Golf architecture, a real art

As a professional golfer, a tournament promoter and a television golf commentator, and in no way a golf course architect, I am not sure if I am qualified to discuss golf architecture. But answering the demand of EIGCA, here are a few thoughts inspired by more than 30 years of life in, by and for the game of golf. I just hope these will be of some use to the debate opened in this publication about the conception of courses and the very nature of the game itself.

It seems to-day to be “golfically correct”, if I may say so, to advocate the new against the old, although in terms of golf architecture we have invented nothing new. It is true that golf courses are easier for professionals and in many events on the US and European Tours the preferred lies local rule is used against the very spirit of the game. Every week we see modern courses being severely beaten by the best pros while amateurs find the same courses unplayable. We live upside down and the game ceases to be an “art de vivre”, turned into an exercise of hard work deprived of imagination, more and more standardized and almost industrial.

Today’s conception of the game and the courses is based on the target golf theory. The game has become simple, if not simplistic: with good standard equipment, a swing done a thousand times on the practice ground (such practice was totally unknown for old time British golfers), you only need to choose the right club (the one which corresponds to the distance, not to any inventive shot) and to reproduce the well-learned movement. Such a standardization in the art of playing golf is adapted to modern courses: wide and flat bunkers (saving irrigation and care), many water hazards (the Venice syndrome facilitates the management of water on site) unless it was created by them. This modern conception is evidently linked to technical factors such as the use of mechanical mowers and other machines, selective chemicals, a more and more sophisticated management of irrigation systems. It has thrown the game into the economic world and golf is becoming more and more expensive for everybody, although there are more simple methods of constructing and exploiting golf courses. Together with the demand of the general public, who want all the courses they play to be like Augusta National as they saw it on TV during the Masters, the increase of equipment and maintenance employees lead to a significant rise in the cost (exploitation as well as construction) of golf courses. I would like to dissipate an illusion: Augusta National, this beautiful course where the US Masters has been played since 1934, is admired by many because of its beauty, its flowers and quality of maintenance, thus implying a huge budget. Never mind the money it costs, Augusta remains an authentic golf course. The beautiful scenery counts, no doubt, for the public and I cannot disagree with this, but it stands in second place behind the course itself, the way the holes follow each other and the strategic choices to be made on each hole (how to play the drive to have an easier second shot, and so on). This is why Augusta remains a great course despite its relative youth and obvious wealth.

Finally, starting from a sheep mowed and dune sided land we are now facing an entirely artificial reconstruction implying the digging of ground, the movement of thousands of tons of earth, the construction of complex irrigation systems and the plantation of trees and plants totally unknown in the original natural location. In itself, this costly recreation is in no way to be condemned for the reason that it brings to the new and numerous users the same kind of pleasure as the one experienced by the old Scottish shepherds. Misunderstood, poorly controlled, that evolution can lead to the sheer destruction of the spirit of the game, whatever their best intentions. If we want to ensure that such an evolution does not occur, we, the actors on the scene of golf, have to explain how it operates.

From this point of view the role of the professional golfers is crucial. They are an example as players as well as teachers. The transmission of the golf culture is made through them and this is one of my fears. The old style courses do not please most of the professional golfers, on the US and European Tours. The pros should understand that if they accept to play (shall I say against) Royal St George’s because it is the venue of the Open, they also ought to stand for a wiser conception considering the other courses where they make their living during the rest of the year. The old courses are much more unpredictable, the surprises are more frequent, they ask the players to bring more invention to their shots and, oddly enough, the scores are often higher after four rounds. This is due to the very nature of those courses. Take, for instance, the last Open Championship at Royal St George’s. It was won by only one shot under par after four extraordinary rounds. I agree that the South East Kent weather conditions were difficult for the month of July, but, apart from a reasonable lengthening of the course (around 6 500 meters) and incredibly deep bunkers, the design and general conception of the course has not changed since the opening in 1887 by Dr W. Laidlaw Purves. As on most links courses, the greens are built behind higher dunes which protect the ball against hurling winds, so that the game can go on. Of course, when the ball flies above this natural protection, it is a different story. This conception is shared by most of the great “old style” courses where the Grand Slam tournaments are played: Turnberry, Troon, St Andrews in Great Britain, but also Shinnecock Hills, Pine Valley, Pinehurst (#2), and Beth Page, in the States, among many others. The ancient architects, Simpson, Dunn, MacKenzie or Ross were no doubt amateurs but in the best sense of the word: they loved golf, they were so intimate with the game that they knew how to create those successions of holes that we still love and that we call a golf course. To build a course is not only a technical matter; it is an art that only can exert those who possess a natural talent served by a rich golf culture. For the golf architect is not a gardener (the green keepers do that gardening), nor a landscaper, and certainly not a businessman. He is and shall remain an artist, a craftsman. This is my conviction and my wish. This means that the result of the work of this art-chitect is rated by the pleasure that we golfers find in playing his courses. And this is worth as much for big champions, amateurs and pros, whose skill is high, as for the sheer ordinary golfers whose main weapon is their love of the game. It is in this unreachable compromise which lies the art of building good courses. The criterion in this matter is simple enough: par is difficult, bogey is easy. I do not think this rule has exceptions and at any case it is a simple and fast way to understand what kind of golf we are playing.

I believe that the Sam Snead’s, Ben Hogan’s, Seve Ballesteros’s and Greg Norman’s were as incredibly talented as Tiger Woods. Confronted with real courses, they displayed all their talent to defeat them for, in the end, it is the course who judges the golfer and the winner is the one who manages to avoid the traps and tricks of the course and who is able to invent new shots, to think new strategies, to resist hazards, take the measure of nature and its elements (wind, sun, rain). In itself it is a lesson of life which is still a game; I mean the golf we love.

This article first appeared in the Institute’s Yearbook for 2003-2004.