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The process that leads
to the creation of a golf course is shaped by culture.
Creating a golf course entails engineering (computer technology),
making (construction), packaging and marketing (mass appeal),
comparing and rating (mass media) and the people (fame and
notoriety).
This is what it takes
today to be a designer -- not just to envision but to create
something that will resonate with various audiences - whether
golfers, fellow architects or even the media. For a moment,
it might be instructive to play the role of a visionary, only to
do so retrospectively. Look back at a time before the
present culture overtook the past, when nature was a refuge, when
art was influenced by ideas of nature, when natural artists
defined culture by showing links between human and natural
worlds.
For our use in
creating a course, modern culture has equipped us with computer
software, large earthmoving equipment and the opinions of golfers
and writers. Yet, the past resource - nature - has been
redefined by packaging and marketing and replaced by the term
"environmentally friendly", a description with mass
appeal that downplays how we imposed our will on the land.
The creative process
employed in course design should begin with a face-to-face
encounter with land and nature. In this way, the architect
is more willing to cooperate with nature, not impose a will to
make it conform. This is a
land-based
architect. Every project seems vast or difficult in the
beginning. Technology makes almost anything possible;
problems can be solved on paper and with money.
Hard work on the land
and confronting the realities of these difficult problems are not
necessary because the architect can work a solution on paper
without leaving the office, and technology and money can implement
the solution. This can make the land-based architect anxious
when confronted with difficult problems caused by wetlands, steep
slopes, contiguous forests and awkward parcels caused by property
lines.
Given these difficult
constraints, can we find a course on this land, or must we leave
it to the big machines to rearrange the land to make a
course? Why try too hard to work with nature if we have the
modern technology and wealth to impose the kind of beauty that has
mass appeal?
Land-based design
requires a specific engagement with nature. This engagement
is a satisfying creative process. All of the cultural
pressures - technology, marketing, mass media, public expectations
- are suspended when the land-based architect straps on boots and
goes on the land to become immersed in discovery and curiosity.
The persistent,
land-based architect walks the land repeatedly. The feeling
of anxiety is replaced by exhilaration that comes from the
awareness of the land's subtle qualities.
Through a slow process
- slow when comparing three days walking the land with four hours
in the office scratching on a base map - the land-based architect
discovers how the course strategy connects with nature - the
terrain, plants, soil, drainage, wind and light.
By trusting discovery,
the period of walking the land looking for the natural golf hold
becomes humbling and gratifying. Will this approach
yield a good course? Where's the give? Where's the
take? Is this approach relevant to the game? With a
kind of blind faith, the land-based architect ventures out to find
the energy in the land. Egotism, arrogance and the desire
for recognition give way to a wild delight in the beauty and
infinite space of the landscape. Routing begins to emerge
from the land rather than being forced upon it, as happens so
often when working on paper or computer screen.
When returning to the
office or home, anxiety sometimes creeps back. Have I missed
opportunities? Am i going to get the most out of the natural
features? Am I going to create a seamless experience that
captures the best of the land's natural features into the strategy
of the course? Again, these doubts usually are erased with
the next visit to the land.
Land-based design
embodies the course with a majestic decorum that we never tire of
seeing. Land-based design reinstalls reason and faith into
the creative design process.
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