Of interest mostly to golfers though anyone interested in beautiful landscape should read it

From Bauhaus to Golf Course: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of the Art of Golf Course Architecture.

via 2blowhards.com

UPDATE: I have changed the title of this posting to delete the word "terrific" because the use of that word use on another blog -- you know who you are and the it shouldn't matter to anyone else -- is so indiscriminate and applied to even the worst reactionary cant that it has debased the word for me. When everything is "terrific" "sensational" "inspired" "brilliant" then I know that the blogger can't really have actually read very carefully. It's nice to cheer-lead but I like a little critical discrimination as well.

Comments

[Hal O'Brien]

It is a nice piece.

On the other hand, he's got some inaccurate (though admirable) premises. Take this quote:

"The art community would benefit from exposure to golf architecture simply because the best courses, such as Alister MacKenzie's Cypress Point on the Monterey Peninsula, are things of astonishing beauty..."

"Art" isn't about beauty anymore (alas). It's mostly about class distinctions ("Ah, my dear boy, you just don't understand..."), with side helpings of illustrating the manifesto / catalog / whatever.

(Cf. here both Wolfe's The Painted Word, and Steiner's Venus In Exile.)

So if all that golf course architecture has to offer is beauty, well, it'll never catch on in Artville.

(My objection to golf courses, having lived in California for so long, is the shudder I have at the idea of enough water and labor to maintain an area quoted as larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. I wonder what percentage of our water and energy deficits could be re-couped just by closing down golf courses. I understand that, once upon a time, Phoenix didn't ever used to be humid...)

[David Sucher]

I agree that the water is an issue but it is not an insurmountable one. The solution is to follow what I believe is the British approach and to allow the fairways to brown out when it is dry. Now that does put a crimp on golf in Palm Spings. But elsewhere, it is a real possibility. The difficulty is a "cultural" one -- the Augusta fairway lawn carpet is what people think of when they think golf.

The 'dry' game is a faster one with longer and less predictable rolls than the wet one of always-green fairways. But it is real golf.

[Brian Miller]

David: does all the grass dry out in Scotland? Because if they don't irrigate down here, you don't get dried grass necessarily. You get star thistle. I can see a golf game played in Star Thistle (almost impossible to eradicate). At least it would discourage middle aged men from wearing short pants :)