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The Art of Golf Design
Landscapes by Michael G. Miller,
Essays by Geoff Shackelford
Sleeping Bear Press, 2001 $65
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The only thing wrong with this book is that it's too
big to read in bed. Not suited to the nightstand, it belongs atop a rising stack of commendable works on course architecture, long an area of obscure interest.
Those who rely on identifying good design with "I know it when I see it" will look at courses and their own predilections in a new way. The author and artist take the reader on a memorable journey beyond pervading conventions visiting numerous classic venues.
The arguments are reasoned, drawn crisply without bombast; the essayist's historical reverence is never greasy with sentiment; the artwork is original and pleasing. Michael Miller is not only a gifted artist. He's a former director of golf at Riviera, a 28-year professional. Geoff Shackelford's street cred as
gentle curmudgeon and historian has been well defined by on Cypress Point and George Thomas. They make a feature pairing.
This book is both lovely to look at and thought provoking. We see, for instance, unique renditions of the sixteenth and thirteenth holes at Augusta National as they would've played when the course opened, along with many other interesting holes from the past lovingly depicted and appraised with hindsight and the good sense of classic design.
The rugged beauty of a Royal County Down bunker is highlighted, colorfully in oils. Appealing to the eye (especially since we don't have to play from it), the painting is used to make an important point about unfairness, as it has come to be regarded. Essayist Shackelford pulls out the big guns. "There can be no real golf without hazards," wrote Robert Hunter, one of golf's true Renaissance men who worked alongside Alister Mackenzie following a distinguished career in social advocacy, "and unless these be varied, plentiful, and adroitly placed there will be no great golfers."
Inevitably the classical tour returns to the present where the effects of McWorld have surely been felt. The Ryder Cup, slated for Ireland in 2006, will be played at the "American style" K Club, a logistically and politically-palatable solution but one that is clearly not in the game's best interests. Nor is the pomposity of the PGA's Valhalla, our obsession with imposing fairness, real estate-driven golf, or the continued export of American grand eloquence.
There are exceptions, but it is the rare Yank who crosses the Atlantic leaving behind the excesses of our game, capturing (allowing) the understated, less obvious and more enduring pleasures of links golf to shine through. Others aside from Kingsbarns?
Golf's very sensibilities - the surprise and
importance of luck, for instance, are clearly being smoothed over, homogenized to golf's detriment. Uniformity is not only taken for granted but seen as desired; to the author's mind creating courses "that merely ask us to obey."
He warms to his task in an essay entitled, 'What Happened to the Revolution?' "Predictability, sameness, and fairness rule golf. Tour players are considered the leading authorities on design. Yet you know how they judge a course, don't you? By how fair it is. How it fits their game. (Typical modern PGA Tour player design praise: "I love this course because everything is right in front of you and it really fits my game.")
Dead solid perfect.
Ross devotee Michael Hurdzan once suggested that the problems of modern design went back to the First World War. It wiped out a generation of pros and designers severing a link that tied the modern era to Old Tom himself. It's taken us this long to get back to internalizing the precepts that made the classics so distinctive, he believes.
Tillinghast sought 18 "inspirations." McDonald saw variety as "not only the spice of life but …the very foundation of golfing architecture." And, PC if ever, he added: "Diversity in nature is universal. Let your golfing architecture mirror it. An ideal or classical golf course demands variety, personality, and, above all, the charm of romance."
OK, C.B. could get carried away but, applying the Hurdzan theory, it seems we've still got a ways to go to, if not mimic the past, at least to fully understand why so many older courses stand out against their contemporaries.
Naturalness, variety and strategy were the classic architects' guides in working, artfully, with the landscape. Not housing constraints, not permitting or environmental issues. Not money. Perry Maxwell noted "The site of a golf course should be there, not brought there."
Shackelford suggests - how sadly true this is - that we're now divided into two camps, the golf equivalent of what globalization foes might categorize into haves and have nots. "The situation in golf is one of two very distinct groups: that which is exposed to artistry in design, and that which isn't." Is it any wonder golfers are easily swayed by artificiality or cheap thrills?
Criticism is never popular - especially in its day - but it would seem that the opportunity exists in golf, as do the resources and, lord knows, the technology, to return to the game the fundamental virtues and temptations. This book reprises some wonderful voices from the past. It also skillfully offers concrete examples in making its case.
In "Progress Dearly Bought?" Shackelford writes that real progress depends on "a better understanding from golfers of reasonable maintenance standards and sound implementation of course care practices." Unlikely. Perhaps an economic "correction" will help curb some of the excesses. Or, perhaps, artistry in design will remain something that most golfers will only be able to read about or ogle vicariously on weekends watching a flat flickering screen.
Duly Noted - Edition I - Shouting at Amen Corner
Duly Noted - Edition II - Precision Putting
Duly Noted - Edition III - In the Women's Clubhouse
Duly Noted - Edition IV - Royal and Ancient
Duly Noted - Edition V - Into the Bear Pit
Duly Noted - Edition VI - The Biography of Walter J. Travis
Duly Noted - Edition VII - Uneven Lies
Duly Noted - Edition VIII - Sir Walter & Mr. Jones
Duly Noted - Edition IX - The Golf Ball Book
Duly Noted - Edition X - Balls!
Duly Noted - Edition XI - To Brookline and Back
Duly Noted - Edition XII - The Golden Era of Golf
Duly Noted - Edition XIII - The Story of Golf in Oklahoma
Duly Noted - Edition XIV - Fourteen Clubs and the Auld Claret Jug
Duly Noted - Edition XV - A Golfer's Education
Duly Noted - Edition XVI - Discovering Donald Ross
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