Latest / Designing Golf / The History of the Idea of Fairness in Golf

Transcript

The History of the Idea of Fairness in Golf · Designing Golf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Many golfers, especially professionals, expect golf courses to be fair.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Where did this idea come from? Was the notion of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: fairness in golf course design always important to players or
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: did it emerge at a particular time in history? Those
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: are the questions I'm tackling today with the golf historian
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Bob Crosby. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this is designing golf,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: so I thought I do an extended introduction here to
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: set up this episode. The topic is the historical roots
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of the idea of fairness in golf course design. Now
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: this might seem a little bit obscure, but I think
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: it's actually one of the most important things to understand
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: about golf architecture and about the history of golf in general.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Where this notion of fairness came from historically. This is
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: sort of a companion piece, I guess to an episode
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: that I did a month ago with my colleague PJ Clark.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: PJ and I had a golf Architecture one oh one
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: discussion of fairness. I don't think you need to listen
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to that episode to enjoy this one, but obviously the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: two of them together add up to something larger. PJ
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and I talked about a number of different possible definitions
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of fairness in golf architecture, but the key one, I think,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and the most critical one for this episode, is the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: idea that a fair golf course quote unquote fair should
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: reward good shots and punish bad shots. That's the most
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: basic definition of fairness that we're using here. So what
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Bob Crosby and I are going to do in this
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: episode is trace this idea back to its initial emergence
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: in golf discourse, which Bob locates around the eighteen eighties
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: and eighteen nineties. This is when we first see golfers
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and golf writers start to explicitly articulate a theory of
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: fairness in golf and start to emphasize the importance of fairness.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: As you'll hear Bob describe, one of the central figures
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: in this discussion, and really the main proponent of fairness
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: in golf course design, the original fairness police chief, so
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to speak, was laid Law Purvis, a man named Laidlaw Purvis.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: He was a big voice in the game in the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, kind of an
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: obscure historical figure now People don't talk about Purvis much,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: but he was a big deal back in this era,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: and he ended up being the driving force behind the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: creation of Royal Saint George's Golf Club, which has hosted
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a number of Open championships, most recently in twenty twenty one.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I believe the one that Colin Wrikawa won. In any case, now,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: on the other side of this debate, opposed to Lailaw Purvis,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: you have John Lowe, who really rose to prominence in
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: golf in the eighteen nineties. In the first decade of
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century, he became an influential figure in the RNA,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and he wrote a book called Concerning Golf in nineteen
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: oh three that ended up having a major influence on
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the likes of Harry Colt, Tom Simpson, Alistair McKenzie, et cetera,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Lowe was opposed to this idea that golf
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and golf courses needed to be fair, and he made
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: a number of eloquent arguments to that end. So that's
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: John Lowe representing the opposite end of the spectrum from
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Laidlaw Purvis and the Fairness Police. And low by the way,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: is the subject of a book that my guest Bob
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Crosby is writing. I can't wait for that book. I
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: think it's going to be one of the best things
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: ever written about golf history and golf course design. So
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: no pressure, Bob. In any case, I just wanted to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: make sure that this basic duality is clear. Laidlaw Purvis
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: arguing for absolute fairness in golf, John Lowe arguing that
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: fairness should not be the objective either of the rules
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: or of golf architecture, and this philosophical difference ended up
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: informing another duality that we've discussed in this podcast before.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Laidlaw Purvis, because of his devotion to fairness, promoted what
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: we now call the penal school of golf architecture, which means, basically,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: hazard's positioned to catch poorly struck shots. You have cross
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: bunkers that you have to carry, bunkers on the sides
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: that punish hooks and slices and so on. This philosophy
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: produces what Bob Crosby will call a kind of steeple
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: chase golf course obstacles that you have to jump over
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: and otherwise avoid. John Lowe, on the other hand, was
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: perhaps the earliest advocate of what we now refer to
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: as the strategic school of golf architecture. This is where
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: hazards are not meant to merely punish, but also to
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: make the game more interesting and intellectually stimulating. The hazards
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: create risk reward scenarios. If you challenge them, you get
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: a reward, but you can always choose to steer clear
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of them, play conservatively and not pursue those birdies and eagles.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Low believed that this was a more heroic and romantic
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: form of the game, less defensive than the kind of
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: golf that Purvis promoted. So that's the opposition that Bob
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and I are digging into in this conversation. It's Purvis
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: versus Low, fairness police versus anti fairness police, penal versus strategic.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: So we will get to Bob Crosby in a minute,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: but first a word from our sponsor for this episode,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the USGA Green Section. Are you dreaming of a career
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: that blends hands on learning with upward mobility. The USGA
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Greenkeeper Apprenticeship Program or GAP, is a one year tuition
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: free pathway into golf course maintenance apprentices earn while they learn,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: they get two hundred and forty hours of classroom instruction
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: plus two thousand hours of on the job training at
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: top courses in the Carolinas. This program is backed by
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: a one million dollar investment from the USGA and partners
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: like Pinehurst Resort, Ewing, Outdoor Supply, and the Carolina's Golf Association.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Apprentices gain skills in turf gas science, soil and water management,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: pest control, and leadership. More than half of the graduates
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: of GAP have been promoted to leadership positions after completing
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the program. Applications are now open for the twenty twenty
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: six cohorts in Pinehurst and Myrtle Beach, so check it out.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: This is a great way to get into the golf
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: course maintenance industry. You can jumpstart your career in turf
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: management by joining GAP today. Visit www dot USGA dot
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: org slash GAP. That's USGA dot org slash GAP. All right,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: let's get to my conversation with Bob Crosby. So, Bob Crosby,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: we are talking about the history of the idea of
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: fairness in golf course design, an intimidatingly huge subject. But
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I suppose where we could start is where do you
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: think the idea of fairness entered golf course design historically,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: what year or decade would you go back to first?
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Delighted to be with you again, Yerett, There really isn't
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: much talk about fairness in golf until about eighteen eighty.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: It doesn't really show up in the rules. There's very
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: little talk at the time anyway about golf architecture. But
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: it does begin to show up in about eighteen eighty
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: with the English golf boom. And the English golf boom
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: was basically a group of middle class Victorian golfers in
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: England who were new to the game, who brought to
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: golf a very Victorian sports ethos. They had, over the
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: prior decades already enacted reforms in other popular sports like
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: football or soccer, rugby, cricket, even tennis, literally every sport,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: and those reforms had been enormously successful. They had included
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: things like forming a representative slash democratic union to manage
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: the affairs of the sport. They had enacted uniform rules
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: that applied everywhere, the sorts of things that golf in
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: eighteen eighty or so lacked. So they came to golf
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: eager to overlay on golf a system of reforms that
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: had already been enormously successful. The key figure in that
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: movement was laid Law Purvis. His ambitions for golf are
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: breathtaking in eighteen eighty or so, and he viewed the
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: whole ball of wax as being subject to reform, and
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: by whole ball of wax, I mean rules and golf architecture.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: He did not really separate the two, and Nord should
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: he have. The issues were really very similar. The issue
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: in both was there's a problem with fairness. That there
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: are lots of things we can change with golf, but
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: the core issue for golf, and this is fairly unique
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: to golf, is that the results of a good shot
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: often didn't correspond with the quality of the shot. That
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: was a problem that laid Law Purpose and others thought
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: needed to be fixed, and it needed to be fixed
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: in two ways. One was to amend rules to basically
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: privilege good shots and also to propose a different kind
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: of golf course that would do essentially the same sort
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: of thing. But in the early eighteen eighties Purposes London
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Course Wimbledon enacts a new set of rules, and those
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: rules reflect his concerns with fairness, equity and justice. Terms
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: that are note to note again rarely appeared in the
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: RNA rules. Second, he designed after some false starts at
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Felix Stowe and Epsom, he designed Saint George's The Royal
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: came later near Sandwich. Both the rules he proposed and
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: the golf course he designed at Sandwich were pulling. Were
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: supposed to pull on the same ore. They were both
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: supposed to be fair presentations of the game in the
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: sense that they cleared the way for good shots, they
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: would not be impeded in any way and make real
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: trouble for less good shots. The notion here was that
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: there would be a bright line distinction between, and this
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: is Purpos's term, the far ensure shot and the less
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: far ensurre shot, whatever that would be. I would note
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: in passing that the original logo for Golf Magazine, it
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: may have stayed on the logos through its existence till
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties, was also far ensure. They were allies.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: That was, that was Purbos's program. That is, that is
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: not just a matter of somebody's opinion that he threw
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: out there. He had behind him, he had to his back.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Were the most by eighteen ninety the most powerful group
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: of golfers in Britain. By eighteen ninety there were more
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: golfers south of the Tweed than north of the to Ead.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: They had much more money, they had much more clout
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: in media. They actually had very appealing arguments for why
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: golf ought to become more equitable or fair. They put
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: their opponents in the position of having defend a sport
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: as being unfair, and that's not an enviable position to
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: be in the issues that Purvis raised, and I want
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: to get back to the response to that in a minute.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: But the issues that Purpose raised are still very much
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: alive today and they always have been in the decades
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: since then. I mean today we still argue about whether
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: there ought to be relief from a divot in a
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: fair way. Tom Doak still quotes criticism of his courses
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: as basically turning on the issue of their being unfair.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: I think it was last year at the Masters Bernhard
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Langer complained about the unfairness of the fifteenth green. He
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: hit what he called a perfect wedgshot that sucked back
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: off the green and he thought that was unfair. He
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: ended up, i think, apologizing later for that, but it
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: was the issue of fairness in golf has never left
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: it and it was very much still with the game.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I think it was the single most important development in
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: golf in the sense that it is it continues to
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: be a core dynamic in the evolution of the game,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: and that by that I mean proposed changes to the rules,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: how we think about golf course design, all that. But
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: by eighteen ninety or so, resistance of that begins to
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: organize itself. The first to do so was Walter Simpson.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: We associate Walter Simpson with his book The Art of Golf,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: which is sort of a lighthearted frolic through the game,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: but Simpson had actually a very dire view of the
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: future of golf, primarily because of the initiatives of Purvis
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: and others about changing rules in the different kinds of
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: golf courses, and he was a staunch objector to the
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: whole equity project. Another was another forgotten figure, Benjamin Hall
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: blythe who ended up becoming the first chairman of the
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: RNA Rules Committee, but a very powerful conservative golfer in
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: the late eighteen eighties into the eighteen nineties and at
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: the end of by the early eighteen nineties, my man
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: John Lowe is joining the Fray. I think it was
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: an incredible It was a pivotal moment in the history
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: of the game, in part because the reaction to that
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: and it and the movement and the English golf movement.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: We call it Victorian today, but at the time it
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: was called English. The reaction to the English golf movement
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I think basically helps explain the shape of modern golf
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: in the following ways. The threat of English golf reformers
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: was real by the mid eighteen nineties. There were good
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: reasons to think that it would take over the game,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: that golf courses would be designed along the lines of
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: the original Sandwich course, which is to say, lots of
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: cross bunkers, carry carry, carry, carry hazards and all sorts
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: of things like that.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Penal architecture basically what we now refer to as penal design.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: What we say, yeah, penal arctorship. But it wasn't just
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: golf courses. It was also the rules would now have
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: as a standard for whether or not a rule should
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: be in the rule book was whether or not it
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: was quote fair. That is not a standard today. And finally,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: should we regulate balls and golf clubs. I think all
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: of that began to change in the late eighteen nineties
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: in response to the forces being applied to the game
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: by English golfers led by laid law purpose, and by
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: that I mean within about a two year period, the
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: RNA Rules Committee was formed and it promulgated its first
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: rules in late eighteen ninety nine. Those rules were based
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: on the traditional rule rules. While they cleaned up a
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff, they did not give in to any
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: of the suggestions from Purvis and others to make the
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: rules based on fairness. The second, the second aspect of
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: that within within about a year later, was Low articulates
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: the basic principles of golf arket strategic golf architecture, and
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: that basically took off. After that, it changed the face
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: of the game. And finally, about six months after that,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: the haske ball appears and people want to know how
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: to respond to the golf ball. Low from the very
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: beginning says that we should put limits on balls and clubs.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: He didn't win that fight until twenty years later when
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: the first rules were regulating balls were put into effect.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: But the issue was on the table at about the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: same time as they are Rules Committee, about the same
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: time as a formulation of modern golf architecture, and it
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: was an incredibly important moment, all of which I think
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: was triggered by the desire of English slash Victorian golfers
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: to make the game fair. That issue, the tension caused
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: by that issue lives, I think, at the heart of
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: golf and has ever since.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: It was sort of the center of the debate about
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: what golf should be in the eighteen eighties, eighteen nineties
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and the first decade of the twentieth century. So it
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: is a really useful lens through which to talk about
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: golf and the way it was thought about during this period.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: But it's also a huge subject because it relates to
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: pretty much everything that people were discussing at the time,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and so it's both a useful top to discuss in
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a very difficult one to discuss because it's so big.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I want to go back on the timeline a little
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: bit here. You talked about fairness kind of entering the
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: discourse around the eighteen eighties, and this happened to be
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the time that the game was beginning to move to
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: England and was beginning to move Inland. People were starting
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: to build courses. They weren't just laying them out on
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: well suited land. They were starting to have to actually
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: construct golf courses because they were building them on land
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: that was somewhat resistant to golf. It was in England,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: and the group of people around the game in England
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: was different in character and class and kind of cultural
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: context than the group of people that was driving the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: game in Scotland previously. So you have this kind of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: clash of perspectives, this new big force in the game
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: that's coming from a very different place than the original
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: golfers of Scotland came from. So I want to talk
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: a little bit about the original golfers of Scotland and
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the notion of fairness. It seems to me and what
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: you're saying kind of confirms this that to the extent
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that we know what early golfers of the Scottish links
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: thought about the game, and we may not know that much,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: fairness didn't really seem to be part of it. And
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: if we look at the courses that they played, those
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: courses would probably strike twenty first century golfers as extremely unfair.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: So I wonder if if you have any thoughts about that,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: if you could give me an idea of what those
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: original courses were like, and how all of that might
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: have related to the idea of fairness or the lack
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of an idea of fairness that existed at the time.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Old Tom Morris I bowed back into this this way,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Old Tom Morris designed a lot of golf courses. If
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: he had a theory of golf course design, he never
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: wrote it, He never wrote about it, he never told
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: it to anybody. I think he, along with a lot
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: of his other peers in Scotland, basically laid out golf
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: courses on land that seemed suitable to them, that had
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: enough acreage, and that was you know, that would drain
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: reasonably well, presumably, and that seemed to be the end
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: of the questions. I mean, these were professionals for the
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: most part, and there is remarkably little discussion about golf
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: architecture per se in the literature through the eighteen nineties,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: and so we don't really quite know what they were thinking,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: if they were thinking anything at all other than just
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: get eighteen holes on this tract of land and collect
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: your fee and move on. There doesn't there doesn't seem
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: to be a theory of golf design that Old Tom
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: or anybody else of his era bought into Purpose changed that.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: The Purpose's revolution was to say, I'm going to design
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: a golf course on paper, and I'm going to build
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: it to that design. And that's what he did at Sandwich,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: and the design he wanted for that golf course was
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: specifically directed at creating bright line distinctions between a well
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: hit shot and a not so well hit shot. And
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: that was what the crossbunkers were supposed to do. That's
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: what the difficulties on the edges of the fairways were
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: supposed to do. That's what the flat greens and flat
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: fairways were supposed to do, at least in theory, because
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: the well hit it shot was to be privileged, the
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: badly hit shot was to be hammered. But there was
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: no countervailing philosophy of golf design at the time Sandwich opens.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: And this is eighteen eighty seven, and that was in
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: part why I think it was so profoundly influential. Every
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: golf course built in England thereafter almost I think, had
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: its set of the steeple case courses. They hit their
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: sets of cross bunkers every as far as I can tell, Garrett,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: almost every course built in America before nineteen ten or
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: so had its set of crossbunkers. And it is the
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: influence of Sandwich, Saint George's on that was profound. And
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: it's in part because there was no other ideas in
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: the field.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: That was it.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: And if you look at surveys of best holes or
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: favorite holes done in the eighteen nineties, and this is
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Horace Hutchinson, this is all the pros, all the usual
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: pro names, all those guys. They all recite the formula
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: that purpose first devised to build Sandwich, which is to
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: say holes have to be of a certain link to
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: provide for full shots, that you have to have carry
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: hazards for each shot, to test the good shot versus
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the bad shot, etcetera, etcetera. All of them recite the mantra.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: And there was really no competing theory of golf architecture
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: as late as the mid nineteen ninety eighteen nineties. So
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: to get back to your original question, I don't know
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: what the I don't know what the old Tom's were
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: thinking other than get the golf course laid on the land.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: If he was trying to make it as attractive as possible,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, in many cases he did that, But I
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: don't think that was seemed to be a big goal
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: of his. So it purviose lands in a vacuum, and
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: partly because it was a vacuum is why he was
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: so influential. By the way, an interesting footnote on this
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: is that Tom Dunn and the Dun family, who were
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: profligate in building steeplechase golf courses in England and in America,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: different family members came over here. Tom does spend a
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: lot of time with Purvis, both at Wimbledon and as
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: they were building Royal St. George's, and in a couple
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: places raves about the design and then he carries those
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: ideas to build hundreds of golf courses either here as
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: family hundreds of golf courses. So there is a sort
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: of a linkage between Tom Dunn and other quote Victorian
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: golf architects and laid Law Perbis.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf is presented by Mercedes Benz.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: For more than thirty years, Mercedes Benz has supported golf
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: around the world by partnering with the most prestigious major championships,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: tournaments and players in the professional game. Mercedes Benz SUVs
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: are the perfect companions for golf enthusiasts seeking performance, style
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: and space on the way to the course, and the
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: GLS stands out as the pinnacle of this lineup. The
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: GLS combines power and finesse, backed by twelve driver assist systems,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: nimble handling, cutting edge AI technology, and superb craftsmanship. The
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: GLS anticipates your needs, ensuring every journey is as strategic
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: as a championship winning game plan. The GLS reflects Mercedes
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Benz's philosophy to deliver the world's greatest vehicles, the Mercedes
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Benz GLS. Even standing still, it's moving forward. Learn more
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: about the GLS and Mercedes Benz's full lineup of SUVs
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: at mbusa dot com. All right, let's get back to
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the episode. If there's any philosophy behind the design of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: early Scottish links courses, you have to kind of discern
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: it from the courses themselves, and there might be something there.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: There might be an interesting study to do there. I'm
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: not sure if anybody has really done that, looking at
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: old old Tom Moore has courses and deriving a kind
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: of architectural philosophy that he might have had from those courses.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: But one effect I suppose of building golf on the
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: land that old Tom Morris and other early course designers
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: built courses on is that the game could be somewhat random.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Sometimes chance was a big part of the game. Because
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: of the chaotic nature of the lynxland, ground balls would
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: take unpredictable bounces. The land was bumpy and lumpy. They
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: didn't have the ability to grade it flat, or maybe
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: even the desire to grade it flat, and so the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: ball would do unpredictable things. Once it landed, you had
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the wind, and the wind is always a really difficult
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: to predict force in itself, and so the game had
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: a big element of randomness about it. Then you have
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: these primarily English Victoria and designers come along. They are
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: trying to apply some sort of intellectual framework to the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: laying out of golf courses, and it seems almost inevitable
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: that they would come to the conclusion that they could
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: create a better golf course by organizing it a bit
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: more and making the game less predictable, which would then
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: presumably highlight skill more and would create better competitions. I
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: guess that was the rationale, and it's almost like they
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: were trying to turn golf into tennis. In a sense
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: right where they were trying to have a kind of
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: standardized court for the playing of the game, and that
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: would often involve you've referred to cross bunkers. You have
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: to carry one bunker off the tee, then you have
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: to carry another bunker to get to the green. The
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: landing areas would be relatively flat, so once you got
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: to them, then you would have a flat lie that
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: you could hit from. You wouldn't be quote unquote punished
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: for hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: but once you were off the corridor, once you were
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: off the garden path, then you could be punished. But
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: you know, if you kept it in the straight and
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: narrow then you were to be rewarded. So flat greens,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: flat fairways, bunkers surrounding each target, and there you had
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: presumably the ideal golf course. And a lot of these
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: characteristics that I'm talking about were present in that original
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Royal Saint George's course but have since been lost over
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: the years at that course and many other courses built
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: in this era. But that was I guess that was
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: sort of the mindset that led to going from these
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: beautiful natural links courses to these very much more organized
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: sometimes land courses that were built in the late nineteenth century.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I guess my question is that when you consider the
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: mindset of somebody like laid Law purvis or Tom Dunn,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: whom you refer to and was a prolific designer of
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: these Victorian style steeple chase tennis like golf courses, where
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: do you think that that mindset comes from culturally? And then,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: if you could take us forward a few years, where
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: do you think the reaction to this mindset represented by
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: John Lowe, Tom Simpson, Harry Colt later Alistair McKenzie, all
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the Golden Age designers. They were kind of reacting to
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: this Victorian philosophy of golf course design. Where did that
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: reaction come from? What were its roots in history and culture?
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: It's a big question, But I'm.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: That's a big question where to begin. I'll start with
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: the first part of that question about what is the
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: cultural background to courses like will Saint George's and its progeny.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: We tend to forget that the Victorian mindset. They viewed
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: themselves as progressives. They thought that they were bringing to
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: golf modernity, new ideas. Remember England in eighteen ninety an
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: it was at the height of its empire. It believed,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: and you can look it up. It believed that their
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: way of organizing politics, society, law, are everything else was
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: superior to anyone else's and.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Then it would continue to get better. They believed. They
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: were extremely optimistic.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Well that's the Whig theory of history. That's right, the
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Wig You've read the Butterfield books. But any rate, and
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: they were going to impart that superior knowledge and understanding
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: of the world to their colonies. They were going to
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: the rationale. A rationale for why they held India as
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: a colony, or why they held Ireland, frankly as a colony,
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: was because only they could impart to those colleagues, and
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: there were many other colonies that under in the British Empire,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: because they were going to impart to those colleagues better
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: ways of managing their daily lives, the better ways of
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: legal better legal systems, better legislatures, all that sort of stuff.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: That mindset. They brought that mindset to golf. They were
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: going to take what they viewed as an archaic provincial
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: sport and fix it. The first and lowest fruit to
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: pick was the was this random randomness in golf that
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: you found on so many of the old lengths courses. Uh.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: They found that sort of randomness a sign of inattention,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: that that it's something that needs to be rectified by
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: a more systematic kind of design that will limit that.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: There'll always be randomness because you're playing outdoors and it's
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: going to happen, but to the extent you can minimize
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: randomness in golf was one of their key goals.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: That was nature, and they had science, and they believe
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: that nature could be improved by science and.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: And they and it was important because the only way
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: you can yield to a well hit shot, it's just result,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: just rewards, was to make sure randomness was minimized. And
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: that was the key, key dynamic in their thinking that
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: they were going to bring to golf the enlightenment that
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: only Englishmen could bring. And golf was way past due
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: for receiving their benefits. Purpose purpose and his allies, and
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: he had many allies, really believed he was doing golf
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: a favor. I'm here to help you out because you've
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: lost your way where you never found your way, And
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: it was it was that sort of moralistic worldview that
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: he wanted to bring to golf to tighten it up.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: He wanted to He wanted to put structure on golf
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: that it didn't that it didn't have previously. And I
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: think you mentioned to the extent it might make golf
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: more mechanical, more like tennis. It be just target shooting.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: A lot of tape basically refers to Sandwich is target shooting.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, all you do is you hit your drive
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: straight and in the air. And that's the end of
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: the questions. And then the second part of your question
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: is the harder, thicker part, which.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Is that's getting into what the response was to this
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: philosophy of golf course design and how it came about.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: I think there's a way to summarize the response to
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: that by saying, and here, John Lowe is I think
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: the key is that by the late eighteen nineties there
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: was the conservatives. And I'm using the term only in
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: the sense of golf conservatives.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the conservatives. When you say the conservatives, you're talking
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: about those who responded to this quote unquote modern and
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: progressive form of golf course design that was pioneered by
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Laidlaw Purvis and others. The reason why conservative might be
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: an appropriate term here is that John Lowe and others
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: were looking to the traditions of the game to inform
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: their new golf architecture.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: They were the defenders of the traditional game, and they
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: were conservative in that sense. I think what happened by
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: the late eighteen nineties is that the conservatives, the defenders
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: of traditional game, were able to reawakened people's appreciation of
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: the virtues of the traditional game. They had basically been
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: sort of under attack for almost two decades at that
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: point from the progressives who wanted to modernize golf, who
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: wanted to bring it into at the time, we've bringing
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: into the nineteenth century, and they were able to reawaken
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: the appeal of the older traditional game. And they did
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: that in a couple of ways. One was that low
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: argued that with regard to both Low argued, low isn't
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: more involved in some respects with the rules than he
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: was with golf architecture, but that his argument is that
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: is that being able to play, for example, Saint George's Well,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: or being able to play under the rules of Wimbledon,
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: which was a different kind of rules from Saint Andrews,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: called for a sort of mechanical kind of golf it
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: was as it was a focus on the athletic skills
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: required to hit the ball.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Low's argument was that the traditional game called called upon
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: a much broader range of human attributes. It wasn't just
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: athletic skill that was certainly part of it, but it
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: was also being able to think and analyze work, clough situations, perseverance,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: the overcoming of adversity, all sorts of various things that
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: he thought only the traditional game forced a golfer to confront.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: And that was I think at the heart of why
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: he felt it was so important to revive the traditional
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: game in the face of what would have at the
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: time seemed the inevitable triumph of laid law purpose in
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: English golf. And you've read enough history books where history
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: is contingent, it might have turned out differently, and in
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: this case, I can't think of a better case in
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: golf where golf might have taken a very different turn
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: circa eighteen ninety eight or so, if the RNA had
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: not formed the Rules Committee, and they almost didn't, if
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Lowe hadn't taken the pains to set out and articulate
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: a theory of golf architecture that we now call strategic
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: golf architecture. If that stuff hadn't happened in response, I
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: think in both those cases to the advances of laid
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: law purpose, golf might be a very different game. You
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: would not have been unreasonable to think in eighteen ninety
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: eight that golf was on the cusp of a complete
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: conversion to a different kind of game. It didn't happen,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: but it wasn't inevitable.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Well, And part of what made this response to Victorian
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: golf course design successful is all the arguments that John
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Lowe and others marshaled to the defense of their own philosophy,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: The arguments that they made in support of strategic golf design,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: the arguments that they made in support of the retention
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: of randomness and an element of luck in the game.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: So what were some of those arguments. What were the
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: main arguments that this group of people made that golf
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: courses shouldn't just be these tennis courts, they should be
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: something more than that.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Start with the rules, Walter Simpson makes some arguments that
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Lowe really tracks later on, Walter really drops out of
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: the Sir Walter actually really drops out of the mix.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: By eighteen ninety one ninety two, he has health issues
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: and other things, but three essays he wrote in the
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: late eighteen eighties and early in eighteen nineties, and a
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: couple of letters and some other exchanges. Simpson makes the
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: argument that the idea applying fairness to golf rules is
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: to create is to is to is to is to
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: indulge in what's called a category mistake. You're applying something
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: to golf that doesn't belong to golf, and that is
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: to say fairness. Fairness belongs in judicial systems.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: UH.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: They should be fair because they need the concurrence of
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: the people that over which it has control. It is
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: able to take your personal liberty and property from you.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: It ought to be fair. It ought to be perceived
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: as fair. Golf is just a sport. If you don't
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: like its rules, find another sport. The rules in golf
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: have only one simple obligations, very humble and modest, and
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: that is to make for an interesting game. It has
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: no aspirations to uh to to being moral, or to
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: be fair or just or you know other synonyms for
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: the word fairness. It is not like a legal system
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: that has various restraints on it. The one example that
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: of the Purvis and other reformers bring up time and
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: time again and AJ Robertson in golf conducts I think
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: two different surveys on the topic trying to tease out
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: support for the idea is the stymy. The steymy was
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: particularly irksome to Purvis and Robertson, Robertson and others because
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: you could be stymied even after a good shot. You
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: were punished. The punishment you incurred had nothing to do
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: with the quality of the shot you hit.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: And it had relatively little to do with the quality
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: of the shot that your opponent hit because it was
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: essentially random, right, and so it.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Really the elimination of this of the stymy was a
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: buzzword for Purvis Robertson all through the eighteen as eighteen nineties.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: That it was finally eliminated in I think nineteen fifty
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: two or something like that, that it was finally eliminated
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: would have had John Lowe spinning in his grave. He
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: thought that was an exquisite shot that you needed to
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: learn how to hit.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: That it was.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: It was one of the challenges of playing the game
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: that yes, there was an element of randomness to it,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: but then there ought to be in golf an element
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: of randomness that luck played a role and get used
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: to it, and you know, so that was that was
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: his hobby horse. In terms of golf architecture, it was
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: much similar sorts of concerns. Which is that, which is
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: that the goal of a course like Royal St. George's
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: at the time is you're right. It's going through several
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: changes since, including the elimination of the uh the maiden
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: hole and other holes, but the whole concept was to
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: minimize randomness by way of a golf course that tested,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: you know, fairly as objectively as it could the physical
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: ability to hit a golf ball quote far and sure
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: and Purpose goes on to say that in the in
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: the mid when when uh, when Saint When George Saint
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: George's comes under criticisms in it. Finally in the eighteen nineties,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: he says, look, there's one distinguishing feature for good golf,
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: and that's hitting the ball straight and long, and that's
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: what I want to test. The other stuff is just draws,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: uh and and my course does that. And that's the
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: idea that again there is he gives a there is
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: a kind of shot that has an independent status for
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Purpose and that's the good long straight shot. Everything is
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: built around rewarding that shot. The obvious response was from
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: low was well, that might be in some situations the
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: right shot hip, but it might not be in other situations.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: So at any rate, I could go on.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: But yeah, very familiar to anyone who has heard a
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: current day professional golfer talk about the game and what
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: should be rewarded. Randall Shambly is obsessed with Foreignsure, so
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: these ideas about what should be rewarded and prioritized in golf,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: through its architecture, through its rule rules, are still very
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: much part of how we discuss the game now. The
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: the counter arguments to that kind of seemingly rationalist position
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: that the main thing about golf is hitting it long
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: and straight. The counter arguments to that can sometimes be
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit romantic sounding. Golf is like life. Life
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: has an element of luck and randomness. Therefore golf should
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: imitate life and introduce these chaotic factors intentionally, even through
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: golf course design. That is kind of a bit of
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: a romantic argument that might be easy to dismiss. It's like, okay,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: just go on about that. You know, golf is like life.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: What people might start rolling their eyes. But I think
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: the maybe more persuasive argument, not necessarily more valid, but
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: maybe more persuasive to a larger amount of people, is
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: that when when you completely rationalize a golf course and
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: consistently reward good shots or or well struck shots in
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: a consistent way, golf just becomes a little bit more boring. Right.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: The thing that makes golf exciting a lot of times
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: is that element of chance, and without that, the game
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: just loses its interest to a degree. And I think
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: we see this in the holes that people want to
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: watch high level golfers play. The road hole, the fifteenth
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: hole at Augusta National, the postage stamp at Royal Troon.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: These holes have a big element of luck about them,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of why we want to watch them.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: We know that high level players can hit a consistent shot,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: and a golf course that just rewards them in a
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: a perfectly predictable way is you know, it might be fair,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: it might identify the best golfer or whatever, but over
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: the long term, it's not going to be particularly interesting
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: to watch. We want to see luck enter the game
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: at some moments, and that's not always fair. So the
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: two different kinds of arguments there, golf is like life,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: a little bit romantic. Some people might dismiss it. Golf
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: needs to be exciting, and it's only exciting when it's unpredictable.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: That might be an argument that would gain a little
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: more purchase with more people. Is that is the way
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about that valid? Do you think?
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Love didn't make it argument about golf is like life,
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: but he did make arguments about golf should be this look,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: should have a factor, should if you play a role,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: I would come at it slightly differently, and this or
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: low would come at it slightly differently. Los in some
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: respects of snob. So was Alis firm McKenzie or so
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: as Harry Cole. So is a lot of them Bernard Darwin,
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: for one, Lowe is a snob in this sense. And
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: I'm getting at your question. Believe it or not. It
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: wasn't so much that he thought golf ought to be
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: more like life, with all of its ups and downs.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: It's that golf ought to be a sport that appeals
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: to the educated, sophisticated, Edwardian gentleman. And that means it
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: can't be a unidimensional, a single dimensional kind of sport
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: where do you hit the ball well or not? It
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: ought to have a whole bunch of factors that figure
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: into how you play the game. He says at one
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: point that you know, artisans and middle class people like
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: to just have these simple tests where they go out
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: and they try to hit balls. It is it is
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: the it is the more sophisticated and he uses the
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: word educated gentleman that has a different kind of taste
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: for sport, and that's what he thinks golf ought to
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: be oriented towards. McKenzie in the spirit of Saint Andrews,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: I think, says something very very similar. By the way,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: who notes Blow as the father of modern golf architecture
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: I think six times in that book. But that's who
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: he wants to appeal to, and and it's not the
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: touchy feely sort of artsy FARTSI stuff. He wants to
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: appeal to the sophisticated gentlemen. That doesn't fly today. You
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: can't say that today unless you're in an interview with
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Garrett Morrison. But that is certainly I think part of
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: what is the appeal of people like Doak and Courk
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Crenshaw and other people is that they're they're they're they're
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: trying to their golf courses require a reasonable amount of
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: sophisticated thought. Some people don't like that, don't want to
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: be bothered, and that's fine, but some people do. And
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: I think the best golf courses do require a certain
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: level of thought, reflection, and analysis. The holes you mentioned
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: are three or four of many that do. So that's
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: what Lowe is trying to recover from the crusades that
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Purvis was on to change over golf to a more
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: purely athletic sport.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: It's an effort to make a golf course worthy of
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: as much thought and analysis as a work of literature
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: or a painting, right where where there are layers to
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: peel away, where there are elements that are unexpected and
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: sometimes even provocative. The more you make a golf course
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: kind of scientifically laid out and fair, the fewer of
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: those layers it has. It doesn't have those kind of
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: little rough edges to it. It has a kind of
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: predictable and rational form. But if you're if you're somebody
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: that that low was thinking about when he when he
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: talked about the educated person, you're thinking about somebody who
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: studied poetry and whereas an appreciation for artistic things, and
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: people who have that appreciation are kind of of the
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: tendency to appreciate things that are not just smoothed out
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: and rational, that have these little foreigny complexities that make
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: a piece of art interesting to consider. And it's almost
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: as if they were trying to bring golf course architecture
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: into the arts rather than into the sciences.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. In nineteen oh one, Lowe wrote
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: a long response to what was the famous rating golf
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: courses that Golf Illustrated head, and it was just his
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: first real articulation of the basics of strategic golf architecture.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: What's interesting about the piece is that his last long
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: paragraph in that piece begins with a sentence that says
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: something like the following. When Harry Varden stands on the
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: tee to the seventeenth told at the old Course, He's
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: presented with the problem that requires thought. It isn't just
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: a question of hitting a certain kind of addicted the
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: course dictating a certain kind of shot. He's got several
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: things to consider, and it's the architecture that promotes that
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: sort of response by golfer as good as Harry Varden
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: that we ought to try to emulate. That's where we
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: ought to try to go. Lowe was making an argument,
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: a very appealing argument for us today that seems to
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: be can make you tear up sometimes it's so wonderful.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: But remember at the time, he was fighting against what
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: he feared was going to be a takeover of golf
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: by a very different set of ideas, and and he
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: feared reasonably, I think that that was on its way
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: to happening. And he was the rear guard. He was
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: trying to recover the holes at the old course. He
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: was trying to rediscover what was in them that made
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: them so appealing to make a case against the Purvises.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: And it was it was somewhat desperate.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: There were real fears that they were going down with
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: the ship. And it turned out that they snatched victory
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: from the jaws of defeat.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: But but uh it it uh.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: He had both a he had recovering the the virtues
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: of the road hole was of a piece with beating
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: back the forces of reform coming up from south of
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: the Tweed.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: And that historical context is critically important, I think to
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: understanding the origins of modern golf. Architecture, modern golf period, rules,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: ball limitations, club limitations.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: All that.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: For low thought, in his heart of hearts, that the
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: appeal to fairness was really a way to avoid the
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: difficulties of the game.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: That that.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: It was. It was basically a way to smooth out
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: golf's rough edges. And that's why he was so adamant
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: in opposing it, because it was those rough edges that
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: mattered at the end of the day. That that the
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: the the movement for a fair game had in its
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: dark little heart a different agenda, which was which is
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: to make golf easier. Lowe believed that the non democratic
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: nature of the RNA Rules Committee was important in that regard.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: They were not subject to popular opinion, because if you
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: let popular opinion, if you let its nose under the tent,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: golf will automatically become a lot easier. And that's what
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: Purpose wanted to do. Purpose had advocated since eighteen eighty
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: five or so, up until the very last minute, the
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: formation of a British Golf Union that would be democratic,
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: that would be comprised of representatives from all the significant
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: clubs in Britain, including the RNA, but it would only
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: be one club, among many plans were made for setting
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: up the headquarters in London. It was on its way.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: That's sort of an organization subject to a popular vote,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: would have enacted very different rules from the one the
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: RNA was willing to enact, because it would have been
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: subject to popular pressures to make golf quote easier or
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: to smooth at its edges, so that sort of thing,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: much like as in golf architecture, as in the rules,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: there was a fight over similar sorts of core issues.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: You can't write this kind of history, and I'm trying
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: to write it right now without writing a very different
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: kind of golf history. This is not going to be
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: a history that talks about who won what golf tournament,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: and it's not gonna be a history about who designed
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: what golf course, although it'll be a little bit of that.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Those are sort of breaking down golf into some atomistic
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: sort of individual events, and you lose the forest for
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: the trees. I think golf has a long There are
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: long running themes in golf over which people have fought
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: generation after generation, including our generation, and those long running
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: themes really all begin to coalesce at about the same time,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: roughly eighteen ninety five nineteen hundred and writing about writing
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: that kind of a history of golf is a different
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: sort of enterprise and it's damn hard.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Well, Bob. I can't wait for your book to come out,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: no doubt about it, because it's going to contribute exactly
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: this kind of perspective on the history of the game,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: where we're talking about long running ideas that are still
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: relevant today and fairness is chief among us.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, no, I absolutely we tend to forget that.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: And this applies certainly to the voluminous writings on golf
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: architecture that you and I. We've all read those written polemically.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: They're not writing, they're not written descriptively. They're fighting fight Simpson, mckensey,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: low Cold, everybody. They're fighting against an enemy, and the enemy.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: There are there are stakes to what they're saying.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: There's stakes to what they're saying, and those polemics track
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: through the history of the game. It was always a
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: fight still is.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Well. Thank you very much for sitting down with me today, Bob.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: It's always a pleasure to talk with you. It's been
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: too long since the last time we had one of
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: our discussions, and I'll make sure to have you on
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: again soon.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Great enjoyed it. Thank you Garrett.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: This episode of Designing Golf was produced by Will Balsam.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you Will. If you have been enjoying Designing Golf,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: then first of all, leave us a rating, and you
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: wherever you happen to be listening to us and check
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: out Frida Egg Golf Club FEGC. Go to the Frida
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Egg dot com slash membership to see everything that we're
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: offering there. But we're building an awesome community of golf
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: enthusiasts in Friday Golf Club and we would love for
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: you to join us now. One of the most recent
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: benefits of an FEGC membership is the ability to enter
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: a design a Whole contest, which we're running with Andy Staples,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: the golf architect Andy Staples. Andy is building a par
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: three course called Ace Valley at Breezy Point Resort in Minnesota.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: One of the holes on this actual, physical, real golf
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: course is going to be a contest hole that is
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: designed by somebody in Frida Egg Golf Club. The hole
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: is going to be based on a template, So some
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: kind of famous green complex or whole from around the
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: world is going to be adapted to the site and
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: the idea dea is going to come from somebody in
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: f e GC. So check out the details of this
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: contest on the Frida egg dot com. We have all
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: the information there, but in order to enter, you need
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: to be a member of f e g C. So
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: if that sounds fun to you, then then join us
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: and let's do a design contest. I think it's going
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: to be pretty awesome. I can't wait to see what
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: our members come up with. All right, that's it, thank
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: you for listening, and we'll be back again soon with
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: another episode.