his very first bullet point. It was probably Mr. Jones who invented the catch-phrase of the "championship course" and made sure every new project aspired to be one, even if the vast majority would never host any big tournament.
I'm not aware of thousands of Doak Scale 1's and 2's being built in this period. Perhaps this was the case in some western states where there was very little golf before 1945.
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Tom,
According to this research paper, there was approx 8400 courses built in the US between 1945 and 1980. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30034211?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents (https://www.jstor.org/stable/30034211?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents)
I think its fair to say that several thousands of these were DS 1s and 2s..
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Tom,
According to this research paper, there was approx 8400 courses built in the US between 1945 and 1980. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30034211?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents (https://www.jstor.org/stable/30034211?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents)
I think its fair to say that several thousands of these were DS 1s and 2s..
Wow! That is nearly 250 courses / year.
I stand corrected, you are probably right that many of them form the lower bounds of the Doak Scale. Also, considering the time period, there must have been more than 5000 of them designed by architects who almost never get mentioned on this Discussion Group.
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In the midst of a PM discussion I attempted to define what was meant when the term "dark ages architecture" is used. I know the time period generally refers to 1950's-70's. Some of the architects associated with the phrase are RTJ/Dick Wilson/William and David Gordon/Ed Ault/etc. Based on my personal experience the attributes that I came up with are here:
- 6800-7100 yard "championship" back tees
- Generally not built on very inspiring land
- 9 hole loops returning to clubhouse
- Details, or lack thereof, with the intent of saving ongoing maintenance costs
- Runway style rectangular tees to ease mowing costs and to spread out wear
- Bunkers designed to allow for ease of sand-pro maintenance (Size and shape and access points - clean edges to minimize the need for regular hand raking)
- Consistent fairway widths based on throw of more basic irrigation systems (single row down center?)
- Generally large greens with multiple pinning areas to distribute wear
- Greens generally built up and having more than a single surface drainage direction
- Minimal micro-contours in fairways (due to re-purposed farm fields or conscious construction decisions?)
- Lack of sharp edges around greens to allow for ease of rider-mowing and eliminating the need for much is any hand mowing
- Little to no random bunker placement - fairway bunkers define fairway turning points and greenside bunkers close to the putting surface - this does not necessarily mean devoid of strategic interest or misplaced
- Land generally not overly blasted out and shaped to remove all blindness, especially off of the tee - full blindness generally avoided on approach shots
- Trees planted in rows that separate the playing corridors (this may or may not be a function of the architect's wishes)
It seems that a lot of these decisions were made with the intent to save money's on maintenance costs once the courses were operating. Obviously there are courses from this era that were better done than others either due to better land or higher budgets or some combination of the two. Other than the tree planting style I am not sure that any of these traits are inherently bad in and of themselves. The land choice was probably as much a function of available budgets and the sheer numbers of courses being built back then as opposed to any inherent lack of understanding that better land makes for better courses.
What am I missing here? How much did the post-war and post-depression desire for sustainable costs drive the architectural decisions that were made at the time?
Jim: I read all of your bulletpoints and all of them seem to fit perfectly into the topics that are important for the greens chairman/greenkeeper over here in Germany... :'(
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Jim,
I generally agree with most of your points, but its a broad topic and hard to generalize.
I will add that right after WWII, some architects wrote of wanting a completely new American style (like FLW, and who could blame them for wanting to sort of forget 20 years filled with the depression followed by WWII?) Architecture and Industrial design were moving forward, not looking back, with streamline design of jets and passenger trains, Art Deco, etc. The golf course architects wanted to do some of that as well.
And yes, form follows function, machine maintenance was coming into full force, so yes, broad slopes and simple shapes also facilitated maintenance.
And real estate courses took care of the biggest distance issue in golf - the distance between front door and first tee. The probably also killed off the idea of native grass areas, because that's not what homeowners wanted to look at.
And, yes, aesthetics remained important in golf design, but the real estate and other sites rarely afforded too much natural beauty. So they sought to create it with tree planting, on top of that manicured grass outsiders wanted to look at, etc.
And, it was before USGA greens, so they could more easily afford larger greens that would now be the envy of most architects constrained by cost. And, multiple tees, while not as well thought out as today, were certainly functional in getting more women in the game.
I do recall Dick Nugent warning me on my first day that all the great courses had been built, and what we needed now were playable ones, sort of lowering the design bar, although obviously RTJ and Wilson didn't think the same way. They just equated hard with good.
But, in general, I have a more favorable take on that period than most here. While it's easy to look back after a decade of great projects, it seems that their designs sort of had to happen the way they did. They were probably right for the time. And, they probably felt they were just as right that they found gca nirvana with their designs as anyone working today does.
The only thing I know for sure is that most folks will look back at any era of design (including this one) and point out the flaws to explain why they are doing something different. Its just human nature and pop culture. I mean, we've already started to trash the 90's as misguided attempts to win awards and be too spectacular. Surely, something new will drive design making those of us working now look a little silly to many. Just my take.
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I do recall Dick Nugent warning me on my first day that all the great courses had been built, and what we needed now were playable ones, sort of lowering the design bar, although obviously RTJ and Wilson didn't think the same way. They just equated hard with good.
Wow, that's quite the pep talk.
When we were building Pacific Dunes, Mike Keiser came out to talk to our whole construction crew one day, by the 11th tee. He wanted them all to know we were working on something special, and if we did a great job, it could last 500 years, like a cathedral.
I'm not sure where he got that, but it clearly wasn't from working with Dick Nugent on the Dunes Club!
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Goes to show that Intention is even more important than Talent, and the Will more important than the Intellect. You've got to aim for great work to have any chance of getting there.
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Not trying to stir JB but I see this period as the period when there was a concerted effort to promote the "architect" as a professional rather than a design/build type and the written record shows such. A concerted effort was made the convince the client that more and more plans were needed. So many of the past guys were coming form golf but during this period many came form other walks and really didn't know much of golf the game.
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Jeff:
Frank Lloyd Wright was certainly the leading (American) architect/writer advocating for a "new American style" at the beginning of the post-war years. However, a big chunk of his work and philosophizing was actually generated pre-war, during the period corresponding to the GCA Golden Age. The reason we think of FLW as the most famous of the (American) POST-war architects is simply because he was -- still around, i.e. not dead yet!
FLW went through a LOT of design/mood periods in his long life, just like Picasso or the Beatles. The success of his awesome project for the Kaufmanns at "Fallingwater" (in 1938) breathed some new life into his career and launched him on a new design period in the 40s and 50s that included a lot of wonderful "low-lying" residential architecture (with its roots still in the Prairie School), and a bunch of utopian thought projects about the re-shaping of American society through design. He got really popular again, and for good reasons.
Well, if there was one mindset America was ready for immediately during the post-war reconstructive period, it was a bunch of rapid copying of something good and interesting, thinking more must be better. In the case of FLW, that meant that all his low-lying Usonian houses got copied into the ubiquitous 1950s ranch house that spread all across America. FLW's utopia-speak got copied very quickly by urban planners into concepts such as the Greenbelt.
But neither the ranch-houses or the suburban greenbelts had the soul and attention to detail of FLW's work -- the copying was all too rapid, expanding way too fast, and structured around maximizing use of resources (i.e. expediency).
This is the same type of thinking that infected almost all other American design during this historical period, including GCA. The 1950s in particular started a very black period in GENERAL American design -- it was a time where patently false imitations were in vogue.
The grand exception to this was automotive design, and I suppose you could say aviation design as well. For cars, the 1950s and 1960s were a grand golden era of innovations and forms -- just think of all the awesome classics from that time. However, the Golden Age of auto design got hacked to a stop by the 1970s oil crisis in much the same way that the Golden Age of GCA got hacked off by the events of 1929.
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I think of it more in terms of supplying a demand.
Guys like Geoffrey Cornish, Ed Ault, William & David Gordon et.al. built a slew of highly functional golf courses for the growing game and by and large each created many more golf courses than the Golden Age Masters we all revere.
I think Jim's bullet points above are spot on and economy and maintainability took precedence.
I wonder what things would look like today if demand was once again creating 300 new golf course opportunities per year?
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Mike Young,
From 1950 to 1969 they were popping em out at a rate of 278 courses per year(on average)...which seems staggering. Can you imagine how many less to non-experienced guys were hanging out a shingle to get in on that action??
I have some graphics i'll post up a bit later from that article that shows the when, where, and how many from 3 time periods:
1920-1949, 1950-1969, 1970-2000
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Greg Smith,if we're playing What's My Line, I'm guessing you're an architect.
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"For a good many years, much of golf architecture in this country has suffered from a 'finality complex.' That complex was that the zenith of GCA had been reached in Scotland and everything we did had to be an imitation of their courses . . . I think its high time we stopped imitating the old traditions in golf design and build courses that will satisfy our player demand, our pocketbooks, our maintenance machinery and our peculiar American climatic and topographical conditions." Attributed to RB Harris in 1940s (in an earlier thread on this site).
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“Let's employ competent help, pay them well, furnish them with good tools and plenty of modern equipment to work with. Redesign our golf layouts so as to eliminate hand labor as much as possible. Under the heavy player traffic of today, routine maintenance chores need to be done and out of the way before golfers arrive to play. Labor performances and operational tasks need to be streamlined; this calls for qualified help and sufficient machinery if the required job is to be efficiently accomplished.”
[/size]Newsletter of MidAtlantic GCSA, Sept 25, 1966.
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JMEvensky:
Actually I am an oncology nurse (bone marrow transplant). Been in that profession for 15 years now. But... in a way you are right. My original college degree back in the 80s was in fact architecture.
Stupid of me to get a degree in REGULAR architecture -- should have gone to landscape architecture, seeing how I'd been reading/thinking about GCA since age 10. But back then the idea of actually, really setting out on the road to become a professional golf architect was a non-starter. Wouldn't have even considered it was something workable.
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1920-1949 - Avg. 90 new courses per year
(https://i.imgur.com/ATKO5Kg.png)
1950-1969 - Avg. 278 new courses per year
(https://i.imgur.com/4zjJLQ1.jpg)
1970 -2000 - Avg. 245 new courses per year
(https://i.imgur.com/Igk05ci.jpg)
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Thanks very much for that, Kalen -- fascinating and very clear 'snapshots' of the industry, and its history.
The only thing you forgot to add was the 'pay-off stat':
2000-2020: Average of only 10 courses a year -- but every one of them has made it into GOLF's Top 100 list!
:)
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Thanks very much for that, Kalen -- fascinating and very clear 'snapshots' of the industry, and its history.
The only thing you forgot to add was the 'pay-off stat':
2000-2020: Average of only 10 courses a year -- but every one of them has made it into GOLF's Top 100 list!
:)
Peter,They all make Golf's Top 100 because they are the only thing there that could want to advertise...the interesting stat in all of this is the green fee/dues during these periods vs. capital cost and operations cost for the average golf course...
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Hilarious Pete.
The paper i looked at didn't have any stats on post Y2k, but that sounds about right, except that math doesn't quite work... ;D ;D
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A couple more screen shots:
1878 to 1919
(https://i.imgur.com/dGOryYp.jpg)
This chart shows the years and # of courses built. Looks like 1960 to 1975 were the huge boom years, and then again in the mid 90s before the big downturn!
(https://i.imgur.com/RrREo6u.jpg)
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Kalen:
Your 1920-1949 chart is a bit misleading. I'd venture majority of the courses built during that time period were built during the 1920's, as we know what happened in the 1930's and 40's.
The average per year for the 1920's was probably well above the number noted for the larger time period.
Sven
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JMEvensky:
Actually I am an oncology nurse (bone marrow transplant). Been in that profession for 15 years now. But... in a way you are right. My original college degree back in the 80s was in fact architecture.
Stupid of me to get a degree in REGULAR architecture -- should have gone to landscape architecture, seeing how I'd been reading/thinking about GCA since age 10. But back then the idea of actually, really setting out on the road to become a professional golf architect was a non-starter. Wouldn't have even considered it was something workable.
No disrespect to the architects here, but what you do as a nurse is pretty special and way more emotionally draining I would suspect.
Ira
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I think of it more in terms of supplying a demand.
Guys like Geoffrey Cornish, Ed Ault, William & David Gordon et.al. built a slew of highly functional golf courses for the growing game and by and large each created many more golf courses than the Golden Age Masters we all revere.
I think Jim's bullet points above are spot on and economy and maintainability took precedence.
I wonder what things would look like today if demand was once again creating 300 new golf course opportunities per year?
During the ODG/Golden Age Era, what percentage of courses were Private versus Public? My guess is that wealthy folks could command the best land when there was no such thing as Suburbs. Post-WWII, the growth of Suburbs consumed the most attractive sites and the growth of the game required Public Courses with affordable greens fees. That does not justify mediocre architecture for private clubs, but might explain the proliferation of mediocre or less Public courses. After all, the new era of Bandon-like open to the Public courses really are open only to the same wealthy folks who founded the Golden Age courses. My comments limited to the US because I do not pretend to understand the UK or Australia or other dynamics.
Ira
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Kalen:
Your 1920-1949 chart is a bit misleading. I'd venture majority of the courses built during that time period were built during the 1920's, as we know what happened in the 1930's and 40's.
The average per year for the 1920's was probably well above the number noted for the larger time period.
Sven
Hey Sven,
If you look at the 2nd chart in post #27, you can get a better idea of when those courses were built in that time period. As you guessed, most of them were built in the 1920s..with the big drop off for the GD in 29'
P.S. I didn't put any of these charts together, they all come out of the research article link i posted in reply #9. I should also add for the real researchers on this site its a fascinating piece with 16 pages of information and discussion with two pages of references. You can get a trial membership to view the entire article.
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In the mid-1960s, during these so-called “Dark Ages,” Robert Trent Jones, Sr. received a commission to design and build Otter Creek Golf Club on the outskirts of Columbus, Indiana. I don’t think that anyone who has been there would say that the course is anything outside of the criteria listed by the original poster. It is prototypical RTJ Sr. However, those of you familiar with the history of Columbus will know that the work of RTJ, Sr. in this particular city fits into a much larger, and more significant, architectural narrative. Beginning in the 1950s, J. Irwin Miller, the CEO of a local company, released grant funding to be used in the hiring of some of America’s - if not the world’s - best architects and artists (e.g. I.M. Pei, Eero Saarinen, Henry Moore, Dan Kiley, and others) to design a range of structures and spaces that would change the face of the city and turn Columbus into a destination for high design.
[/color][/size]
[/color]This discussion forum has a tendency to see the RTJ, Sr. style as somehow lacking in substance, but his inclusion in Columbus clearly shows that his work was considered to be absolutely cutting edge at the time. I think we often forget that. Modernist architecture itself is often viewed by some today with disdain, but this was no doubt a critical historical era in design. Ultimately, I wonder if it might serve us better if we can stop trying to understand Post-War II golf course design through a contemporary lens and instead begin to appreciate it for it’s importance in that age.[/size]
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Compare the earth moving capabilities in 1950 to those from 30 years prior.
They built courses the way they did because they could.
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My observations don't match up with a lot of the comments. They're based on playing 10 or more Ed Ault courses built in 50's and 60's in MD, VA and PA. It's possible that my sample size is too small, Ed Ault is not representative of the era, and that I don't know what I'm looking at. With that caveat, I think these comments are wide of the mark -
- "Championship”. Definitely not all aspiring to be “championship.” Some (Northwest, Hobbits Glen) were built with tournament golf in mind but are not “brutal” or “penal.” Most are not 6800-7100. Most top out between 6600-6800 and probably see most play at 6200-6300.
- “Penal.” If anything, known as “playable” and “fun,” with challenge for the strong player while leaving routes for the less strong players.
- “Cartball” – All eminently walkable. Golf in 50s and 60s was promoted as a sport of vigor and health. Carts were increasingly available, but seen as an aid to the infirm.
- “Aerial.” The ground game is possible even encouraged. Greens not designed to either repel shots or collect them. Usually possible to run up to at least part of green.
- “Brutal” or “Bulldozed.” Moving dirt seems as if it was the option of last resort. I don’t think the courses I’m familiar with were stripped out, but rather routed over land pretty much as it was. Seems that Ault did what he did without ripping up the whole farm and putting it back together. Tie-ins highly natural – perhaps because they followed the lay of the land and did not have to reconstruct after the fact to simulate following the land?
- “Artificial” – If anything, the courses can be faulted for lacking in artifice.
- “Lacking attention to detail.” My sense is that they attended carefully to the details they cared about, which may not be the same details that some people care about now.
- “Cookie cutter.” Not sure what this means exactly, but there are no template holes and I discern no formulaic or mathematical routings, other than returning nines. Very few back-and-forth fairways. Maybe repetitive bunker placement? The courses are sometimes described as mundane, unimaginative, “failing to inspire,” perhaps as a result of conscious lack of ornamentation. Does this quality affect the playing characteristics of the courses?
- “Mediocre architecture for private clubs” – I don’t think Montgomery CC, on nice rolling land, needs to hang its head in the company of many of the private clubs in its neighborhood, and may be superior to some (not all) that rely on frill and presentation, enabled by exorbitant membership cost, to compensate for what they lack in architectural and playing characteristics. Other privates (eg Bretton Woods) are constrained more by their land than the routing or design.
- “Doak 1s and 2s.” I’m not sure what they are in DS, but I’m not sure it matters. They weren’t built to attract a global clientele, so whether people go out of their way to play them is irrelevant to their success, for the most part.
- Driven by housing – in Ault’s case in this era, some were part of development projects, like Hobbits Glen and Reston, but most were not. And in the Columbia and Reston developments, the focus was not on golf or a gated, wealthy community; they were (and are) communities planned to be diverse in race and wealth, with golf as one (non-mandatory) piece of strong shared recreational and other amenities.
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Not every course is worth saving. As much as we never want to see a course close, it is a business and subject to supply/demand factors like any other business. Survival of the fittest and in this case you have the golden age followed by quite a bit of hollow work that hasn't stood up to the test of time thus has slipped into mediocrity or subpar. How much shag carpeting is being sold anymore? Vinyl kitchen floors anyone? Avocado green appliances? Things change and not everything is timeless, such is golf course design as well for the market is limited.
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Who's talking about saving (or subsidizing) anything? Not me. The Ault public courses in Montgomery County MD sustain themselves. If the DC area privates falter, no one will clamor for a bail-out. You're right it is market-driven, and times change. So the Aults are chugging along, while the Maryland Doaks, Rosses, Flynns and Banks are largely NLE. Maybe it's worth thinking about what characteristics -- simplicity? value? ease of maintenance? proximity to golfers? -- of these "dark age" courses have sustained them and continue to sustain them 50+ years on, instead of reflexively crapping on them. If they're so bad, why do even the golf intellectuals (grudgingly) admit that they're fun? Maybe these are the courses that should be updated if people don't like the finishes instead of chin-stroking over frilly bunkers at the latest Instagram darling that's thousands of miles away from everyday golfers. I hope Pac Dunes (and Old Mac) are 500-year cathedrals of golf, but the future of US golf may not be in airplane rides, especially if oil hits $200/barrel and/or the new Red Guard completes the Cultural Revolution in the US, both oil and golf become even more doubleplusungood, and the value of the nation's retirement savings plummets.
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Bernie,
The title of this thread is "Defining Dark Ages Architecture", not about what has or hasn't survived.
There are plenty of mediocre and crappy courses that will surely continue to be around, for the reasons you've stated and perhaps more. But I put them more in the camp of fast food where the Taco Bells and McDonalds will survive because they are cheap, easy, and convenient. But I wouldn't be making the mistake of arguing they offer much quality if any at all.
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"For a good many years, much of golf architecture in this country has suffered from a 'finality complex.' That complex was that the zenith of GCA had been reached in Scotland and everything we did had to be an imitation of their courses . . . I think its high time we stopped imitating the old traditions in golf design and build courses that will satisfy our player demand, our pocketbooks, our maintenance machinery and our peculiar American climatic and topographical conditions." Attributed to RB Harris in 1940s (in an earlier thread on this site).
Bernie,
Yes that is one of the articles that informed my opinion of the era.
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Who's talking about saving (or subsidizing) anything? Not me. The Ault public courses in Montgomery County MD sustain themselves. If the DC area privates falter, no one will clamor for a bail-out. You're right it is market-driven, and times change. So the Aults are chugging along, while the Maryland Doaks, Rosses, Flynns and Banks are largely NLE. Maybe it's worth thinking about what characteristics -- simplicity? value? ease of maintenance? proximity to golfers? -- of these "dark age" courses have sustained them and continue to sustain them 50+ years on, instead of reflexively crapping on them. If they're so bad, why do even the golf intellectuals (grudgingly) admit that they're fun? Maybe these are the courses that should be updated if people don't like the finishes instead of chin-stroking over frilly bunkers at the latest Instagram darling that's thousands of miles away from everyday golfers. I hope Pac Dunes (and Old Mac) are 500-year cathedrals of golf, but the future of US golf may not be in airplane rides, especially if oil hits $200/barrel and/or the new Red Guard completes the Cultural Revolution in the US, both oil and golf become even more doubleplusungood, and the value of the nation's retirement savings plummets.
Woah Bernie, the sky isn't falling is it? ;D
While I maybe one of the few, if any, people on this board that would benefit from $200 for a barrell of black gold, I don't wish that day to come for it would mean disaster consequences on a variety of other industries / services. One of the last things I'll be thinking about will be Dark Age Architecture if that day does indeed come. BTW retirement savings did plummet in 2008/9 and IMO we haven't adequately put in place measures to ensure another one doesn't happen. Bring back Glass Steagall by repealing the Gramm/Leach/Bliley act. The Dodd/Frank act doesn't do enough, even with the Volcker Rule.
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Kalen - Not to worry, I know what I'm doing, and I know what I think are the defining characteristics. I've laid out what I think the misconceptions are (including yours on DS 1 and 2), based on my experience, which I freely admit is limited. I think if there's a mistake here it is making broad gauge statements that these thousands of courses are all rubbish without explaining what your opinion is based on and what characteristics you think make them rubbish (or shag carpet or Taco Bell or whatever). I say without embarrassment that I think these Ault dark age courses most definitely do offer quality - in no particular order - Montgomery CC, Chester River CC (new 9), Penn National (Founders), Bryce Resort, Hobbits Glen. On my list to explore are Hunt Valley and Rookery North (f/k/a Shawnee). If others who have played them think otherwise . . . . that is what discussion boards are for.
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Jim
2. I never thought of dark age architecture in terms of saving money.
Sean,
The architects coming out of WW2 and into the 1950s (and there weren't many of them) almost all write about streamlining design and adjusting the golf features to the ease of maintenance and lowering maintenance costs. It's the driving factor.
One, labor costs were quite high for much of that timeframe alongside a great push to develop more courses to meet demand. And two, the new types of machinery on the market gave superintendents a speed and affordability luxury they didn't previously have.
I've come to view this era, particularly the 1950s and 1960s, as much the age of the superintendent as the age of the professional architect. And there was a long learning curve in how many of the newly available/improved technologies (machinery, drainage, irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides) were implemented.
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Bernie,
I think the analysis I've presented so far is at least in the ballpark. A few things to show some justification.
- A DS 3 is average, by definition, so if you look at a bell curve of all 16000 courses in the US, its gonna be shifted left where most courses will fall in the 1-4 range. Given there were approx 8400 courses built between 1945 and 1980, distribution curve probabilities tell us the DS 1s and 2s will be well into the thousands...as well as thousands of 3s and 4s..
- I too have played most of my golf on local public courses (approx 90% of my rounds) and my own data shows similar as 80% of those played are 1-4 on the DS. These courses, out here in the West, represent about 100 data points.
P.S. While I did compare them to fast food, I never explicitly called them rubbish. They certainly serve their purpose for the masses, just like Taco Bell. And I will even say most of them are good values to most golfers, just like Taco Bell is to someone who just wants food. But if we're talking about their specific characteristics otherwise, i don't think they're noteworthy.
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Not trying to stir JB but I see this period as the period when there was a concerted effort to promote the "architect" as a professional rather than a design/build type and the written record shows such. A concerted effort was made the convince the client that more and more plans were needed. So many of the past guys were coming form golf but during this period many came form other walks and really didn't know much of golf the game.
Mike,
I agree with you, minus your usual cynicism. ;) As a member of ASGCA and ASLA, and agree the early record shows they both were concerned about elevating their status from tree planters or dirt diggers to professionals. And to have their version of Wright in architecture, etc. And it worked, and you and I benefit from that push today, so what's the beef? :)
I believe golf course architecture should stand along with the other fine arts of architecture, landscape architecture, fine dining, theatre, etc. It is now considered important enough to warrant its own critics, lists, rankings, and even coffee table books and monthly magazines. IMHO, it may be more important. If you love literature, you can read voraciously, but never read Danielle Steel. Movie goers can avoid any genre they don’t like, simply by not buying tickets. TV watchers can easily change channels.
But, as a golfer, you can’t skip a hole. Without architecture is there really any golf?
What I don't know is just what their image was after a hiatus of WWII. Given the near total lack of work for a few years there, they certainly had the chance to invent the profession from scratch and they took it. I also don't know for sure how much outside elements affected the move to the design bid method. There had been years of govt. procurement of military hardware, and I suspect it filtered out to other entities. We know Wadsworth and Packard split into build and design. Were they leaders that influenced the golf industry or just following what seemed to be an imminent trends? Either way, they were both very bright and it's hard for me to accept people decades later substituting current judgement for theirs.
And then, were the stack of plans required at that time or just foisted on clients for gca's to prove a point? Maybe more before Wadsworth, who basically invented golf course contracting they were really necessary when road builders did earthmoving, farmers did the grassing, etc. It probably was right for the times. If times have changed back, so be it. I trust the current collective wisdom in the industry is generally correct now, as well.
That said, like in a lot of other fields, I see multiple trends and every way of working is seen as a good way to go depending on circumstances. I think things are far less rigid and more accepting now than back then, when conformance was seen as a pretty good thing overall. Yes, a generalization and I can see the exceptions people could bring up. But, I've run out of typing time and you really don't need more detail.
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Bernie -
your post #34 was a very good one, and what you describe aligns with my experience of many modest courses from the 60s and 70s -- which is why I often put "dark ages" in quotes or reference the "so-called" dark ages.
But that said: I do think, and some of the quotes included in this thread by architects from that time seem to confirm, that the centre of focus did shift between the 20s and the 50s -- ie from a focus on design/quality to a focus on playability/availability.
I think my first post noted a main reason for this shift, and Sven's line about moving earth because they could is also relevant; but certainly it seems like a period when few architects were talking like they once did about the great golf holes from GB&I or about The Old Course as a model for greatness.
That in itself shouldn't qualify the times as the "dark ages" -- and I owe my ability to play golf quite frequently and fairly affordable to that very age, and the courses that were built then. But that doesn't mean that something didn't change quite significantly during those years, and I say the key change, from our perspective, was that financial metrics replaced artistic ones.
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Bernie,
The title of this thread is "Defining Dark Ages Architecture", not about what has or hasn't survived.
There are plenty of mediocre and crappy courses that will surely continue to be around, for the reasons you've stated and perhaps more. But I put them more in the camp of fast food where the Taco Bells and McDonalds will survive because they are cheap, easy, and convenient. But I wouldn't be making the mistake of arguing they offer much quality if any at all.
In the Charleston, S.C. episode of Parts Unknown, the late Anthony Bourdain and Southern chef Sean Brock have basically the time of their lives eating at a Waffle House. There they are, in one of the most foodie-friendly cities in America, and they're rhapsodizing about the pecan waffles and other menu items that would be easy for foodies to dismiss as mundane and pedestrian and therefor not "offer[ing] much quality if any at all."
On an episode of David Chang's (another great American food mind) podcast, he and his guest Lolis Elie, who is a screenwriter and food critic, spent a good five minutes talking about how the best red beans and rice might be the version made by, of all places, Popeye's.
I love independent foodie-haven restaurants as much as anyone, but I think there is a sneaky-high amount of quality in the more widespread restaurant chains out there. There's a lot of not-great food, obviously, but while it's easy to dismiss it all wholesale, it's also inaccurate to do so.
The same thing is happening with regard to "Dark-Ages" GCA, which is understandable when the name for the entire era is a put-down. It makes it awfully easy to overlook what I think is plenty of sneaky-strong product.
I learned the game on a 1961 Geoffrey Cornish design that doesn't have the frills and trigger features that some Dark Age dismissers seem to require in order to truly appreciate a course. It doesn't have 80 acres of fairway or enormous greens, but it has a good mix of holes that give the whole bag a workout, as well as some interesting uphill and downhill shots.
Ol' Hop Meadow CC is but one example, but I've been impressed by several, shall we say, "Midcentury Modern" courses. I think the trouble partly comes from lack of separation, when evaluating a course, of that course's style (look/shaping/vibe) from its content (variety/strategy). I think if some of the haters would set aside their arbitrary objections to the look of a course and evaluate the content, it might, uh, brighten their view somewhat.
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Bernie -
your post #34 was a very good one, and what you describe aligns with my experience of many modest courses from the 60s and 70s -- which is why I often put "dark ages" in quotes or reference the "so-called" dark ages.
But that said: I do think, and some of the quotes included in this thread by architects from that time seem to confirm, that the centre of focus did shift between the 20s and the 50s -- ie from a focus on design/quality to a focus on playability/availability.
I think my first post noted a main reason for this shift, and Sven's line about moving earth because they could is also relevant; but certainly it seems like a period when few architects were talking like they once did about the great golf holes from GB&I or about The Old Course as a model for greatness.
That in itself shouldn't qualify the times as the "dark ages" -- and I owe my ability to play golf quite frequently and fairly affordable to that very age, and the courses that were built then. But that doesn't mean that something didn't change quite significantly during those years, and I say the key change, from our perspective, was that financial metrics replaced artistic ones.
Peter,
You are definitely correct that one of the major shifts beginning in the 1950s was not only in the style of design but also in the type of player that architects were designing for. And obviously these things are related.
There was incredible interest in golf coming out of the war. Many people -- perhaps millions -- were interested in playing but couldn't because there was a shortage of courses. Facilities regularly turned people away. Supply didn't catch up with demand until probably the middle 1960s. And most of these newcomers were not familiar, or not interested, in the man vs. course, golf-as-a-test-of-character aspect of the game (and architecture) that defined the best Golden Age courses. They viewed golf instead as a leisure activity, a way to relax and get outside. The attraction of the game shifted.
Certainly the desire to build a better, more modern golf course was a driving factor for post-War architects. In fact, they believed they were building superior courses to what was built in the 20s. From a purely technical perspective they were usually correct, and technical advancement, science and efficiency were the prevailing virtues of the day.
Many of the courses built at that time were simply functional and opened to meet demand, but that was true in the 1910s and 1920s as well. A small fraction of courses from any era are ever considered great. But the top courses of the "so-called Dark Ages" were considered some of the best in the world by contemporaries of that period. Like Jeff Brauer I have a hard time being critical of anyone for aligning with the tastes and demands of their time (as long as they're not harming anyone).
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Tim,
I think that's excellent you've found some hidden gems and a few courses that buck the trend. I've found a few myself over the years that were super fun to play, off the beaten path, and inexpensive. They wouldn't get any play here on GCA.com, and that's perfectly fine.
But I think when we're trying to define an entire era that spans several decades, you have to look at ALL of the data points, the thousands and thousands of data points, and try to find the general trends. The hidden gems are gonna be out there, but that doesn't tell the story, and if anything is mis-leading.
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IN my opinion, and the following is just that...
To me the real objection I have to the dark ages, is it seems like they tried to corporatize golf in the name of "progress" and make it all about the bottom line instead of following with the artsy/whimsical/fun side to it (exceptions duly noted).
And then when the ball really got rolling in the 60s and the RFPs were flooding the market and pumping out 400+ courses per year it seems to have went full construction line, where it was all about how many courses can we make in the shortest amount of time, end product be damned...
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I do recall Dick Nugent warning me on my first day that all the great courses had been built, and what we needed now were playable ones, sort of lowering the design bar, although obviously RTJ and Wilson didn't think the same way. They just equated hard with good.
Wow, that's quite the pep talk.
When we were building Pacific Dunes, Mike Keiser came out to talk to our whole construction crew one day, by the 11th tee. He wanted them all to know we were working on something special, and if we did a great job, it could last 500 years, like a cathedral.
I'm not sure where he got that, but it clearly wasn't from working with Dick Nugent on the Dunes Club!
It was a reference to Sir Christopher Wrenn’s parable The Three Bricklayers.
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Tim,
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IN my opinion, and the following is just that...
To me the real objection I have to the dark ages, is it seems like they tried to corporatize golf in the name of "progress" and make it all about the bottom line instead of following with the artsy/whimsical/fun side to it (exceptions duly noted).
And then when the ball really got rolling in the 60s and the RFPs were flooding the market and pumping out 400+ courses per year it seems to have went full construction line, where it was all about how many courses can we make in the shortest amount of time, end product be damned...
Kalen,
One of the problems with this whole Dark Ages concept is, how do you talk about a 35-45+ year period (depending on when you believe the era began and ended) in any meaningful way? Especially considering that over 8,000-10,000 courses were built (nice job on the research).
I would actually cleave it further, into smaller sections. The period from 1945 to about 1965 has a lot in common -- it is the Ramp Up. This is when golf booms across all demographics, demand is extreme and good and sometimes great land remains available and fairly accessible. The courses of this era are typically what I would call "honest, with many built are on nice, core properties -- most are public, are good walks and not difficult to drive to.
The 1965-1980 period is the Scale Up. Industrialization begins with more courses added, often farther away from city centers. This is when housing developments and new suburban communities really begin to grow. As cities push out into more difficult land the courses and architecture is forced to bend to the demands and and constraints of outside, non-golf factors. Golf carts gain in popularity.
1980-1990/whenever is the One Up. The one-upsmanship that begins in the 70s takes on new meaning as the influence of Pete Dye and more readily available money encourages new designs to go big and test limits and blah blah blah. Golf cart paths gain in popularity. The dawning of the era of the signature hole.
I just find it pretty hard to compare what was happening to golf design in 1975 to what was happening in 1950. Too much happened -- in the world, in outlook, in technology and communication and culture -- to draw clean lines.
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Bernie,
The title of this thread is "Defining Dark Ages Architecture", not about what has or hasn't survived.
There are plenty of mediocre and crappy courses that will surely continue to be around, for the reasons you've stated and perhaps more. But I put them more in the camp of fast food where the Taco Bells and McDonalds will survive because they are cheap, easy, and convenient. But I wouldn't be making the mistake of arguing they offer much quality if any at all.
In the Charleston, S.C. episode of Parts Unknown, the late Anthony Bourdain and Southern chef Sean Brock have basically the time of their lives eating at a Waffle House. There they are, in one of the most foodie-friendly cities in America, and they're rhapsodizing about the pecan waffles and other menu items that would be easy for foodies to dismiss as mundane and pedestrian and therefor not "offer[ing] much quality if any at all."
On an episode of David Chang's (another great American food mind) podcast, he and his guest Lolis Elie, who is a screenwriter and food critic, spent a good five minutes talking about how the best red beans and rice might be the version made by, of all places, Popeye's.
I love independent foodie-haven restaurants as much as anyone, but I think there is a sneaky-high amount of quality in the more widespread restaurant chains out there. There's a lot of not-great food, obviously, but while it's easy to dismiss it all wholesale, it's also inaccurate to do so.
The same thing is happening with regard to "Dark-Ages" GCA, which is understandable when the name for the entire era is a put-down. It makes it awfully easy to overlook what I think is plenty of sneaky-strong product.
I learned the game on a 1961 Geoffrey Cornish design that doesn't have the frills and trigger features that some Dark Age dismissers seem to require in order to truly appreciate a course. It doesn't have 80 acres of fairway or enormous greens, but it has a good mix of holes that give the whole bag a workout, as well as some interesting uphill and downhill shots.
Ol' Hop Meadow CC is but one example, but I've been impressed by several, shall we say, "Midcentury Modern" courses. I think the trouble partly comes from lack of separation, when evaluating a course, of that course's style (look/shaping/vibe) from its content (variety/strategy). I think if some of the haters would set aside their arbitrary objections to the look of a course and evaluate the content, it might, uh, brighten their view somewhat.
Waffle House and Popeyes are both off the chain (pun intended). And pretty difficult to find a better dessert than a Blizzard at DQ. Plus not even Willie Mae’s clearly tops the fried chicken at a Brothers in a gas station.
As it relates to golf courses, Plum Tree National (Joe Lee and NLE) and Hog Neck (Lindsey Ervin) are 1970s Public courses with real merit and reasonable green fees. I played several other such courses growing up and as a young adult.
Ira
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Tim,
-----------------------------------
IN my opinion, and the following is just that...
To me the real objection I have to the dark ages, is it seems like they tried to corporatize golf in the name of "progress" and make it all about the bottom line instead of following with the artsy/whimsical/fun side to it (exceptions duly noted).
And then when the ball really got rolling in the 60s and the RFPs were flooding the market and pumping out 400+ courses per year it seems to have went full construction line, where it was all about how many courses can we make in the shortest amount of time, end product be damned...
Kalen,
One of the problems with this whole Dark Ages concept is, how do you talk about a 35-45+ year period (depending on when you believe the era began and ended) in any meaningful way? Especially considering that over 8,000-10,000 courses were built (nice job on the research).
I would actually cleave it further, into smaller sections. The period from 1945 to about 1965 has a lot in common -- it is the Ramp Up. This is when golf booms across all demographics, demand is extreme and good and sometimes great land remains available and fairly accessible. The courses of this era are typically what I would call "honest, with many built are on nice, core properties -- most are public, are good walks and not difficult to drive to.
The 1965-1980 period is the Scale Up. Industrialization begins with more courses added, often farther away from city centers. This is when housing developments and new suburban communities really begin to grow. As cities push out into more difficult land the courses and architecture is forced to bend to the demands and and constraints of outside, non-golf factors. Golf carts gain in popularity.
1980-1990/whenever is the One Up. The one-upsmanship that begins in the 70s takes on new meaning as the influence of Pete Dye and more readily available money encourages new designs to go big and test limits and blah blah blah. Golf cart paths gain in popularity. The dawning of the era of the signature hole.
I just find it pretty hard to compare what was happening to golf design in 1975 to what was happening in 1950. Too much happened -- in the world, in outlook, in technology and communication and culture -- to draw clean lines.
Derek,
I appreciate this last post. I think breaking it down further would be a worthwhile activity, because the time span is pretty large as Ran has it on the main page. Then again, that entire section is certainly very brief and i'm guessing intentionally doesn't go into much detail. But if you asked Ran, i'm sure he could provide far more detail on how he arrived at the conclusion for the "Dark Ages". I can certainly see how that term is a bit heavy handed, even if I agree with it personally, and have tried to provide evidence/data as to why I agree with it.
Maybe a takeaway from this thread is to further digest this topic and perhaps present an updated narrative to Ran to post on the main page. I don't believe its changed since I first came here well over a decade ago, so i wouldn't hold your breath.
On that note, I leave you with this in regards to your last post! ;D
(https://i.imgur.com/dVDJiez.gif)
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In reference to the idea that the GCA could reinvent itself I am not sure that the professionalism and reliance on larger name recognition brands didn't have its seeds in the depression and how that decade played out.
Tillie's PGA trip was sponsored by the "establishment" PGA and certainly was a strong message across the industry in the value of a professional GCA. In the RTJ Sr. biography there is a good write up about the work he did for the NY State Parks department during the depression. This type of establishment work accelerated through public investment made in golf during the depression and after the war. I am sure the name recognition and ability to jump through bureaucratic hurdles was a selling point for the larger and more professional firms in a given area.
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In my mind, Golf Course Architecture entered the "Dark Ages," when many golf courses were built just to be another amenity to sell lots. Beauty at the expense of strategy, ease of play by all levels of players, with multiple tees to choose from, visibly exciting greens much like miniature golf, etc.
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Jim S,
I don't disagree. We like to compartmentalize things for easier understanding but really a lot of factors came into play.
Not sure the PGA throwing Tillie a bone did much to ramp up professionalism, though. If anything, it may have established you could get a gca on site for really low cost. Similar for a then young RTJ or any gca doing work for public agencies. Most just went out of biz, either permanently or for a decade waiting it out. It was great golf got such a nod back then. It was excluded specifically under the $797 Billion spending package after 2006!
But then, I can't know, since I wasn't there.
Jim H,
Don't disagree either. But, even now, you have to admit not every course should be built to be great. And Back then, great meant tough, so it was especially apparent. Certainly there was a real estate emphasis, putting courses where the people were, as opposed to the Golden Age (and now) where it was financially feasible to build resorts (Pinehurst then, Bandon Dunes now, as examples)
If filling the major market need constitutes a dark age, I am not seeing it. Again, not every course was ever meant to be great.
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Jim H,
Don't disagree either. But, even now, you have to admit not every course should be built to be great. And Back then, great meant tough, so it was especially apparent. Certainly there was a real estate emphasis, putting courses where the people were, as opposed to the Golden Age (and now) where it was financially feasible to build resorts (Pinehurst then, Bandon Dunes now, as examples)
If filling the major market need constitutes a dark age, I am not seeing it. Again, not every course was ever meant to be great.
I like this observation Jeff and I'm wondering if anyone has any data about how many courses built during the "Dark Ages" were private clubs vs. public (or even municipally built). Back in the golden age most of them were built as private clubs with large budgets for very wealthy people. As golf grew in popularity and mainstream public courses were built more and more. Even local municipalities built them in mass for their city's residents to enjoy. So in a way I think the golden age got the large budgets and thus prime locations and GCA's for their projects.
Then we have an era that was the democratization of golf, providing it to the every man. However, certainly not to the NGLA, Riviera, Chicago, etc. standard. Doesn't it just stand to reason that what was built then is a lesser quality and be susceptible to survival of the fittest compared to the entire amount of courses remaining? Similar to track homes built in the 1970's / 1980's vs. custom built mansions from the golden age. Which are we going to restore and want to maintain? The track homes served their purpose and perhaps still are today, but if you only need X amount of courses to meet the golfing demand, which ones will survive I think is evident and happening whether we realize it or not.
Edit: I think this is something to consider, but thoughts?
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Jeff & Jeff
+1
Although, I think there were big missed opportunities in the 80s when the of fad of CCFAD first came about. As I said in the other thread, Michigan was at the forefront of post war golf boom with unbelievable numbers of munis, local public and resort course openings. The state would probably make a good study of the question.
Happy Hockey
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I like this observation Jeff and I'm wondering if anyone has any data about how many courses built during the "Dark Ages" were private clubs vs. public (or even municipally built). Back in the golden age most of them were built as private clubs with large budgets for very wealthy people. As golf grew in popularity and mainstream public courses were built more and more. Even local municipalities built them in mass for their city's residents to enjoy. So in a way I think the golden age got the large budgets and thus prime locations and GCA's for their projects.
Jeff,
Not to distract from your larger point, but I'm curious where you got this information. Are you exaggerating when you say "most" clubs were built as private clubs with large budgets?
There were something like 4,000-4500 golf courses in the US around 1930. How many of those courses were private? How many were built on large budgets? How many were even 18-hole courses?
The very best courses built in the 1910s and 1920s are historically significant. But just like in all eras, the majority of courses built then were ordinary and purely functional.
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I like this observation Jeff and I'm wondering if anyone has any data about how many courses built during the "Dark Ages" were private clubs vs. public (or even municipally built). Back in the golden age most of them were built as private clubs with large budgets for very wealthy people. As golf grew in popularity and mainstream public courses were built more and more. Even local municipalities built them in mass for their city's residents to enjoy. So in a way I think the golden age got the large budgets and thus prime locations and GCA's for their projects.
Jeff,
Not to distract from your larger point, but I'm curious where you got this information. Are you exaggerating when you say "most" clubs were built as private clubs with large budgets?
There were something like 4,000-4500 golf courses in the US around 1930. How many of those courses were private? How many were built on large budgets? How many were even 18-hole courses?
The very best courses built in the 1910s and 1920s are historically significant. But just like in all eras, the majority of courses built then were ordinary and purely functional.
Hey Derek, big budgets is relative certainly, I don't have the data on how many were public vs. private but would like to know. Certainly the ones that have lasted fit the description of large budgets (including land), private and by the wealthy, but not sure of the numbers.
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Jeff,
Here are some statistics from Golfdom in 1936. These should be fairly reflective of the "Golden Age" since not a lot of courses were added between 1930 and 1936.
Private Clubs, 9-hole: 2,366
Private Clubs, 18-hole & over: 1,339
Daily Fee, 9-hole: 576
Daily Fee, 18 hole & over: 474
Municipal, 9-hole: 314
Municipal, 18-hoel & over: 292
Definitely private courses outnumbered public options, and a majority of players played at private clubs than public (861,000 vs. 504,000, from the same study). What can't be determined from these statistics is the relative wealth of the private clubs or the quality of the golf courses.
60% of the courses in the U.S. at this time were 9-hole courses. I'm wondering what kind of information we can divine from that.
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Derek,
Do you have comparable data from 1990?
My guess is that percentage of public access is higher.
Ira
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Ira,
I don't have numbers right now from 1990, but I'm certain you are correct that public access courses outnumbered private clubs.
The NGF reports that 75% of all current US courses are public access of some sort. I would imagine the numbers from 1990 would reflect something similar.
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Jeff,
Here are some statistics from Golfdom in 1936. These should be fairly reflective of the "Golden Age" since not a lot of courses were added between 1930 and 1936.
Private Clubs, 9-hole: 2,366
Private Clubs, 18-hole & over: 1,339
Daily Fee, 9-hole: 576
Daily Fee, 18 hole & over: 474
Municipal, 9-hole: 314
Municipal, 18-hoel & over: 292
Definitely private courses outnumbered public options, and a majority of players played at private clubs than public (861,000 vs. 504,000, from the same study). What can't be determined from these statistics is the relative wealth of the private clubs or the quality of the golf courses.
60% of the courses in the U.S. at this time were 9-hole courses. I'm wondering what kind of information we can divine from that.
Holy cow, I don't know if I'm that ignorant when it comes to historical numbers of courses, but I would have guessed the opposite % with 18 hole courses being 60% and 9 holers 40%. I'm very surprised by this. This goes to show how you really have to study an era before you really can know it well, if you didn't live in it. This is another example. I don't know what to make of this in regards to the 18/9 split, but the important stat is the private/public. A larger amount than I was expecting as well almost 3x's the number of privates than publics. Certainly we can ascertain that private courses needed a benefactor or people of means to start them. So if we extrapolate that a private course of the era was for the wealthy (general assumption, but fair IMO) and public courses were for the every man, I suppose my assumption is on the right track. What I didn't expect was the number of 9 hole privates being so large. What happened to those, did they become 18 hole courses or? There definitely aren't many left.
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The housing analogy is interesting. Pete Seeger charted a hit with Little Boxes in 1963.
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky <audience laughter>
And they all look just the same
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martini dry
When ole Pete was weary from cross-country gigging as a troubadour for Soviet Communism, he reportedly repaired to his parents’ Maryland house, a magnificent 1905 Queen Anne 7-bedroom affair with a den large enough for two grand pianos, a short walk from the Chevy Chase Club.
The view of post-war architecture from Pete’s privileged wrap-around porch was not shared by the 16 million who returned from WW2 and the 6 million who returned from Korea. Builders like Levitt couldn’t build little boxes fast enough to meet the demand. The construction was not substandard (ticky-tacky). The homes were simple, sturdy and well-built with quality materials, although no one confused the finished product with the Seegers’ stately 4,000-square foot Queen Anne. Nor did the people who lived in the little boxes fit the stereotype that Seeger then and others now perpetuate. (Google Herbert Gans). Tom Lehrer later called Little Boxes the “most sanctimonious song ever written.”
Is US golf meant to be more than a game for the 1%, as it was in the “Golden Age”? To paraphrase Yogi Berra, if people today don’t want to go the golf course, no one is going to stop them. But perhaps it’s worth considering whether the “dark ages” golf architecture – simplicity, durability, value – was simply a response to demand, or whether there is something about it that helped create that demand – something that may be useful today. Maybe’s there’s more to the “dark ages” work than conventionally supposed.
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Certainly we can ascertain that private courses needed a benefactor or people of means to start them. So if we extrapolate that a private course of the era was for the wealthy (general assumption, but fair IMO) and public courses were for the every man, I suppose my assumption is on the right track.
Jeff:
The majority of private courses built in that era were either funded by a bond offering or by initial membership support. In addition, most courses from the 1920's were open to outside play, hence not just for the weathy.
Your assumptions on this thread are well-intentioned, but they're wrong. Look up any one of the Annual Guides from the 1920's and spend some time reading through the list of courses and their descriptions. It might be eye-opening.
Sven
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Certainly we can ascertain that private courses needed a benefactor or people of means to start them. So if we extrapolate that a private course of the era was for the wealthy (general assumption, but fair IMO) and public courses were for the every man, I suppose my assumption is on the right track.
Jeff:
The majority of private courses built in that era were either funded by a bond offering or by initial membership support. In addition, most courses from the 1920's were open to outside play, hence not just for the weathy.
Your assumptions on this thread are well-intentioned, but they're wrong. Look up any one of the Annual Guides from the 1920's and spend some time reading through the list of courses and their descriptions. It might be eye-opening.
Sven
Sven, so the "private" courses tabulated really aren't private? Is that what you mean? Perhaps the definition of private is non-municipal? Would the guides denote which private courses allowed outside play, which IMO means they aren't really private?
Thanks.
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Is US golf meant to be more than a game for the 1%, as it was in the “Golden Age”? To paraphrase Yogi Berra, if people today don’t want to go the golf course, no one is going to stop them. But perhaps it’s worth considering whether the “dark ages” golf architecture – simplicity, durability, value – was simply a response to demand, or whether there is something about it that helped create that demand – something that may be useful today. Maybe’s there’s more to the “dark ages” work than conventionally supposed.
If you look at those statistics from 1936, do you really think all of those nine-hole courses were like The Dunes Club? I would posit the opposite: they were small-town courses for the masses, in towns that weren't big enough to support a full 18. There are still plenty of them throughout the midwestern U.S.
That they were more simple and functional, even during the Golden Age, puts the lie to your idea that the courses of the 1950's and 1960's were anything special. Practical, absolutely. But great? Just because they were practical?
Also, your assumption that what America needs now is more such practical courses, is probably wrong, because no one can afford to build such courses from scratch and charge $30 to play them. The only courses that can fit that price point are courses where the capital for construction was paid off [or written down] long ago: older, failing courses. If you try to build a new course to that model, it will probably fail, too.
Luckily, there are still a lot of golf courses in America that fit that niche, just as there were after the Depression and the war. Unfortunately, a lot have been closing their doors over the past few years, because capitalists have "higher and better uses" in mind for them, i.e., schemes that might make them money.
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so the "private" courses tabulated really aren't private? Is that what you mean? Perhaps the definition of private is non-municipal? Would the guides denote which private courses allowed outside play, which IMO means they aren't really private?
Most clubs in America [as in Britain today] allowed reciprocal play or outside play back in the day.
I was told years ago that this changed when the tax laws changed: private clubs are given income tax and property tax breaks as long as they are for "members only," with a maximum of 5% of revenues from non-member sources. One can guess this had a chilling effect on reciprocal play.
I'm not a tax expert so I don't know to what extent the above is still true. Private or not, it seems like most golf courses in the U.S. have been selling snob appeal for as long as I've been a golfer.
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Ira,
I don't have numbers right now from 1990, but I'm certain you are correct that public access courses outnumbered private clubs.
The NGF reports that 75% of all current US courses are public access of some sort. I would imagine the numbers from 1990 would reflect something similar.
Derek, While I can't recall perfectly, I do remember an seeing a similar NGF report when I worked at Killian and Nugent (1977-1984) and then, 66% of courses were public by whatever their definition was. At the time, the proportion of public vs privates had been growing slowly and predicted to continue, which appears to be the case.
As to tax implications, I recall forward to the original World Atlas of Golf in 1974. It painted a very bleak picture of private clubs (with some dark humor suggesting all golf clubs would be like secret societies in the future) mostly because the govt had taken away some tax privileges of clubs and it seemed like an assault on golf. People also trotted out that argument when ADA reclassified (for tax purposes) private clubs as public accommodation if they had a certain percentage of revenues.
As Dick Nugent used to say, "Golf's been going strong for 500 years, and faced bigger challenges. I think it will be okay."
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Interesting discussion with a lot of good points, but I think two huge changes during the 20th century are very critical to the cause/start of the "dark ages" and the end of the "dark ages".
The first relates to available land. Back in 1900-1930 for the most part there was ample availability of high quality land reasonably close to major cities (or accessible by commuter trains in the large cities such as Chicago and NYC). Ever notice that almost all great classic courses hav e train tacks near them...that was the only way to get there from offices in many large cities.
Great land is a huge plus IMO for great golf courses. From 1930-41 few projects commenced (outside of a few funded by gov't entities such as Bethpage) due to the depression...one exception was Old Town Club in Winston Salem NC...that was funded by $$ (and land) from the Reynolds family (Reynolds Tobacco). Interesting that people continued to have tobacco products on their list of necessities during the depression.
After WWII there was a huge push to build housing for the returning armed forces and that goggled up large portions of available land near major cities...and drove up real estate taxes. Think of some of the courses that closed or moved during that post war period...Fresh Meadow (NY), Pomonok (NY), Englewood (NJ) (I grew up in NY so know these NY examples). So the architects were left w so-so land...the great land on the north shore of LI, Westchester, near Lake Michigan in Chicago, or in SW San Francisco was no longer available or way too expensive (or both).
Then in the early 90's Dick Youngscap started working his long time dream to build a course in the "impossible to get to" Nebraska Sandhills. In so so many ways perfect land for a golf course...fabulous land movement, just about unlimited perfect water underneath, sitting on hundreds of feet of perfect sand, etc. But if you build it "would they come"? Youngscap and Coore/Crenshaw took a huge risk (in retrospect looks like a no brainer...but at the time risk was major...just like buying shares of Apple in 1995 looks obvious in retrospect). They did come...in droves...club membership sold out quickly and that said to Mike Keiser go ahead with that out of the way site along the Pacific Coast in OR...which also was a huge risk. Those two developments ended the "dark ages" because they opened upon for development at lots of out of the way sites and led the way for great new architecture and courses (based on the assumption that great architecture is substantially easier on great land). BTW...that s=does not mean great architecture is easy in those cases...but easier.
As a side note regarding the above, IMO both Youngscap and Keiser deserve entry into the Golf Hall of Fame for ending the dark ages and opening up the 2nd Golden Age. Sandhills and Bandon may not have been sufficient for the 2nd Golden Age but no question they were necessary.
OK...now the second huge change...environmental laws and regulations. This is NOT meant to get into a political debate about the costs and benefits of these laws and regs. But they did become a real complicating factor in terms of finding usable land for golf courses. There is no way that tracks such as NGLA, Shinnecock, ANGC, Seminole, Shoreacres, Merion, Lido etc etc etc could have been build if today's laws/regs were in place back then. Over time architects, construction folks, lawyers etc found ways to more easy deal w the regs...but that learning process took a while and contributed to the dark ages as well.
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OK...now the second huge change...environmental laws and regulations. This is NOT meant to get into a political debate about the costs and benefits of these laws and regs. But they did become a real complicating factor in terms of finding usable land for golf courses. There is no way that tracks such as NGLA, Shinnecock, ANGC, Seminole, Shoreacres, Merion, Lido etc etc etc could have been build if today's laws/regs were in place back then. Over time architects, construction folks, lawyers etc found ways to more easy deal w the regs...but that learning process took a while and contributed to the dark ages as well.
Paul:
I think the changes to environmental laws and regulations have not been as complicating a factor as many make them out to be. After all, I did manage to build Pacific Dunes and Rock Creek and Stone Eagle and others under the rules of the day. It's true that you probably can't build something like Tara Iti in California now . . . or at least, not in the lifetime of a client who wants to try . . .
And though several of your examples would have issues with stream crossings, I cannot think of anything that would prevent Shinnecock Hills being built today just as it was way back when.
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...not to mention Sebonack, right next door to NGLA...or Friars Head.
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OK...now the second huge change...environmental laws and regulations. This is NOT meant to get into a political debate about the costs and benefits of these laws and regs. But they did become a real complicating factor in terms of finding usable land for golf courses. There is no way that tracks such as NGLA, Shinnecock, ANGC, Seminole, Shoreacres, Merion, Lido etc etc etc could have been build if today's laws/regs were in place back then. Over time architects, construction folks, lawyers etc found ways to more easy deal w the regs...but that learning process took a while and contributed to the dark ages as well.
Paul:
I think the changes to environmental laws and regulations have not been as complicating a factor as many make them out to be. After all, I did manage to build Pacific Dunes and Rock Creek and Stone Eagle and others under the rules of the day. It's true that you probably can't build something like Tara Iti in California now . . . or at least, not in the lifetime of a client who wants to try . . .
And though several of your examples would have issues with stream crossings, I cannot think of anything that would prevent Shinnecock Hills being built today just as it was way back when.
Tom--
Yes but when those laws and regs first went into effect, folks like you had not figured out how to deal w them and I bet avoided environmentally sensitive areas as a matter of policy. After the "industry" learned how to deal with these issues things changed as income the 2nd Golden Age.
Regarding Shinnecock...what about hole #6? Probably not as show stopper but perhaps a bad headache
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Jeff & Jeff, I agree with the statement that all golf courses need not be built to be great. And, analyzed from a business plan standpoint, I have no objection to the building of courses as an amenity to produce lot sales. That is perfectly legitimate. But, analyzed from the viewpoint of golf course architecture, this emphasis on lot sales has reduced the quality of courses produced.
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While we are talking ho many were public and how many were private etc...think about this...when I was getting started there was a term "upscale daily fee" used to describe a product that was being built and that was what I focused on. In the late 80's and early 90's the signatures didnot bother with daily fee golf courses. It was not until later in the 90's when a few things slowed down that the signatures got into these types of projects. Today we forget that and think they were always involved but itwas beneath them for a good while...
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‘81 Wild Dunes Links should be included if for no other reason this course put Tom Fazio on the map with its unique use of the land.
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I use the term "Doldrums Age," but generally I place Old Town as the end of the First Golden Age, so 1940-1995 is what I call the Doldrums, despite - obviously - a many good courses being built too.
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‘81 Wild Dunes Links should be included if for no other reason this course put Tom Fazio on the map with its unique use of the land.
Before the shore erosion, those last couple of holes really made it a distinctive course, certainly for the time. I have wondered why it fell off the radar mostly. I played it back in 1984 I think.
Ira
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I wonder if golf architecture hasn't entered the Theme Park Era. That's not necessarily a criticism but even the likes of Bandon, Streamsong, Cabot and Sand Valley get a lot of mileage out of the thrill, be it micro or macro.
For what it's worth I realize my take is a ridiculous one but last month I found Lahinch and Ballybunion Old to be more thrilling than great. Could be because I can't golf the ball worth a damn.
I should also add for Tim W's sake that I found Dooks to be totally disco and tickety-boo.
Bogey
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Ira correct about Wild Dunes hole #18------sad what the erosion did to an exciting par 5.The EPA always stopped their methods of repair.
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I wonder if golf architecture hasn't entered the Theme Park Era. That's not necessarily a criticism but even the likes of Bandon, Streamsong, Cabot and Sand Valley get a lot of mileage out of the thrill, be it micro or macro.
For what it's worth I realize my take is a ridiculous one but last month I found Lahinch and Ballybunion Old to be more thrilling than great. Could be because I can't golf the ball worth a damn.
I should also add for Tim W's sake that I found Dooks to be totally disco and tickety-boo.
Bogey
A brilliant description of “The Instagram Age”.
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‘81 Wild Dunes Links should be included if for no other reason this course put Tom Fazio on the map with its unique use of the land.
Before the shore erosion, those last couple of holes really made it a distinctive course, certainly for the time. I have wondered why it fell off the radar mostly. I played it back in 1984 I think.
Ira
The golf corridors were pretty narrow, and once the housing got built, the feeling of the course changed dramatically.