Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Erik J. Barzeski on January 06, 2023, 09:15:24 AM
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Ugh, not you [and Ally, too?]. It's pure ego to think that you born with some "designer gene", and the other 99% of the world was not. It's all a continuum, and while some people are going to design more interesting courses than others, it's not anyone's birthright.
To me, what makes someone better at design is understanding how all of the technical parts play their role, so you can design great holes that incorporate those details in a way no one even notices. By that logic, the more experience you have building golf courses, the better you're going to be at design. Someone with talent as a shaper or experience as a "construction guy" has a leg up on everyone else, all other things being equal.
I thought this warranted a separate topic.
Are people born as "creative" or not? Is there a "designer gene"?
How much of a "designer" and how "creative" in the ways a GCA is "creative" was Seth Raynor? He was not even a golfer, yet having learned under CBM, he became quite a GCA based largely on his expertise at the technical side, no?
Generally speaking, does a GCA become "more creative" or "less creative" as his career continues? If yes, who are the major exceptions?
Are there great "technical" aspects guys who utterly stink at the "creative" side of things? Are there super creative guys who stink at the technical side?
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As a Building Architect, I have always wondered about the intersection between innate ability and acquired skill in a high information environment.
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I replied to this on the other thread.
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First up, read the book "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Danial Kahneman
His economic work with Amos Tversky on Prospect Theory is an awesome read.
This will help on "how we think." It's a good starting point on "thinking"
There is no design gene, everyone can design something.
Only a few are great designers.
Great design is the ability to meld art and science with function.
It's hard to be remarkable at all three.
And the answer to who is great is very subjective.
My short answer on what defines great ... the ability to surprise you.
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I have worked with architects and shapers who, I would say, have an innate sense of shape and design. I have also worked with architects and shapers who claim to have the vision of the finished product before any dirt gets moved.
I have neither. I have to get from A to Z through a series of problem-solving decisions that present themselves as I work the dirt. My decision-making has changed over the years, partly because my preferences continue to evolve and partly because I have become more proficient with the machines.
Bottom line is the path to creativity is a highly personal path. What works for one person may, and likely, won’t work for another.
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Ugh, not you [and Ally, too?]. It's pure ego to think that you born with some "designer gene", and the other 99% of the world was not. It's all a continuum, and while some people are going to design more interesting courses than others, it's not anyone's birthright.
To me, what makes someone better at design is understanding how all of the technical parts play their role, so you can design great holes that incorporate those details in a way no one even notices. By that logic, the more experience you have building golf courses, the better you're going to be at design. Someone with talent as a shaper or experience as a "construction guy" has a leg up on everyone else, all other things being equal.
I thought this warranted a separate topic.
Are people born as "creative" or not? Is there a "designer gene"?
How much of a "designer" and how "creative" in the ways a GCA is "creative" was Seth Raynor? He was not even a golfer, yet having learned under CBM, he became quite a GCA based largely on his expertise at the technical side, no?
Generally speaking, does a GCA become "more creative" or "less creative" as his career continues? If yes, who are the major exceptions?
Are there great "technical" aspects guys who utterly stink at the "creative" side of things? Are there super creative guys who stink at the technical side?
Erik,
Good questions. Raynor was basically a mimic, not a designer. As TD and others have noted, there are probably no architects who are complete masters of everything in this somewhat complicated craft. As a civil engineer he probably understood construction, grading, drainage, etc., and was thus a perfect match for CBM, and the success was a result of the luck of those two getting connected, similar to the story Joe tells. I think Peter's chance of success hinges greatly on who he ends up getting on with and that whole dynamic.
And yes, there are guys who are similarly better at those complementary pieces. A good design office will find a blend of all types. At my peak, I had two guys I considered design types, and at least two more who could produce technically, i.e., size drain pipes, balance cut and fill on plan, etc. The typical "concept thinker" gets bored with the hard work of technical details. It's not that they can't do it or be taught, but they often found their way out of doing it. And, in small offices, cross training is important for those days when someone is sick or quits, etc. When fully staffed, it paid to assign jobs based on each individuals strength.
I would love just for fun to get an analysis of the guys Ross hired. Only a few went on to big design success, and I can't recall anyone other than Ellis Maples who was considered one of the creative architects of their period. For that matter, I wouldn't mind a personality analysis of Ross vs Mac, or Thomas, etc. I don't think he was as creative a thinker as some. For that matter, Tillie and Thomas etc. sure got more creative when Mr. Bell was shaping their bunkers........I guess it takes a village to build a really good golf course.
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The best civil engineers I've worked with find creative solutions to technical challenges.
I think coaches can be very creative in how they organize the pieces available to them. Some focus solely on execution, but those aren't often going to beat a team with superior talent.
Wasn't the initial use of analytics in baseball the result of trying to find creative ways to win in a different way than the norm?
I believe that most at the top of their professions are creative. Hard working and technically adept, yes, but how they organize all the tools available to them to be successful requires creativity.
I think we associate creativity with art, but isn't being creative having the ability to think differently? To look at a challenge and arrive at a solution others don't see? That happens in all professions.
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How much of a "designer" and how "creative" in the ways a GCA is "creative" was Seth Raynor? He was not even a golfer, yet having learned under CBM, he became quite a GCA based largely on his expertise at the technical side, no?
Generally speaking, does a GCA become "more creative" or "less creative" as his career continues? If yes, who are the major exceptions?
Are there great "technical" aspects guys who utterly stink at the "creative" side of things? Are there super creative guys who stink at the technical side?
1. Seth Raynor is a good case study. He was very good at finding good fits for his favorite holes on a piece of ground . . . that is a big part of golf course architecture, and a skill that not all designers have. But, of course, he looked for the same small set of holes. Applying labels to any of this -- design, creative, whatever -- depends on your own definitions of those labels. But I think it's fair to say that Seth Raynor was not really looking to do something creatively different. [I caused a ruckus a couple of years ago by saying Raynor did not have a "creative temperament", but this is what I really meant.] He had plenty of chances if he'd wanted to take one.
2. Your career arc is a matter of perception, because it's being constantly redefined by what you've already done. If you settle on a style and build a lot of courses, even someone as creative as Pete Dye, your work starts to get familiar and it's hard for people to see past that to what you are doing differently. What really makes you look creative is having interesting new pieces of land to work with, and different people helping you. I decided long ago those were the secrets to Alister MacKenzie's success, so that's how I've modeled my career. But MacKenzie did decide late in his career to adapt to hard times and build courses without many bunkers; not everyone would change their style at that point.
3. Almost all designers are stronger on one side or the other. Most who have managed long careers have to be pretty good at the technical side, and they tend to stay busy even if their work is not that interesting. If you're super creative but stink at the technical side, you'd better find a really good partner, or you're not going to last.
But, it all depends on how you define "creativity", too. I'm really not that great at dreaming up ideas from thin air, but I do have a really good memory bank of thousands of golf holes I've seen to use in a pinch. I'm not sure if that's creativity. But when I have a good site, and enough time to stare at a problem, I'm very good at finding an unusual solution already lying there, with only a tiny bit of pushing things around . . . that is real creativity, and from what I've seen, it's not common at all.
P.S. to Ian: I tried reading Kahneman's book, and couldn't come close to finishing it!
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I have worked with architects and shapers who, I would say, have an innate sense of shape and design. I have also worked with architects and shapers who claim to have the vision of the finished product before any dirt gets moved.
I have neither. I have to get from A to Z through a series of problem-solving decisions that present themselves as I work the dirt.
This is how I work, as well. It's also how Mr. Dye worked, and that's why I don't trust anyone who claims they've visualized the whole thing before they start. There are just too many little problems to figure out. The only way you can visualize it all in advance is to bulldoze some of those problems away.
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I'm really not that great at dreaming up ideas from thin air, but I do have a really good memory bank of thousands of golf holes I've seen to use in a pinch. I'm not sure if that's creativity.
Absolutely that's creativity, it's practically all that creativity is. Composers have X number of keys on a piano, the music is in which ones they choose to use and when. I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
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I'm really not that great at dreaming up ideas from thin air, but I do have a really good memory bank of thousands of golf holes I've seen to use in a pinch. I'm not sure if that's creativity.
Absolutely that's creativity, it's practically all that creativity is. Composers have X number of keys on a piano, the music is in which ones they choose to use and when. I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
My contrary, and usually humorous take on this is that my best trait, creatively, is a horrible memory. For me, it’s a lot more satisfying to design and build something with few preconceived notions and let the problem solving exercise take me where it may. If it ends up looking like something else that’s old and familiar, so be it, but, when it’s my choice, I don’t make that result a priority. Sometimes I’m asked to mimic something famous found elsewhere, and it is usually a less satisfying exercise to me.
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I'm really not that great at dreaming up ideas from thin air, but I do have a really good memory bank of thousands of golf holes I've seen to use in a pinch. I'm not sure if that's creativity.
Absolutely that's creativity, it's practically all that creativity is. Composers have X number of keys on a piano, the music is in which ones they choose to use and when. I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
My contrary, and usually humorous take on this is that my best trait, creatively, is a horrible memory. For me, it’s a lot more satisfying to design and build something with few preconceived notions and let the problem solving exercise take me where it may. If it ends up looking like something else that’s old and familiar, so be it, but, when it’s my choice, I don’t make that result a priority. Sometimes I’m asked to mimic something famous found elsewhere, and it is usually a less satisfying exercise to me.
My take would be that you're just working on a more granular level of concepts from memory. I also have a pretty poor memory, so I work differently and more simply from someone with a great memory. My creative/design outlet is making things like kitchen utensils and things. Maybe I'm working more with basic shapes and concepts than a large memory bank of every bowl shape and spoon handle I've ever seen, but concept is the same. Does that make sense?
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I have worked with architects and shapers who, I would say, have an innate sense of shape and design. I have also worked with architects and shapers who claim to have the vision of the finished product before any dirt gets moved.
I have neither. I have to get from A to Z through a series of problem-solving decisions that present themselves as I work the dirt.
This is how I work, as well. It's also how Mr. Dye worked, and that's why I don't trust anyone who claims they've visualized the whole thing before they start. There are just too many little problems to figure out. The only way you can visualize it all in advance is to bulldoze some of those problems away.
Tom,
To Joe’s post, I would also distrust anyone who claims to see the finished result completely before any dirt gets moved, at least if the best product is the ultimate aim…. But I consider a sense of shape and design to be pretty important, whether innate or learned. If nothing else, it adds efficiency to the whole process. There is no way you don’t have that and I’m surprised Joe says the same. That sense is not mutually exclusive to having to get from A to Z through problem-solving decisions.
Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes.
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The true miracle is when great designers develop proficient personalities.
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I have worked with architects and shapers who, I would say, have an innate sense of shape and design. I have also worked with architects and shapers who claim to have the vision of the finished product before any dirt gets moved.
I have neither. I have to get from A to Z through a series of problem-solving decisions that present themselves as I work the dirt.
This is how I work, as well. It's also how Mr. Dye worked, and that's why I don't trust anyone who claims they've visualized the whole thing before they start. There are just too many little problems to figure out. The only way you can visualize it all in advance is to bulldoze some of those problems away.
Tom,
To Joe’s post, I would also distrust anyone who claims to see the finished result completely before any dirt gets moved, at least if the best product is the ultimate aim…. But I consider a sense of shape and design to be pretty important, whether innate or learned. If nothing else, it adds efficiency to the whole process. There is no way you don’t have that and I’m surprised Joe says the same. That sense is not mutually exclusive to having to get from A to Z through problem-solving decisions.
Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes.
Ally,
I very much have a *learned* sense of shape and design, and it is always a work in progress.
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I'm really not that great at dreaming up ideas from thin air, but I do have a really good memory bank of thousands of golf holes I've seen to use in a pinch. I'm not sure if that's creativity.
Absolutely that's creativity, it's practically all that creativity is. Composers have X number of keys on a piano, the music is in which ones they choose to use and when. I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
My contrary, and usually humorous take on this is that my best trait, creatively, is a horrible memory. For me, it’s a lot more satisfying to design and build something with few preconceived notions and let the problem solving exercise take me where it may. If it ends up looking like something else that’s old and familiar, so be it, but, when it’s my choice, I don’t make that result a priority. Sometimes I’m asked to mimic something famous found elsewhere, and it is usually a less satisfying exercise to me.
Joe,
First off, I like the entire discussion on creativity. As to your comment, "I very much have a *learned* sense of shape and design, and it is always a work in progress." [/size]yes, this is true too. I was having this discussion yesterday with another gca. While we tend to lump "the golden age" into one thing, in reality, it was decades lone. Ross worked from early 1900's until his death in 1947. There is no doubt his thoughts evolved somehow over that time. On the other hand, many of the famous guys really only worked from post WWI (1918) until 1929. It would be interesting to see how their thoughts might have evolved had the, like RTJ, survived to work after the war. We'll never know, but it would be good fodder for some writer with an interest in gca to create a book out of.[/color]
I agree that civil engineering, software development, and hey, maybe even having two parents figure out how to schedule their three kids are different types of creativity. Only a few really are applicable to golf design, but problem solving is no doubt creativity.
I think your point on creativity is valid, and a great point. What creative people see is the relationship between items, and combining them in different ways to fit a specific need, which tends to be something new. That is, copying a Redan hole using topo maps is slightly creative, but seeing a piece of land (usually a reverse slope at the green site, duh, in this case) and realizing some earlier solution (i.e., reverse slope green) is the basic best way to use that site, but that certain details have to change to best fit that site is way more creative, and exactly what good designers do and have.
To someone else's point, and yours, a short memory can work both ways, for sure. I think designers (and coaches) do tend to get more conservative over time, remembering the neat ideas that didn't quite work out in the past (and understanding why) My first day with my mentors, they gave me a par 3 hole to design as sort of an intro project. I had a pond crossing the front of the green, and Dick Nugent was very animated that was a bad idea and walked out, leaving me thinking I was going to be fired. He came back about 20 minutes later and said, "We tried that at XX CC, and then we got fired. None of the women and high handicap players thought it was fair." (I have read many critiques of the water to one side par 3 being "too standard" here, and that is probably a good example of the reason why so many exist right there.)
For that matter, I have seen many of the architecture buffs here posit that each design ought to start with a clean slate in the designer's mind. As TD mentions, that doesn't happen often. Whether your own mistakes where you would take a mulligan, or other golf holes you have seen, basically, that isn't truly possible. And, no client would be comfortable with you throwing away all your past experience when designing, its why you get hired. As a parallel, do you want your pilot to announce over the loudspeaker, "Fasten your seatbelts....I'm going to try something NEW!"
Creativity is probably harder to dissect than is possible in one post, or maybe even one thread.
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I have worked with architects and shapers who, I would say, have an innate sense of shape and design. I have also worked with architects and shapers who claim to have the vision of the finished product before any dirt gets moved.
I have neither. I have to get from A to Z through a series of problem-solving decisions that present themselves as I work the dirt.
This is how I work, as well. It's also how Mr. Dye worked, and that's why I don't trust anyone who claims they've visualized the whole thing before they start. There are just too many little problems to figure out. The only way you can visualize it all in advance is to bulldoze some of those problems away.
Tom,
To Joe’s post, I would also distrust anyone who claims to see the finished result completely before any dirt gets moved, at least if the best product is the ultimate aim…. But I consider a sense of shape and design to be pretty important, whether innate or learned. If nothing else, it adds efficiency to the whole process. There is no way you don’t have that and I’m surprised Joe says the same. That sense is not mutually exclusive to having to get from A to Z through problem-solving decisions.
Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes.
Ally,
I very much have a *learned* sense of shape and design, and it is always a work in progress.
Ah I see.
I would consider myself to have had an instinctive knowledge of how to read the land, both on site and on plan, although that of course gets better and more refined with experience…
My understanding of constructability, shaping and detailing definitely feels more learned and is a continuous process.
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A good eye for scale and spatial awareness is difficult to teach. I've seen some designers (from many disciplines) that are naturally really good at it. With experience, most people improve, but there are others that just seem to understand it at a completely different level. I think it's a natural talent people have, just like being a "supertaster".
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I'm really not that great at dreaming up ideas from thin air, but I do have a really good memory bank of thousands of golf holes I've seen to use in a pinch. I'm not sure if that's creativity.
Absolutely that's creativity, it's practically all that creativity is. Composers have X number of keys on a piano, the music is in which ones they choose to use and when. I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
I am a musician of sorts and have written and recorded some of my original music. Sometimes a melody is the work of trial and error, trying to fit the music with the words. That doesn't require much creativity. Sometimes a melody will just appear out of thin air. I have music in my head all the time. There are only a few times each day when I am not aware of some melody in my head. Most of the time, it is a melody I know. Sometimes it is a melody that only exists in my head. Sometimes, if I am quiet long enough, I can hear a melody that exists somewhere else, and I am only the vehicle of that which wants to be sung.
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This stuff hurts my head.
IMHO golf design is just weird and so often hyped. I will always say there was a concerted effort to hype the drawing of plans in the post WW2 era and it gave us some of the worst golf courses ever. Basic technical proficiency comes from have a clear concept of the land itself. I may sound like a nut job but if I come up with the proper routing then all I need is 3 stakes. I let the land tell me what will fit and just massage what opens up as we begin to work it based on the strategy I want for the hole. But that's me. I have had a couple of shapers tell me of working for a contractor where the architect would come out and use a hand level to tell them to lower a mound behind a green because his plan said it needed to be 6 inches lower. In my book that is pure bullshit and what we call a LOFT problem in golf.
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A good eye for scale and spatial awareness is difficult to teach. I've seen some designers (from many disciplines) that are naturally really good at it. With experience, most people improve, but there are others that just seem to understand it at a completely different level. I think it's a natural talent people have, just like being a "supertaster".
I agree there is something to this. So the divide isn't between creative/non-creative or anything along those lines, the divide is between spatial reasoning and it's lack. Agree people can come to an understanding of it, but I'd bet money that the architects and shapers would mostly all score highly on spatial reasoning, regardless of their working process.
My wife has a great understanding of music, good at math, but if we go upstairs in the house and I ask what room is below us, she's got no effing clue (obviously she remembers for future reference when one of us has told her). Real trouble imagining 3D space. I feel like that is probably the largest impediment to the sort of physical design that is needed for a golf course.
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This stuff hurts my head.
IMHO golf design is just weird and so often hyped. I will always say there was a concerted effort to hype the drawing of plans in the post WW2 era and it gave us some of the worst golf courses ever. Basic technical proficiency comes from have a clear concept of the land itself. I may sound like a nut job but if I come up with the proper routing then all I need is 3 stakes. I let the land tell me what will fit and just massage what opens up as we begin to work it based on the strategy I want for the hole. But that's me. I have had a couple of shapers tell me of working for a contractor where the architect would come out and use a hand level to tell them to lower a mound behind a green because his plan said it needed to be 6 inches lower. In my book that is pure bullshit and what we call a LOFT problem in golf.
You’d have a tent city built up your ass if you had chosen to conform.
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I'm really not that great at dreaming up ideas from thin air, but I do have a really good memory bank of thousands of golf holes I've seen to use in a pinch. I'm not sure if that's creativity.
Absolutely that's creativity, it's practically all that creativity is. Composers have X number of keys on a piano, the music is in which ones they choose to use and when. I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
I am a musician of sorts and have written and recorded some of my original music. Sometimes a melody is the work of trial and error, trying to fit the music with the words. That doesn't require much creativity. Sometimes a melody will just appear out of thin air. I have music in my head all the time. There are only a few times each day when I am not aware of some melody in my head. Most of the time, it is a melody I know. Sometimes it is a melody that only exists in my head. Sometimes, if I am quiet long enough, I can hear a melody that exists somewhere else, and I am only the vehicle of that which wants to be sung.
Thanks for that Tommy, I like hearing about music and musicians because I don't understand it well and every discussion is virtually 100% learning for me. Only thing I'd say is that we might well have a different definition of "out of thin air". I would say it came out of you and your experience. To me, out of thin air would be like inventing a new note that no-one has heard before.
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This stuff hurts my head.
IMHO golf design is just weird and so often hyped. I will always say there was a concerted effort to hype the drawing of plans in the post WW2 era and it gave us some of the worst golf courses ever. Basic technical proficiency comes from have a clear concept of the land itself. I may sound like a nut job but if I come up with the proper routing then all I need is 3 stakes. I let the land tell me what will fit and just massage what opens up as we begin to work it based on the strategy I want for the hole. But that's me. I have had a couple of shapers tell me of working for a contractor where the architect would come out and use a hand level to tell them to lower a mound behind a green because his plan said it needed to be 6 inches lower. In my book that is pure bullshit and what we call a LOFT problem in golf.
You always sound like a nut job to me, Mike. ;D
You are correct that right after WWII golf architects did feel the need for their profession to be more recognized as a profession. Most architects did draw plans, and a subset of them found that with cities getting into the golf biz, they required fancier, more like engineers' plans to bid them out. IMHO, most of the less regarded designs of that era were due to the course purpose, i.e., providing high play public golf courses. And, some courses not all like now that were designed in the era were done by RTJ, and others who didn't really draw big plan sets, as well.
I have heard those stories of anal retentive golf course architects who measured stuff to the inch rather than look at the near final product artistically as well. Those that I know entered this profession from the engineering field, but most wouldn't do what you said, and your example shouldn't and doesn't paint a valid picture of gca then or now. I recall a few along those lines where the gca came out to verify field measurments around the perimeter of the green, so the builder got those to grade but left a hole in the middle of the green, and supposedly the architect didn't notice and approved the green staking. Urban legend, I am sure.
Besides, gradually over time, as builders got better, architects stopped approving grades, etc. I think the pressure to keep fees low probably reduced field time in some cases, hiring good builders made that obsolete in others. I have said this before, but you need to update your griping to things that happen now, not keep regurgitating old complaints, LOL.
Charlie, I also appreciate the music analogy, and they are similar in some ways. Sometimes, we hit on a routing or green design early and easily, other times it is a result of a somewhat painstaking process of circular thought until somewhere an idea is finalized.
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Several of the better shapers / associates / construction people I know are talented musicians, or their parents were.
I, however, have zero aptitude for music.
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For that matter, I have seen many of the architecture buffs here posit that each design ought to start with a clean slate in the designer's mind. As TD mentions, that doesn't happen often. Whether your own mistakes where you would take a mulligan, or other golf holes you have seen, basically, that isn't truly possible. And, no client would be comfortable with you throwing away all your past experience when designing, its why you get hired. As a parallel, do you want your pilot to announce over the loudspeaker, "Fasten your seatbelts....I'm going to try something NEW!"
IMO, most established architects are afraid to try something new, for fear of failure, and losing the status they have.
That's one reason I like to have interns on site. They are not afraid to ask [possibly] stupid questions, and possibly reveal some new idea. You just don't put them in charge!
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Besides, gradually over time, as builders got better, architects stopped approving grades, etc. I think the pressure to keep fees low probably reduced field time in some cases, hiring good builders made that obsolete in others. I have said this before, but you need to update your griping to things that happen now, not keep regurgitating old complaints, LOL.
Jeff,Happy New Year. I'm not griping about anything but was just stating opinion. As for "stopping checking grades on greens"...an architect needs to be confident of his grades in his designed pin areas. I like to make sure. BUT when you speak of good builders...well, in the early 90's many of the good builders started to work for some of the architects who had been around a while and they made more than a few of them look much better. I'm convinced those builders just told the archie to "hold my beer" and watch.
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Mike,
Coincidentally, I just had a conversation with a few prominent builders regarding how the biz has changed over 50 years. I don't doubt there were and are some cases where the gca was too busy or for some reason uninterested in a particular project, but again, I don't think uncaring professionals on either side is an issue. As an industry, golf has fewer scoundrels and deadbeats per thousand than just about any biz out there. At one point, you, I, and about 200 other architects were starry eyed kids with a dream.
Given how few golf holes most of us have had a chance to design, it doesn't make sense to me that a gca would not really care about the results, although I am sure we have all been in contractual situations where the owner limits site visits, nominally to save costs. Occasionally, some gca's might be too busy at a particular time and make a value judgement that their new resort course needed more site visits than the muni they were designing for some small town in the boonies. But the, for a rural town building a low cost muni, making a dozen site visits to tweak a rudimentary (by design brief) course isn't always a bad call.
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Definitions are both important and elusive. To me, there is a distinction between creativity and innovation even if they are on the same spectrum. Creativity is taking whatever is in front of you—a blank page, canvas, music sheet (or empty space),city block, plot of land, digital screen, lathe or full on manufacturing plant, etc—and leaving after your intervention something worthwhile and worth appreciating. Of course, some do it better than others, and the ability to do so varies across disciplines. A great gca may learn the technical aspects of playing piano, but the odds of him or her being Ellington or Monk are pretty low.
Innovation is breaking paradigms and undoing assumptions. It is creative but in the sense of creating something new and new in a jaw dropping way. In my lifetime, that would encompass Toni Morrison, Steve Jobs, and Maya Lin.
But because gca requires function, combining creativity and innovation is a daunting task.
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Several of the better shapers / associates / construction people I know are talented musicians, or their parents were.
I, however, have zero aptitude for music.
Well, shit. If only there was a loophole for being an accomplished listener of music…..
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Mike,
Coincidentally, I just had a conversation with a few prominent builders regarding how the biz has changed over 50 years. I don't doubt there were and are some cases where the gca was too busy or for some reason uninterested in a particular project, but again, I don't think uncaring professionals on either side is an issue. As an industry, golf has fewer scoundrels and deadbeats per thousand than just about any biz out there. At one point, you, I, and about 200 other architects were starry eyed kids with a dream.
Given how few golf holes most of us have had a chance to design, it doesn't make sense to me that a gca would not really care about the results, although I am sure we have all been in contractual situations where the owner limits site visits, nominally to save costs. Occasionally, some gca's might be too busy at a particular time and make a value judgement that their new resort course needed more site visits than the muni they were designing for some small town in the boonies. But the, for a rural town building a low cost muni, making a dozen site visits to tweak a rudimentary (by design brief) course isn't always a bad call.
Jeff,
I'm not judging here. I'm just stating observations.
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I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
Charlie,
The Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett may be the most interesting example of improvisation - based upon almost desperation - leading to something brilliant. I almost posted a question - many years back on GCA - based upon the idea of placing limits on what an architect could do, would this create great engagement because they had less at their disposal. This was before the reversible course happened. I wondered if the reversible course is a method to test this hypothesis.
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I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
Charlie,
The Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett may be the most interesting example of improvisation - based upon almost desperation - leading to something brilliant. I almost posted a question - many years back on GCA - based upon the idea of placing limits on what an architect could do, would this create great engagement because they had less at their disposal. This was before the reversible course happened. I wondered if the reversible course is a method to test this hypothesis.
Ian,
Don't constraints drive design? It could be budget, methods, time, technology, materials, and as you posite, organization.
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I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
Charlie,
The Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett may be the most interesting example of improvisation - based upon almost desperation - leading to something brilliant. I almost posted a question - many years back on GCA - based upon the idea of placing limits on what an architect could do, would this create great engagement because they had less at their disposal. This was before the reversible course happened. I wondered if the reversible course is a method to test this hypothesis.
The Koln Concert is a perfect example of creativity and innovation combining to produce brilliance.
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I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
Charlie,
The Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett may be the most interesting example of improvisation - based upon almost desperation - leading to something brilliant. I almost posted a question - many years back on GCA - based upon the idea of placing limits on what an architect could do, would this create great engagement because they had less at their disposal. This was before the reversible course happened. I wondered if the reversible course is a method to test this hypothesis.
I will have to look up the Koln Concert, though, as I said, I have no understanding of music.
As for the reversible course, I do think that mine produced more interesting results than the other attempts because I was a stickler for making it 100% reversible -- playing 18-1, building normal-sized greens, and being able to utilize all the same hole locations. Or, one could say, more constraints.
But, of course, I also enlisted much better help!
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I'd love to hear from someone who came up with anything truly out of thin air, I don't know if it can be done. Models sat for davinci's paintings. Creativity is interesting choices and combinations.
Charlie,
The Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett may be the most interesting example of improvisation - based upon almost desperation - leading to something brilliant. I almost posted a question - many years back on GCA - based upon the idea of placing limits on what an architect could do, would this create great engagement because they had less at their disposal. This was before the reversible course happened. I wondered if the reversible course is a method to test this hypothesis.
The 7th hole at Wolf Point had multiple iterations of the general hole layout before its construction. When it came to the construction of the green, I gave Jacob very little direction, the angle from where to best attack, a general feel, and maybe a few words on flowing lines. So generally I would say that green was made from thin air. I mention 7 green because Ian shared some very nice comments with me about that green in person after his visit.
My preferred method for greens is thin air, even though I've seen a ton of greens, I more remember the general sense of a place vs. having a catalog of holes - unless they are unworldly. Or more like playing jazz I see or am inspired by irregular lines in the ground during shaping and responding to them or exaggerating them to create more irregular shapes.
Regarding constraints, Shelly wrote Frankenstein after artificially creating a horror constraint. Tom has described the difficulty of routing Rock Creek vs. Sebonack - which had very different constraints.
Cheers
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I mention 7 green because Ian shared some very nice comments with me about that green in person after his visit.
Thought it was one the best greens I had ever seen, a true original. I went back and looked at it multiple times, on multiple days, and liked it just as much every single time.
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Designer gene... I doubt it exist...
I think what people call 'natural talent' is something that has been forged, most of the time unconsciously, from a young age. Then it's how your curiosity leads you and boost your interest
I know I visualize 3D and projects (landscape architecture and golf architecture) better than most people but that comes from:
- a passion from looking at the landscape when sitting at the back of the car
- a love from drawing plans and looking at maps. My father brought me some topo maps when I was 9-10 years old and I just loved looking at it and copy it. I was drawing golf courses for fun and included topo in my plans when I was about 13-14 years old...
- a passion for golf, golf courses and trying to understand how to play better despite my lack of length
- hours spent on the drafting table for youth to university...
- then on-site work helped improving my craft.
Best quote on that subject comes from great industrial designer Michel Dallaire:
He designed to Olympic torch for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. His design for the torch (and most of his projects) was incredibly simple and efficient... (combining the relay baton (sport) with an olive oil burner (link with greece) and the red color of canada).
Montreal Mayor at the time didn't like it, thinking it was too simple and raw.. he met Dallaire and asked him: How long it took you to design the torch ? Dallaire, who was 35 at the time, answered: well pretty much 34 years !!!
Natural talent is more about a continuous, part unintentionnal, process developed through years of work !!!
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Philippe,
That is a wonderful story about Dellaire.
I do not believe in strict genetic determinism, but I do think individuals bring with them different ways and abilities in interacting with the world. In your own example, something inside you triggered your passion for both design and golf. That led you to put in the time and work to learn the craft. My guess is that you became excellent not just because of the passion and work, but even if those were enough, you have something distinctive from most others as it relates to golf design.
From a young age, I loved U.S. History. I put in the work, and I was very good at it. Good enough that it was the
primary reason that I was admitted to an excellent University. I did well there and planned on going on to become a professional historian. But in my third year as an an undergrad, I was chosen for a highly selective seminar led by one of the all time great US Historians. It took me about three weeks to realize that of the twenty students, I probably was 18 in ability. It is not necessarily that the others were more intelligent than I (although many undoubtedly were) nor did they work harder and better, but rather that they had an ability to understand and think about history in ways that I could not.
There probably is no designer gene, but there may be some biological software (to steal from Penrose) that makes us distinctive in different fields of endeavor or ways of being human.
Ira
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From what I’ve read so far, Jeff B brings up best what I’m going to describe regarding the creative-technical spectrum of design within the Implementor criterion of Kolbe assessments.
Often misrepresented as “personality”, the Kolbe Assessment, determines one’s Modus Operandi—your natural instincts in how you act/work to handle different tasks and situations.
It’s also of a teller how well do you work with teammates to get things done. Kolbe helps determine the best seat on the bus for one’s strengths and interests so co-workers can complement each other in projects.
And because of this, I’ll never hire another employee or associate dentist without the candidate first taking a Kolbe. I currently have a 22-person team that patients remark daily about the positive atmosphere they sense.
Each Kolbe criterion is ranked on a scale of 1-10. A high/low number does not equate to better/worse, rather a position on a spectrum used to describe behavior tendencies.
Again, Kolbe Implementor is what most have been discussing regarding the creative or technical types.
Low Implementor score = creative or imaginative, able to visualize the end result. The clay molder. (CB MacDonald).
High Implementor is technical, the engineer, able to follow systematic plans and build. The Lego builder. (Seth Raynor)
For reference, my Kole is 7-4-7-3
Here’s a copy-pasted summary of the 4 Kolbe criteria.
Fact FinderThis is your propensity to seek out information before acting, or before making a decision. Are you more likely to read a recipe, watch a video, and witness a demonstration before cooking a new dish? Or are you more likely to read the ingredients, see a picture and go from there?Follow ThruAre you a systems creator, or a person who bypasses the system to get the task done? Those who score high here are able to document processes and develop repeatable systems. Those who score low here adapt to find ways to accomplish the tasks through multitasking or other shortcutsQuickstartThis describes your propensity to do stuff without knowing the outcome. Typically a high quickstart person will be heard saying stuff like “I don’t know, let’s just try something” They are an experimenter. Those who score low here will want to stick with tried and true plans. Middle of the road will check things out before trying them.ImplementorWe’re all Implementors in a non-physical sense. But this Kolbe measurement measures how we work with physical space, do we work with our hands to create something physical? Those who score low here can see things, they can understand how physical objects work together. Those who score high here can create physical solutions to problems.
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As a grumpy old white guy with no filter I have to say that I do think there is a designer gene.
Can we agree that certain dogs are better retreivers than others. And other dogs are great pointers etc. ,the Southern Redneck is always a better athlete than his northern counterpart. Southern women are always better looking than Northern women so why do y'all think there can't be a Design gene?
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As a grumpy old white guy with no filter I have to say that I do think there is a designer gene.
Can we agree that certain dogs are better retreivers than others. And other dogs are great pointers etc. ,the Southern Redneck is always a better athlete than his northern counterpart. Southern women are always better looking than Northern women so why do y'all think there can't be a Design gene?
;D
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Incidentally, I might just point out that Erik’s opening quote from Tom D was a response to Jeff and my comments on another thread. Neither of us used the term “designer gene”. That was just Tom extrapolating our comments to one extreme.
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As a grumpy old white guy with no filter I have to say that I do think there is a designer gene.
Can we agree that certain dogs are better retreivers than others. And other dogs are great pointers etc. ,the Southern Redneck is always a better athlete than his northern counterpart. Southern women are always better looking than Northern women so why do y'all think there can't be a Design gene?
You’re damn right on the southern women. I picked up who might as well have been Miss West Virginia while I was in dental school. At 40 she’s still the most gorgeous woman I can think of. And her design tastes and skills are superb.
While the design of her face is definitely genetic, it’s hard to say that her design skills are. It boils down to the fact is of great interest to her.
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Mike,
A perfect story to illustrate the differences in personality strengths and weaknesses, LOL. To complicate it, some breeding by humans accentuated some of the traits in various working dogs over centuries, which happens more randomly in humans.
I was told as a yute that my English-French side of the family contained some artists and landscapers, while my German ancestors were primarily civil engineers. I have done enough family research to question that story, but it was too good not to tell over the years.....genetically I had some of both the artistic and engineering traits that turned out to be perfect for golf architecture, which just happened to match my interest in life. There is a whole lot of randomness, sometimes dating back centuries, and in other cases current happenstance (i.e., my next door neighbors belonging to Medinah and introducing me to golf at a lovely place) And, everyone in the golf biz I know has a similar backstory.
Peter,
I'm happy for you. Your story reminds me of one person in the golf business whose wife had so much plastic surgery that he wondered if she qualified as a "Best New Renovation" in the annual Golf Digest rankings. ;)
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Mike,
A perfect story to illustrate the differences in personality strengths and weaknesses, LOL. To complicate it, some breeding by humans accentuated some of the traits in various working dogs over centuries, which happens more randomly in humans.
I was told as a yute that my English-French side of the family contained some artists and landscapers, while my German ancestors were primarily civil engineers. I have done enough family research to question that story, but it was too good not to tell over the years.....genetically I had some of both the artistic and engineering traits that turned out to be perfect for golf architecture, which just happened to match my interest in life. There is a whole lot of randomness, sometimes dating back centuries, and in other cases current happenstance (i.e., my next door neighbors belonging to Medinah and introducing me to golf at a lovely place) And, everyone in the golf biz I know has a similar backstory.
Peter,
I'm happy for you. Your story reminds me of one person in the golf business whose wife had so much plastic surgery that he wondered if she qualified as a "Best New Renovation" in the annual Golf Digest rankings. ;)
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I’m hoping she can one day be my Alice Dye
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I like Ian's summary: "One who surprises you..."
What doesn't stack up on Tom D's assessment that 'the more courses you've built, the better leg up one has...' is that none of the "great" classic era courses claimed to be great by the 'in the know' golf design fans were built by individuals who had much experience at all. The early designers were charting new territory, especially in the U.S. Much of what they did was a result of absorbing, and then interpreting what they had absorbed.
BTW, there are few "surprises" being unleashed today. When we do see something truly unique, new and fresh...we should laud it. Mostly, we are seeing a "me-too" response with a lot of edge decoration and the usual complement of short par-4s and a mix of nice holes. Very few really great, new ideas. Lots of 'Chip and Joanna Gaines' stuff.
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As a grumpy old white guy with no filter I have to say that I do think there is a designer gene.
Can we agree that certain dogs are better retreivers than others. And other dogs are great pointers etc. ,the Southern Redneck is always a better athlete than his northern counterpart. Southern women are always better looking than Northern women so why do y'all think there can't be a Design gene?
Mike,
100% agreed, although I wouldn't have put in quite those terms. ;D
In the age old debate of nurture vs nature, I would put that ratio to at least 80/20 to explain who we are, why we are, and what we do. And I know people don't like that, it fucks with their false perception of "free will", but I could pound golf balls or shoot free throws until I was bone tired and never be close to being an accomplished player much less one of the best.
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What doesn't stack up on Tom D's assessment that 'the more courses you've built, the better leg up one has...' is that none of the "great" classic era courses claimed to be great by the 'in the know' golf design fans were built by individuals who had much experience at all. The early designers were charting new territory, especially in the U.S. Much of what they did was a result of absorbing, and then interpreting what they had absorbed.
Forrest:
I would attribute a good part of that to the fact that there were few great courses in existence at the time, so it was much easier to build something new and different. Now all of those ideas have become accepted as classic, the window for doing something really original is much smaller, and there are many more "standards" by which new courses are judged. [For example: par-3's playing in all four compass directions. /s]
Also those old courses have benefited from 100 years of maturity and possibly having their less acceptable features burnished away by long-forgotten greenkeepers. George Crump never saw the last four holes of Pine Valley, for example, and Jack Neville didn't have the 8th or 9th greens at Pebble Beach in the right spot.
But you don't think, say, George Thomas would have gotten even better at his craft if he'd built courses into the 1930's? Or do you think his career was better served by focusing on only a handful? I would certainly agree that there is a balance there . . . you aren't going to learn and improve if you are so busy building courses that you have no time for them.
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Also, I thought I'd point out that I've seen multiple presentations about Creativity and how that sort of personality is not rewarded at school or in corporations, and I do think that's true. Beginner-level positions are designed for people who are going to help with menial tasks, and creative people get bored at that and lose interest if they don't have some creative license in their roles.
It only took me about three days of working at Long Cove to figure out that Mr. Dye didn't need much help "designing" things, but he needed a lot of help to build the course, and every bunker face or green contour was its own miniature design. I probably would have flamed out quite quickly as a rake and shovel guy, but luckily we were in the midst of finishing greens at Long Cove, and I was really quick at using the transit and doing the math in my head for how much slope there was in the hole locations, which Mr. Dye appreciated. It was a good part of the work to specialize in, because working on the hole locations and the transitions between them was an interesting problem to sort through. It's still a big part of where I spend my time on site.
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Good points. It might be good for many of us here to look carefully at the Great Jr golf Design Challenge entries. These are the golfers of tomorrow — and they’re sending us signals — wild and creative ideas, no sameness and the last thing they are articulating is krinkle edge bunkers and a minimalist approach. Their thinking is free, their ideas are interesting and they are uninhibited.
It’s a sad state of affairs when six remodeled homes in our neighborhood have been ‘redone’ with white paint, dark gray trim and odes to Chip and Joanna Gaines. We’ve done the same in golf design — few breakthoughs, seldom an Ah-ha’ moment and rarely anything to talk about except who did the work and whether you’ll be granted access.
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Forrest,
I agree that even most of the best modern courses do not push the edge of the envelop except perhaps in green contours. Having said that, they do present a most enjoyable version of classic architecture, and as much as I concurred with Ian about the Koln Concerts, classic is classic for a good reason. My “beef” actually is more than modern designs do not generally incorporate the “quirky” features that did appear on golden age or even older links courses: blind shots, a Dell hole, volcano holes, etc. I know that economics often drives those decisions, but it would be great if developers gave architects freer rein to go back to the future.
Ira
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Bravo. Now convince the media elites who’s Rolodex-es contain the names of just 12 designers, and who’ve bought into the ‘Chip and Joanna’ mentality.
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Good points. It might be good for many of us here to look carefully at the Great Jr golf Design Challenge entries. These are the golfers of tomorrow — and they’re sending us signals — wild and creative ideas, no sameness and the last thing they are articulating is krinkle edge bunkers and a minimalist approach. Their thinking is free, their ideas are interesting and they are uninhibited.
Forrest:
In my dream world, you'd have gotten to the 7th green at Streamsong by zip line instead of by bridge, but we all know why the client didn't buy off on that.
Alligators.
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Good points. It might be good for many of us here to look carefully at the Great Jr golf Design Challenge entries. These are the golfers of tomorrow — and they’re sending us signals — wild and creative ideas, no sameness and the last thing they are articulating is krinkle edge bunkers and a minimalist approach. Their thinking is free, their ideas are interesting and they are uninhibited.
Forrest:
In my dream world, you'd have gotten to the 7th green at Streamsong by zip line instead of by bridge, but we all know why the client didn't buy off on that.
Alligators.
I once toured undeveloped land at Ballyneal w/ Rupert…one of his ideas was a par 3 hole whereby the golfer would zipline to a green after the tee shot, complete with a water landing….too bad things worked the way they did there.
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Good points. It might be good for many of us here to look carefully at the Great Jr golf Design Challenge entries. These are the golfers of tomorrow — and they’re sending us signals — wild and creative ideas, no sameness and the last thing they are articulating is krinkle edge bunkers and a minimalist approach. Their thinking is free, their ideas are interesting and they are uninhibited.
Forrest:
In my dream world, you'd have gotten to the 7th green at Streamsong by zip line instead of by bridge, but we all know why the client didn't buy off on that.
Alligators.
I’ve Zip lined across more than enough water-filled mine pits in Florida to call BS on this!
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I’ve Zip lined across more than enough water-filled mine pits in Florida to call BS on this!
Really? You should have taken us when we were building the place, that would have been a great team bonding experience.
But, don't even try to tell me any of those venues were owned by The Mosaic Company. They're a pretty risk-averse group.
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Fascinating discussion. Thanks to all for your thoughts.
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Fascinating discussion. Thanks to all for your thoughts.
+1-This has been an enlightening thread.
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So i admit, can't tell if you folks are being serious with this zip line stuff. Exactly how would this have worked at Streamsong?
P.S. I've probably seem one too many zip line fail videos to ever get on one! ;D
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da Vinci designed the first helicopter. He was both creative and innovative. He would have viewed a zip line as archaic.
Ira
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Evil Kneivel used to live in a camper at Rivermont Golf Club in Atlanta and decided on a bet to take a cart down the steepest par three there....those types of thing definitely have an affect on the gene pool itself...
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It's interesting out of all of the qualities that this thread has discussed. I find it interesting the one that I use daily hasn't even come up once.
That being the concept of empathy.
I view empathy as the heart of everything. How can I be asked to create. Without asking the question of how it impacts others and the world around me.
If you want to break down the philosophical heart of golf architecture. I think you will find that the core doesn't lie in some heuristic model. It lies in the fact that truly great golf is empathetic to everyone.
The whole minimalist movement asks everyone to consider the landscape. A strategic model of though asks us not only to consider the tiger but also the rabbit. These are two small examples but the more you dig and are around the act of design in all fields the more you will find the core lies in openness.
That's why across my career the best architects and shapers were always the kindest. This openness and kindness is something I struggle with as the job. Kind of beats it out of you in some ways. As this road is a hard one. So it's always impressed me that the best have figured out a way to protect their heart while still leaving it open to accept and create.
It's this courage to be open that I think really separates the design profession from others. As it's one of the few places where radical kindness and openness is an asset not a liability.
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I’ve Zip lined across more than enough water-filled mine pits in Florida to call BS on this!
Really? You should have taken us when we were building the place, that would have been a great team bonding experience.
But, don't even try to tell me any of those venues were owned by The Mosaic Company. They're a pretty risk-averse group.
There's still time! ;D
And no, they weren't owned by Mosaic - though they did lease some of their land for an ATV park just north of Streamsong. I think we should put a life preserver near the bridge on Blue #7, though.
To the OP:
It doesn't take much to go out on social media and see any number of accounts capable of drawing compelling golf holes as creative doodles. They're largely derivative, but this isn't necessarily a knock because the golf ball can only do so much. Is it "genetic" or a form of language that is spoken by golfers. I took a survey type class as part of the PGM curriculum at Penn State on golf architecture which touched on some points of construction. Things that were important in 2003. I got marks off for not considering cart paths, for example, but oddly I was the only one in the class that actually considered the topography of the maps we were given for assignments.
I once posted some of the work here for critique and someone, who likely has never even been near a bulldozer, suggested "I take two weeks off and then quit."
My aesthetics then were driven by the late-90s era golf courses I had played then and places like Bandon were not even on my radar.
All of that is well and good, but finding, implementing, and maintaining the idea through time (and allowing it to the evolve as it MUST - there's not staving off evolution of a golf hole) are all brute force skills that can be learned with the right mind.
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There's an amazing amount of things about golf that can be described mathematically. The flight and rolling characteristics of a ball. The size, firmness and slope of the ground. The aerodynamic characteristics of the club. Golf and most all sports operate in four dimensions, with time being the fourth one.
It probably helps to have a good academic knowledge of physics. I learned about gravity and momentum and kinetic energy and fluid dynamics in college, things like that. Most of that is a distant memory, but I could probably relearn the relationships quickly.
However, I don't think it's as important as personal experience and obsession with the game. While I do believe some people have greater genetic gifts in terms of learning ability and spatial orientation, a passion for understanding the game must be the greater determinant of inspired design. Those two qualities may be one and the same.
The sooner a person develops good spatial orientation, the better. Most of us old jocks develop that spatial orientation by playing sports. I used Google a couple days ago to find relevant articles. One study (sorry, I can't find it now) argued that a key tool was teaching how to accomplish geometric proofs. Geometric proofs require the student to prove a certain physical relationship using standard geometric theorems and hypotheses. A solution requires several steps of creative thought to accomplish the goal. Apparently, this is a not a widely used teaching method anymore, and the researchers were concerned that the modern American education system might be overlooking a valuable tool in developing good spatial orientation.
Temple Grandin is quite famous these days. She's a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, and she is renowned for developing humane physical systems for handling livestock. Talk about having empathy. Part of her epiphany in developing her original designs was recognizing the distress of the cattle and the ways they moved together. Grandin has written an essay in today's New York Times about the importance of visual thinking and the failure of American society to develop this important skill. It's a lovely article and relevant to this discussion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html
One last thing. I am finding that one of the few gifts of growing older is a heightened sense of creativity. I don't know why. I keep reading and learning as much as I can, and maybe that increased knowledge leads to deeper, more abstract connections between things. In my case, I also may be influenced by a burning desire to create something after a leisurely period in middle age. I'm losing both mental and physical prowess, but boy do I have lots of ideas of things to write about.
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Sadly, can't get past the paywall to read the Temple Grandin article.
Ben M: thanks for a very good post. My turn toward minimalism was a reaction to what was being built in the 80s, but you are right to observe that it forced me to be more creative, to incorporate the terrain and the environment in a way that many architects had forgotten about. [Of course, the Golden Age guys all worked that way because most of them didn't have a choice.]
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Evil Kneivel used to live in a camper at Rivermont Golf Club in Atlanta and decided on a bet to take a cart down the steepest par three there....those types of thing definitely have an affect on the gene pool itself...
And the steepest par 3 at Rivermont is STEEP! The cart path has a couple of switch backs to slow things down.
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Tom:
Was your drive to have a more minimal approach one driven from the want to be unique/more responsive to the environment like the old courses that we both admire? Or was the choice a purely response to economics of the situation as it's easier to trust a younger unproven guy when his budget is lower than the accomplished competition?
I also remember you mentioning reading the book "Genius Lock: Towards a Phenomenology in Architecture" by Christian Norberg-Schlutz. I remember after reading this book that was the first time I thought about empathy as an integral components of design. As how can I create emotions in the spaces that I build if I close my heart and mind of to the experience of others
It helped that at the time I was still in school and watching a bunch of other young designers work. I can tell you to the students that became the best designers in that room were also the kindest to their peers and learned not only from doing their work but by watching the experience of others. As they were open to helping others in that act of kindness they were exposed to other workflows, skill sets and the other hundred intangible things that go into personal design process. I noticed this probably due to my own neural atypicality.
Temple Gradin's work and writing was a huge discovery for me when I found her in High School for the first time I felt seen. It also helps her work deals with cattle and havin grown up in southern Alberta my entire life. I knew what she was talking about when she was discussing how they moved and had different experience s.
This all leads me to the point that I only really discovered this spring on a two part CBC ideas podcast titled "The Myth of Normal". The central idea of the podcast that we need to do a better job of allowing different "neuro tribes" to thrive rather than trying previously trying to fit people in boxes. The second part of the podcast actually has a great long form interview with Temple as she discusses the changes she has seen in her life and how they have impacted her and her work. It a must listen to anyone interested in the subject of how we as humans perceive the world. Which is pretty important to the subject of team building and golf architecture.
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Let's see if this link can be read by the group. I subscribe to the NYT now, and am trying the benefit of sharing an article for the first time. Hopefully this works.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html?smid=url-share
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Let's see if this link can be read by the group. I subscribe to the NYT now, and am trying the benefit of sharing an article for the first time. Hopefully this works.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html?smid=url-share (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html?smid=url-share)
Nope, didn't work for me. I doubt you can post a link to a public forum that multiple people use. They are getting more proficient with their technology to block non-subscribers . . . which is one of two reasons why I seldom look at The New York Times anymore.
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Let's see if this link can be read by the group. I subscribe to the NYT now, and am trying the benefit of sharing an article for the first time. Hopefully this works.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html?smid=url-share (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html?smid=url-share)
John,
Fascinating article. I am a subscriber which is why it must have worked for me. Her insights into the narrow and tradition bound aspects of the US education system are particularly insightful.
Ira
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I remember after reading this book that was the first time I thought about empathy as an integral components of design. As how can I create emotions in the spaces that I build if I close my heart and mind of to the experience of others
It helped that at the time I was still in school and watching a bunch of other young designers work. I can tell you to the students that became the best designers in that room were also the kindest to their peers and learned not only from doing their work but by watching the experience of others. As they were open to helping others in that act of kindness they were exposed to other workflows, skill sets and the other hundred intangible things that go into personal design process. I noticed this probably due to my own neural atypicality.
Ben:
Bingo! Part of the reason I react so much to this idea that some people are just natural designers, and others aren't, is that it I believe that design is a collaborative process. And for my teammates I don't want a bunch of clones of myself. I don't need that -- I need others who are looking at the thing from different angles.
Any one of them could be doing this job and doing it well, although they will probably be better at it if they also have a team, and it includes someone like me.
I have seen other firms in action where everyone thinks like the boss, or worries what the boss will think. That's just not how great work gets done.
As to your first question, my original choice of minimalism was less about the environment, and more about admiring old courses and wondering why nobody built stuff like that anymore. That was one of the things Ben Crenshaw and I corresponded about back when I was still in college! My mantra at High Pointe was "when in doubt, do less". [It's a particularly good time to remind me of that, so thank you.]
It was only after we started on High Pointe, and my associate Tom Mead recognized the environmental aspect of what we were doing, that I really thought about that part . . . although, I did spend enough time with Walter Woods in St. Andrews to have some of his ethos drilled into me.
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Let's see if this link can be read by the group. I subscribe to the NYT now, and am trying the benefit of sharing an article for the first time. Hopefully this works.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html?smid=url-share (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html?smid=url-share)
Nope, didn't work for me. I doubt you can post a link to a public forum that multiple people use. They are getting more proficient with their technology to block non-subscribers . . . which is one of two reasons why I seldom look at The New York Times anymore.
Actually, I can share this on Facebook and four other common social apps. I didn't read the rules carefully enough, and thought I could share on Golf Club Atlas.
In the article she makes the case for the traditional European education of choosing between an academic or vocational path of study at a fairly young age, 14 or 15. She believes that many of the tradesmen that she has worked with over the years had similar visual learning skills (autistic traits) to her own strengths. Without elaborating, I agree.
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;D
Think Mike hit the nail on the head. You have to see what fits on the property. Once you can figure a start and an end point you are moving along. Never been a fan of courses that end away from the clubhouse though on occasion it may be the only option. Kind of fun to see the watering hole coming down the stretch for me.
If we are talking seeing a hole in advance I might disagree with some others . I believe you need to see how a ball will roll out so if you have some understanding of how people hit it you have an advantage. I guess you could do a formulaic plan that uses width and yardage charts to help but that doesn't seem like too much fun to me. Because as we know drainage makes the playing and maintaining so much more fun and easier. Have to think watching the water move during a storm sometimes beats all the levels and transits post construction.
Some people see more
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In the article she makes the case for the traditional European education of choosing between an academic or vocational path of study at a fairly young age, 14 or 15. She believes that many of the tradesmen that she has worked with over the years had similar visual learning skills (autistic traits) to her own strengths. Without elaborating, I agree.
While I'd agree that the system you describe would be better than the one we have (in the US), I feel like it creates a false dichotomy between the trades and academic paths. Does an architect or accountant or a doctor need to read philosophy any more than a machinist, a builder or an engineer? I would like it better if everyone could make that determination a bit more on their own, though with some guidance. (If I hadn't been required to take Phil 101, I likely would have missed out on so much that makes me who I am today, for good or ill)
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In the article she makes the case for the traditional European education of choosing between an academic or vocational path of study at a fairly young age, 14 or 15.
John,
Seems very early to make such an important choice. Not everyone can make an informed choice so early. Some need to fall into their careers, rather than jump towards them. My wife, for example, has testified at the Supreme Court of Canada on Education as an expert on copyright. She never choose her path, she didn't study for it, she slowly became an expert by circumstance and time. Our older son is wired the same, I used to struggle with that, but she was right, he too wandered blindly into an interesting career.
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In the article she makes the case for the traditional European education of choosing between an academic or vocational path of study at a fairly young age, 14 or 15. She believes that many of the tradesmen that she has worked with over the years had similar visual learning skills (autistic traits) to her own strengths. Without elaborating, I agree.
While I'd agree that the system you describe would be better than the one we have (in the US), I feel like it creates a false dichotomy between the trades and academic paths. Does an architect or accountant or a doctor need to read philosophy any more than a machinist, a builder or an engineer? I would like it better if everyone could make that determination a bit more on their own, though with some guidance. (If I hadn't been required to take Phil 101, I likely would have missed out on so much that makes me who I am today, for good or ill)
I like the idea of a divided career path in school where young people notal academically inclined can finish school /internship and have opportunities to earn excellent money at a young age. Currently, we are spending far too much on university courses that could be taught with a more hands on approach. My proviso would be that there are second chances. I seriously dislike the idea of exam results or a decision at a relatively young age determining a life path without opportunities to change one's course in life.
Ciao
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I've long had the idea that "everyone's a geek about something", maybe I should add to it that everyone's a designer about something. I don't think there is anyone who isn't a designer in some sense of the word. I mentioned my wife has terrible spatial reasoning skills, but she still designs and makes jewelry. She doesn't need to worry a lot about functionality (the design of a necklace or bracelet was worked out long ago) so she can focus on selecting pretty things and laying them out on a pattern. I guess all of this is to say that I don't think there is a designer gene per se (unless everyone has it), though there are aspects of design some might be more suited to than others. And when designing something as large and diverse as a golf course I can totally see Tom Doak's point about collaboration. I would imagine that not everyone on his team needs to understand a topo map as well as he does in order to make an important contribution to the final design.
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I seriously dislike the idea of exam results or a decision at a relatively young age determining a life path without opportunities to change one's course in life.
Me too! This is why the idea of the separation worries me. Perhaps in most of Europe, it is done right, but I'm certain that in the US the system in either event would keep a tradesperson from ever having the chance to go back and say, minor in philosophy (or learn video production etc). The system now doesn't allow it either, that's why I thought the European system would be better than what we have, but I think it could be improved upon.
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Seems very early to make such an important choice. Not everyone can make an informed choice so early. Some need to fall into their careers, rather than jump towards them. My wife, for example, has testified at the Supreme Court of Canada on Education as an expert on copyright. She never choose her path, she didn't study for it, she slowly became an expert by circumstance and time. Our older son is wired the same, I used to struggle with that, but she was right, he too wandered blindly into an interesting career.
I agree with you here Ian. If I'm playing devil's advocate, perhaps the "academic" branch essentially equates to the choice for the more wandering-oriented person. I'm not certain that an early binary is the best answer as far as a system is concerned, but I concede it would likely be better than what we have here in the US (I know you're in Canada) because what we have is just chaos.
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I’ve a got a nephew that from a young age struggled in school with the regular disciplines and was determined to have some learning disabilities. My brother noticed that he had an inclination toward taking things apart and rebuilding them first with model cars and advancing to small engine repair with GoKarts, mini bikes, motorcycles, lawnmowers and the like. He also demonstrated an entrepreneurial side as he started to buy broken items and rebuild them for sale which he has done well with through high school. Instead of him being dissuaded to pick a more mainstream pursuit my brother embraced his talent and nurtured his passion which has led to the goal of him becoming a big diesel mechanic. As Charlie mentioned “everyone is a geek about something”.
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I’ve a got a nephew that from a young age struggled in school with the regular disciplines and was determined to have some learning disabilities. My brother noticed that he had an inclination toward taking things apart and rebuilding them first with model cars and advancing to small engine repair with GoKarts, mini bikes, motorcycles, lawnmowers and the like. He also demonstrated an entrepreneurial side as he started to buy broken items and rebuild them for sale which he has done well with through high school. Instead of him being dissuaded to pick a more mainstream pursuit my brother embraced his talent and nurtured his passion which has led to the goal of him becoming a big diesel mechanic. As Charlie mentioned “everyone is a geek about something”.
This example makes a good case for there being a vocational/technical track available to kids. Did your brother and nephew get much help from the educational system in this track or was it all in addition to whatever is the standard in high school?
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So, few questions for those who have opined on the design "gene" and process so far:
1. Are you predominantly left brained or right brained ? The left side of the brain is the logical - reading/writing/math side. The right side is the visual, creative side. I'm both, which I discovered in design school. Spreadsheets, real estate finance and modeling come relatively easily to me as does math calcs done in the head. I can also draw pretty well, visualize a drawing in 3D and think spatially. What I did learn was I couldn't do both left and right brained functions simultaneously - it would cause a migraine. I had to take a break between left & right brained functions to "switch gears"
2. Do you dream? Yes I do - and in color & black & white. Lots of creative folks do.
3.Exterior design (GCA/landscape architecture) is designing a series of spaces, IMHO - think of each hole as a space, and how one moves thru the subspaces - tee, to landing area, to green, to the next tee - and what one feels and visually perceives. TD, Jeff, Mike, Ally, Ian & the list of other professional contributors can opine on my $0.02, but that's what I see and feel anyway.
4. I'm pretty sure I've said this before but one of the greatest created movement from one space (hole) to the next I ever had the chance to experience was at a course in Naples done by JN. The amount of time and attention to detail going from green to the next tee was just phenomenal. OTOH, the experience from 16 to the clubhouse at Kapalua is pretty spectacular, envisioned by a Higher Power and capitalized upon by a great hole and cart path routing.
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There may well be or not be a 'designer gene' and technical proficiency is important but so is leadership including seeing the bigger picture and picking the right people to be part of the team producing something. Dealing with perspective clients and getting the job in the first place. Then preparing for and 'running the job', dealing with clients, authorities, delegation and supervision both within and outwith the direct team, suppliers, specialists, contractors, good and bad, headaches, stumbling blocks etc all while constantly ensuring that all the numerous bits and pieces fit together to produce the desired outcome in the right timeframe and with the £$ financing balancing out appropriately.
Perhaps there's a leadership 'gene' too although not necessarily one always best suited to the designer ('boffin'?) or the most technically proficient individual.
atb
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Thomas,
You hit the nail on the head pretty good with that last post. A singular "designer gene" seems a bit of misnomer for this conversation given that successful architects really need to have a pretty well rounded toolbox of skills as you pointed out. Its the combination of all those things that probably contributes most to it being a damn tough job.
Unlike some crazy brilliant geniuses I've ran into in the Tech biz. They can barely figure out how to get dressed in the morning, and string more than a few words together, but shove them in the corner with a computer and a case of mountain dew and magical things happen.
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I'm certain that Thomas and Kalen are right about the importance of those myriad other functions in a design business, but some of them are secondary. The designer doesn't need to be good at everything as long as there is someone in their organization that is good at it.
I'm pretty curious about what the various functions in the design team are and what traits people can have to fulfill those functions and still be called a designer. I realize that's sort of general, so maybe concrete or hypothetical examples would be helpful, basically the various perspectives that people can take. My hypothetical is that maybe a history-focused person would call back to courses that use X strategy. A strategy-focused person will wonder about how decision making is affected by the choice, maybe a technically-oriented person would wonder whether a change can be made without disturbing work that's already been done, and so on. Now I realize the individuals will contain all three and many more besides, but the idea is that no individual can probably contain everything.
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Charlie:
The two tasks where I spend most of my time in designing a course are the routing, and the shaping of the greens. I think those are the two most important pieces of a great course.
I'd say that doing routings is a more left-brained exercise, and shaping greens is more sculpture, presumably a right-brained exercise. So you're not going to find many people who would be great at both. Although, one thing I learned from my when I made money taking pictures of golf courses was that I have a really good sense of composition, which I would have thought was right-brain, but maybe not?
During the shaping I'm more of an observer and editor now, probably because I'm more left-brained. But I firmly believe that part is sculpture, so I don't try to turn it into a left-brain thing by drawing plans and working out the elevations on paper. I think it's important to get the thing to feel right first, and then massage it so it works right. When I actually jumped back on the bulldozer in New Zealand last year, the couple of greens I shaped were very different from the rest.
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In the article she makes the case for the traditional European education of choosing between an academic or vocational path of study at a fairly young age, 14 or 15.
John,
Seems very early to make such an important choice. Not everyone can make an informed choice so early. Some need to fall into their careers, rather than jump towards them. My wife, for example, has testified at the Supreme Court of Canada on Education as an expert on copyright. She never choose her path, she didn't study for it, she slowly became an expert by circumstance and time. Our older son is wired the same, I used to struggle with that, but she was right, he too wandered blindly into an interesting career.
Mostly I was reporting small snippets of the Temple Grandin article. I added the simple "in general, I agree" without much forethought. I was thinking mostly about the person that may want to opt out of the standard educational system to begin a specific career in something else. An early start in a field like welding or plumbing is worth a lot of money. Maybe only 15-20% of students would opt out early for vocational training, but some people know what they want to do early. Why waste their time?
I also figured that America needs more craftsmen, and that too many people were opting for the academic education route with a specific goal. The news articles are varied and suggest that may or may not be the case. Here's an article in favor of that view:
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/01/05/america-needs-carpenters-and-plumbers-try-telling-that-to-gen-z/
Life is long, and the people who find their way into an occupation they never imagined as a kid don't necessarily have to take the traditional academic path to get there. It probably helps. I really enjoyed the early part of my college education, when I took all the general introductory classes about subjects.
I'm definitely a generalist when it comes to knowledge, with a strong emphasis on science and little interest in art and literature. When I had to specialize, I chose engineering because I could do the math. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but figured I could get a good paying job. I only found success as an engineer after I found myself in a job where I could work at a large systems level, analyzing and reporting all the changes to the big communications system. I was essentially a librarian, organizing and monitoring large amounts of data. I knew things and could give quick answers to questions. That's what I do best, analyze and organize data. I learned that mostly by reading reams of baseball (and other sports) statistics, and train schedules when I was really young.
I also started drawing golf holes when I was 10 or 11, a decade before I ever played the game my Dad and Grandad played. Golf architecture is a dreamy subject for the science generalist, so rich with different disciplines. Geology, geography, plant science, math, chemistry and physics are all classes I took as an college student.
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I remember after reading this book that was the first time I thought about empathy as an integral components of design. As how can I create emotions in the spaces that I build if I close my heart and mind of to the experience of others
It helped that at the time I was still in school and watching a bunch of other young designers work. I can tell you to the students that became the best designers in that room were also the kindest to their peers and learned not only from doing their work but by watching the experience of others. As they were open to helping others in that act of kindness they were exposed to other workflows, skill sets and the other hundred intangible things that go into personal design process. I noticed this probably due to my own neural atypicality.
Ben:
Bingo! Part of the reason I react so much to this idea that some people are just natural designers, and others aren't, is that it I believe that design is a collaborative process. And for my teammates I don't want a bunch of clones of myself. I don't need that -- I need others who are looking at the thing from different angles.
Any one of them could be doing this job and doing it well, although they will probably be better at it if they also have a team, and it includes someone like me.
I have seen other firms in action where everyone thinks like the boss, or worries what the boss will think. That's just not how great work gets done.
As to your first question, my original choice of minimalism was less about the environment, and more about admiring old courses and wondering why nobody built stuff like that anymore. That was one of the things Ben Crenshaw and I corresponded about back when I was still in college! My mantra at High Pointe was "when in doubt, do less". [It's a particularly good time to remind me of that, so thank you.]
It was only after we started on High Pointe, and my associate Tom Mead recognized the environmental aspect of what we were doing, that I really thought about that part . . . although, I did spend enough time with Walter Woods in St. Andrews to have some of his ethos drilled into me.
TD,
As mentioned by someone else, the term "designer gene" is a bit over the top, and not representative of someone who has the traits of a designer's personality.
Similarly, wanting people of different views and talents on your team for open discussion is always a good idea, and not at all contradictory to the premise that there are different personality strengths, as Mike Young pointed out best with his dog analogy.
Even the title of this thread is a bit misleading.....there are conceptual designers as well as technicians. And among designer types, there are differences in their relative strengths as seeing options to solve certain problems. And, experience is in there. As you suggest, the more golf holes you see, the more likely you are to have seen a similar design problem and solution.
Didn't some designer or songwriter define creativity as stealing from the best?
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I recall reading that Alfred Tull could create golf holes without consulting a topographical map which was out of the ordinary. Would this be some variation of the “designer gene”?
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I recall reading that Alfred Tull could create golf holes without consulting a topographical map which was out of the ordinary. Would this be some variation of the “designer gene”?
I think we need some context as to what is meant here. Because designing courses without a topo map is exactly what the real old-timers would have been doing most of the time. I'd bet that most of the pros posting to this thread would have no problem doing the same. Unless it means something else that I'm not quite getting. I'd bet that the topo map is primarily a time-saving device in this type of example.
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Charlie:
The two tasks where I spend most of my time in designing a course are the routing, and the shaping of the greens. I think those are the two most important pieces of a great course.
I'd say that doing routings is a more left-brained exercise, and shaping greens is more sculpture, presumably a right-brained exercise. So you're not going to find many people who would be great at both. Although, one thing I learned from my when I made money taking pictures of golf courses was that I have a really good sense of composition, which I would have thought was right-brain, but maybe not?
During the shaping I'm more of an observer and editor now, probably because I'm more left-brained. But I firmly believe that part is sculpture, so I don't try to turn it into a left-brain thing by drawing plans and working out the elevations on paper. I think it's important to get the thing to feel right first, and then massage it so it works right. When I actually jumped back on the bulldozer in New Zealand last year, the couple of greens I shaped were very different from the rest.
Thanks for the glimpse behind the scenes. So you're very involved with shaping of the greens, but sometimes you're driving the machine and sometimes you're not? If that's the case, when someone else is driving, how much do you need to talk to them while they're driving?
Edit: not trying to get too specific, but the question goes toward the type of person who would be good on the machine and communicating with the person in charge.
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I recall reading that Alfred Tull could create golf holes without consulting a topographical map which was out of the ordinary. Would this be some variation of the “designer gene”?
I think we need some context as to what is meant here. Because designing courses without a topo map is exactly what the real old-timers would have been doing most of the time. I'd bet that most of the pros posting to this thread would have no problem doing the same. Unless it means something else that I'm not quite getting. I'd bet that the topo map is primarily a time-saving device in this type of example.
Charlie-I took it to mean that it was a tool available to him that he didn’t feel he needed although I don’t disagree with your reply.
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I’ve a got a nephew that from a young age struggled in school with the regular disciplines and was determined to have some learning disabilities. My brother noticed that he had an inclination toward taking things apart and rebuilding them first with model cars and advancing to small engine repair with GoKarts, mini bikes, motorcycles, lawnmowers and the like. He also demonstrated an entrepreneurial side as he started to buy broken items and rebuild them for sale which he has done well with through high school. Instead of him being dissuaded to pick a more mainstream pursuit my brother embraced his talent and nurtured his passion which has led to the goal of him becoming a big diesel mechanic. As Charlie mentioned “everyone is a geek about something”.
This example makes a good case for there being a vocational/technical track available to kids. Did your brother and nephew get much help from the educational system in this track or was it all in addition to whatever is the standard in high school?
Charlie-In high school he enrolled in a Career Technical Education Program which was certainly an aide in what he now aspires to do.
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I recall reading that Alfred Tull could create golf holes without consulting a topographical map which was out of the ordinary. Would this be some variation of the “designer gene”?
I think we need some context as to what is meant here. Because designing courses without a topo map is exactly what the real old-timers would have been doing most of the time. I'd bet that most of the pros posting to this thread would have no problem doing the same. Unless it means something else that I'm not quite getting. I'd bet that the topo map is primarily a time-saving device in this type of example.
Charlie-I took it to mean that it was a tool available to him that he didn’t feel he needed although I don’t disagree with your reply.
This could have been post WW2 (50s - 70s), as wasn't it common to just put the holes wherever they wanted and moved the dirt to make it work?
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I recall reading that Alfred Tull could create golf holes without consulting a topographical map which was out of the ordinary. Would this be some variation of the “designer gene”?
I think we need some context as to what is meant here. Because designing courses without a topo map is exactly what the real old-timers would have been doing most of the time. I'd bet that most of the pros posting to this thread would have no problem doing the same. Unless it means something else that I'm not quite getting. I'd bet that the topo map is primarily a time-saving device in this type of example.
Charlie-I took it to mean that it was a tool available to him that he didn’t feel he needed although I don’t disagree with your reply.
This could have been post WW2 (50s - 70s), as wasn't it common to just put the holes wherever they wanted and moved the dirt to make it work?
Kalen-You could be correct as Tull was alive until the early 1980’s.
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So, few questions for those who have opined on the design "gene" and process so far:
1. Are you predominantly left brained or right brained ?
Bruce,
I'm predominantly right-brained. I have a need to be organized at everything I do in life. It's a blessing and a curse. I have no issue with changing my mind and even completely abandoning a philosophy. If you had read my golf design blog from 2006-2008 that was very obvious. But I like to begin with an initial plan - even if its to be abandoned quickly for something more interesting or through circumstance.
Even when I paint water colors, I organize everything. I like to draw out my shadow patterns, my light source, the direction of fur and hair. My sketches are probably over-organized because I'm thinking through the process as I draw. Once I have the basic colors in place, my shading patterns established and broad concepts are clear, I paint by feel and become far more spontaneous.
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtcU7TBZT-H_gTwRBFGq42bAG4Y26d_goeweFACu-dQAyRSza9dOiIZDswIR2QWyUVvIknQqKudezgcriplIKAwWbmDas6B2SJqPFgVwOS4B_F9s_1uoNxm7hf7O5eHuH-IrYsGHY9MV2_MRcde-YOGO6k76UXPjLatA6E7a6dEYQO4SQWiQ_-Vnib/w640-h480/IMG_E0766.JPG)
The first wash - you need to paint and dry, paint and dry .... the shadow planning is obvious
I move through life this way. I don't "fly by the seat of my pants" unless I'm forced to by circumstance. I can. But I prefer to start with a plan and then throw it away at the appropriate moment.
I expect most don't like this approach, but its the one that works for me.
If curious - the final result is here: https://ianandrewsgolfdesignblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/blog-post.html (https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/9051797183132429300?hl=en)
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Ian (and Charlie):
I couldn't paint like that for all the money in the world.
That's why I will never believe that designers all come from the same place, or the same brain space. Most have talents I don't have, and I might have one or two that most others don't have [or that they're not in touch with, anyway].
I do start with an idea . . . anytime I route a hole and set a green site, I've got some sort of plan in mind. But all that does for me is to guarantee that there is some solution that will work, that I can fall back on if necessary. And with that in my back pocket, we just go ahead and start building something. Sometimes I will give the shaper a very thorough explanation of what I was thinking, sometimes very simple [i.e. "make it harder to come in from the right"], and sometimes I'll just let them take the first crack at it without any input, depending on how much I've thought about it myself. The only times I'm really adamant about an idea is when I think that something is already there and I want to make sure the shapers see it and don't wreck it to do something different.
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There's an amazing amount of things about golf that can be described mathematically. The flight and rolling characteristics of a ball. The size, firmness and slope of the ground. The aerodynamic characteristics of the club. Golf and most all sports operate in four dimensions, with time being the fourth one.
It probably helps to have a good academic knowledge of physics. I learned about gravity and momentum and kinetic energy and fluid dynamics in college, things like that. Most of that is a distant memory, but I could probably relearn the relationships quickly.
However, I don't think it's as important as personal experience and obsession with the game. While I do believe some people have greater genetic gifts in terms of learning ability and spatial orientation, a passion for understanding the game must be the greater determinant of inspired design. Those two qualities may be one and the same.
The sooner a person develops good spatial orientation, the better. Most of us old jocks develop that spatial orientation by playing sports. I used Google a couple days ago to find relevant articles. One study (sorry, I can't find it now) argued that a key tool was teaching how to accomplish geometric proofs. Geometric proofs require the student to prove a certain physical relationship using standard geometric theorems and hypotheses. A solution requires several steps of creative thought to accomplish the goal. Apparently, this is a not a widely used teaching method anymore, and the researchers were concerned that the modern American education system might be overlooking a valuable tool in developing good spatial orientation.
Temple Grandin is quite famous these days. She's a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, and she is renowned for developing humane physical systems for handling livestock. Talk about having empathy. Part of her epiphany in developing her original designs was recognizing the distress of the cattle and the ways they moved together. Grandin has written an essay in today's New York Times about the importance of visual thinking and the failure of American society to develop this important skill. It's a lovely article and relevant to this discussion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/09/opinion/temple-grandin-visual-thinking-autism.html)
One last thing. I am finding that one of the few gifts of growing older is a heightened sense of creativity. I don't know why. I keep reading and learning as much as I can, and maybe that increased knowledge leads to deeper, more abstract connections between things. In my case, I also may be influenced by a burning desire to create something after a leisurely period in middle age. I'm losing both mental and physical prowess, but boy do I have lots of ideas of things to write about.
Key phrase in all this is “Burning Desire.” I learned this reading Napoleon Hill 11 years ago
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Ian: I always wished I could paint pictures - (walls & ceilings (no murals) I have down pat. I was ok @ water colors and certainly can draw perspectives, which helps with design.
I used to render (color) my designs using pastels & colored chalk, rather than markers or print ink, as the colors are softer and its a very quick application process.
Its also a lot of fun to head on onto construction sites of any kind to see how they're got the site drainage set up and see where someone it looking to attempt to make water run uphill to drain or where there are flat spots for ponding & ice. Pretty easy to see once you know what to look for.