These days many talk about the beauty and natural integrity of "minimalism" in design and construction. Basically taking the time to identify and cleverly use natural aspects of a property and its topography in any way to create both interesting golf and also an aura about the architeture of a golf course that seems to have almost always been there.
I think we recognize that many of the early architects had to use what they found to a large degree because they had no real facility or tools to move very much. Today at the other end of the spectrum modern architects do have the facility and the tools to create almost anything they want out of sites and the natural topography. Some seem to create holes and not blend them well with the natural topography probably because of the artificial look of what they design and others are able to rearrange entire sites and make holes that blend into a constructed topographical arrangement over the entire site that seems to have always been there. Shadow Creek would be such a project although certainly an overall course and its holes that looks something like North Carolina in the Nevada desert would seem somewhat odd although it does create an interesting juxtaposition with the desert mountain backdrop.
But sometimes the look of "minimlism" needs to actually require more earth movement to "blend" the manufacturing of natural looking man-made holes into the natural landscape surrounding them that has not been touched.
Some of the very early architects didn't really seem to care if their manufactured architecture occasionally didn't blend into the natural landscape as long as whatever they did architecturally was good for golf. Certainly NGLA and many of Raynor's courses had this manufactured architecture starkly juxtaposed to natural topography with apparently no real attempt to blend it together. But somehow we seem to think that worked well, even aesthically and even in a natural sense somehow.
There seemed to be a time in early American archtiecture when increasingly large amounts of earth were moved with no real attempt to blend the manufactured and the natural land together. This era appears to be from maybe the turn of 20th century to about the 1920s when architects like MacKenzie began to really strive to either competely use natural landforms for golf or else to truly blend what he made together with what he didn't.
But yesterday walking around LuLu golf course, a really early (1912) Ross Pennsylvania design, even the majority of the greens themselves which in that era were what we refer to as "push-ups" seemed to be completely natural and almost untouched landforms. In fact they are! Ross found as many naturally interesting sites for his greens as he could on that property. Best examples being #2!!, #4!!!, #6!, #7, #8!!!, #10, #11! The rest of his green sites he seemed to use the absolute natural landform totally and appears to have created bunker features around them and perhaps not even used the fill to create the green itself or minimally so. It actually appears he used most of that nearby fill to create some manufactured looking mounds or even rear green surrounding berms. Best examples #1, #5, #8, #17. A few of the greens he seemed to use the fill to cant the green slightly from back to front, examples #3, #6!, #7, #9, #14. #12 & #16 appear leveled against a downslope. #15 seems to be the only one he built up or pushed up substantially from natural grade possibly because of the substantial bunkering around the green and the large swale behind it.
The effect of all this early minimalism or effeciency of design and construction is to make many of the greens at LuLu blend seamlessly and naturally in front into their approaches. Obviously this worked beautifully for the more prevalent ground game of that early era. But it also works beautifully in look and play with much of what some of the modern architects are trying to do again whether they find and use that kind of natural green site landform or have to make it.
Clearly Ross didn't make some of it at LuLu because he probably didn't have the facility or the tools to. Matter of fact LuLu is so early it appears to have preceded the era when those same early architects, including Ross, started to really manufacture up some push up greens or at the very least the sides and rears of them.
It's funny how if enough time goes by things begin to cycle back into popularity even from that extremely minimal era of design and construction efficiency!
TommyN;
I'd like to look again at your favorite #8 green but it appears Ross may have done a bit of everything there. It's a great green site but he may have reamed out the actual green site itself cut out a bit of a natural ridge just in front of it, thereby creating the interesting drop or rundown onto the green and the effect of a naturally depressed bowl and used the fill from the cutout and the reamed out green site to make the manufactured berm to the left and rear. Something like that would appear to be a drainage nightmare but the land to the right of the green is naturally lower so all the water would just exit there! A very efficient construction and effective design too particulary the quirkiness of it!