Architects Ian Andrew (left), Graham Cooke (centre) and Doug Carrick (right), speak with journalist Lorne Rubenstein yesterday at the About Golf seminar.
While the sun blazed in the sky yesterday, I spent the day indoors, participating in the RCGA’sGolf Canada’s latest seminar series about golf design, a group of events co-sponsored by the Stanley Thompson Society. Rarely, I think, have we seen such a gathering of top names, including Doug Carrick, Graham Cooke, Stephen Johnston, Ian Andrew, Peter Beresford, Ted Baker and David Moote. Oh, and Lorne Rubenstein from the Globe and Rick Young from Score was also there to round out the group.
It is always hard to determine the level of interest people have in these sorts of seminars, and Golf Canada was cleaerly a little worried about the potential turnout. In the end there were about 40 people there who weren’t participating in the seminar, including the GMs of St. Thomas, Cuttten Club, Sunningdale, Turtle Creek and Muskoka Lakes.
The issue from the start seemed to be focus. The day was ambitious — with numerous speakers and panels. Perhaps too ambitious. The lead speaker was Dr. Cecelia Paine from the University of Guelph who talked about landscapes as heritage properties. I found her discussion interesting, but it ended just as we were getting to the question of a golf course as a historically significant property. Should historically significant golf courses be protected? Is there even a way to do this considering it is a landscape on which a game is played?
These are interesting questions, but they weren’t really raised. Instead we received a disconnected discussion from Lionhead architect Ted Baker who seemed to simply say he didn’t like ponds and that he didn’t really understand the genius of Stanley Thompson. Needless to say it was a confusing talk, and one I could have done without. Interesting quote from Baker though: “Great golf courses don’t have ponds and every time I use a pond I feel guilty.” Fascinating considering the use of ponds at his designs like Royal Ontario.
From there the discussion moved to a discussion of golf and the environment led by Teri Yamada, an environmental expert relating to golf. Her panel was invaluable, and focused on all the recent environmental legislation and how it impacts golf. What a mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, with environmental activists ignoring science and politicians pandering. I loath Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty at the best of times, but his introduction of the cosmetic pesticide bill in 2008 had nothing to do with protecting his constituents and everything to do with pandering to voters (think Family Day here as well). Now golf courses in Ontario (starting in 2012) have to send fliers to all the people who live around their courses telling them what pesticides they used over the year, and hold public meetings that will only be attended by the whacky left-leaning environmentalists. Of course, as one insider said during the presentation, golf should have hired a lobbyist to tackle this issue a half-decade ago, but the organizations, including Golf Canada, and the National Golf Course Owners Association, couldn’t agree on anything. This might be the top issue facing the sport, and despite a study last year showing the economic windfall from golf, little is being done to lobby various provincial and federal governments. Or at least I haven’t heard of much — perhaps someone can enlighten me.
From there we switched gears and talked about the future of golf. This section was led by Stephen Johnston, a golf industry consultant. Johnston talked about the fallout of recession on the private golf business, which he says will lead to more unaccompanied golf play and the need for courses to find a niche and market to it. He said attrition rates at clubs is falling given longer lifespans of members, but finding members is harder and clubs have to work to attract families now.
“The key to success for these private clubs is finding a niche they can participate in,” he says.
While it was interesting, I didn’t think it actually touched on golf in the future, unless you consider that the game revolves entirely around private clubs. I was on the supporting panel and talked about Turnberry Golf Club, the new course in Brampton, and whether it is (with 16 par-3s and a couple of par-4s) a new model going forward. It is one that architect Graham Cooke, who was in the audience, seemed to like. At the very least, I’d have liked to talk about how new golf courses should look and play — but we never dealt with that.
The day ended with a direct and aggressive talk from Lorne Rubenstein. Lorne can occasionally be esoteric and philosophical when it comes to golf, but on this day he was direct and to the point. He pulled a photo out of a simple hole in England, a mid-length par-3 with a simple green and a single bunker. “It represents all of the values I think we need,” he said. “It represents the kind of game we need to get back to.”
From there he hit out at huge maintenance budgets, the notion that golf courses have pandered to the power game.
“Golf is a game,” he said. “We can use all the buzzwords we want, but we’ve gotten too far away from the game.”
He said we’ve become too worried about pristine conditioning, which raises the cost of the game, and golf architects and owners have built too many courses that are too expensive and can’t be walked, which Rubenstein feels is essential to the game of golf. At the same time Canadians travel to the UK to play, even though the fairways may have clover in them and not be manicured.
“We’re not going to get anywhere unless we ask what kind of game we’re going to leave to our kids in 10 or 20 years,” he concluded.
With that Doug Carrick, Ian Andrew and Graham Cooke joined Rubenstein on a panel to discuss golf design. It is hard for any of the designers to defend their record — Cooke and Carrick have built their share of 7,400 yard golf courses and Cooke seemed to defend the notion, saying golfers want different experiences. Interesting that the most successful courses the designers have been involved in — at least from a commercial perspective — are not always their most high-profile. Think Ballantrae for Andrew, Osprey Valley for Carrick, and Piper’s Heath in Milton by Cooke. None of these are the best-known courses by the respective designers, but all are affordable and popular.
What did the seminars, despite the lack of focus, demonstrate? That there are a lot of issues that need serious thought. But with only 40 people willing to come and participate — and they are the same people that have put in appearances at past seminars — it isn’t surprising that we haven’t managed to get much traction on environmental issues or educated people on golf design.
A bestselling author and award-winning columnist, Robert Thompson has been writing about business and sports, and particularly golf, for almost two decades. His reporting and commentary on golf has appeared in 
Wasn’t McBroom slated to participate? What did Moote have to say?
Love the comments about the environmentalists and their issue du jour on pesticides. Same sort of lunacy happening here, though golf courses are exempt for the moment. But the activists want them banned there as well.
I was wondering who is the architect of record at Ballantrae, and for that matter, St. George’s
Ballantrae was routed by Doug and designed by Ian, if my understanding is correct. St. George’s was restored by Ian, while the current work is under Doug.
McBroom didn’t show up and Moote was limited to the environmental panel.
So to get back to my question, who would be the architect of record on both courses.
Your call. I’m not particularly concerned with the “architect of record,” but who did the work. I’ve always thought of St. George’s as Ian’s work as he was the only one basically involved in the bunker job, a fact confirmed by the superintendent and the GM at the time. Doug is the consulting architect now.
Ballantrae was a Carrick routing and Andrew’s pespective and greens. I’ve always thought of it as part of Ian’s work.
I think you can’t see the woods for the trees on this one, Richard.
Where are you going with this?
I don’t know of any courses other than Ballantrae and St. George where one person is the architect and the other person takes the credit for the design.
That is where I am going.
Give credit where credit is due. Period.
Ever heard about Jim Urbina at Pacific Dunes? Or Bruce Charlton at Chambers Bay? Or even McBroom’s former associate at Green Gables? They’ve all taken some degree of credit for work done while working for others. What about Darrel Huxham — he will openly say he did certain courses while working with Graham Cooke.
You’ve been in the business too long to sound this naive.
Beyond that Dick, Ian wasn’t taking the credit — I was offering it up, as it is my perspective. He contends the work at St. George’s is his — and you can take that up with him. As for Ballantrae, he doesn’t list it on his current site, so I believe the credit is to Doug.
Given this line of reasoning, I could say (and never would) that I designed many of Robbie Robinson’s golf courses,
The main difference would be, in my opinion is that I was not an employee of Robbie Robinson, but in your other examples, they were subordinates of their employer. That is gratitude.
To say I am naive is a little over the top.
The architect of record for St. George’s is Stanley Thompson.
The architect of record for Ballantrae is Doug Carrick.
Any reason provided why McBroom didn’t show up?
The issue of credit is a longstanding one when it comes to associates – it still comes down to Employee and Employer
Dick: What difference does this make, really? I mean Jed Azinger claimed on this site that you took his routing and built Otter Creek on it.
Besides, I think this is beyond the point I was trying to make. What I was attempting to suggest was that Ian had a significant role in creating an affordable public course, as has Doug and Graham, as have you.
I think that’s a more important point — as opposed to who gets credit. I think you and I know who did what where, but I suspect it doesn’t matter to many outside of some industry insiders.
Maybe you can put some context on your questions — or explain why you’re bringing this up, since it wasn’t the point of what I wrote. Naive may have been strong, but you’re taking a circuitous route to get to your point.
Weekender: No idea why he wasn’t there.
re. those “whacky left-leaning environmentalists”
Actually they won’t show up – they’ll all be down at the Gulf of Mexico cleaning up the seabirds. What a bunch of suckers! Good thing nobody listened to them about offshore oil drilling.
Yes, I agree no ponds. Who needs ponds. Such is the case at Royal Ontario that all the ponds are connected to the main irrigation resevoir (#9/#18). If needed they can be drained down and used for irrigation, which I believe was Bakers intention. I don’t beleive that their primary use was for strategic design. But who needs ponds? Stanely who? I too am sometimes confused with all the fuss over Thompson (both Robert and Stanely). How many courses are still intact from original design? How many have been tinkered with. How many would be considered dumps because of lack of maintenance and budgetary spending. Sure he has some good ones but at times the man seems to be more famous for his legend than for his designs (stanely).
Off to clean some birds and ponder the meaning of Thompson(s).
getting back to your column I think 40 is a large turnout for golf design, and why is the RCGA involvd. Did Ted Baker design the firts holke at Lionhead? it sucked bigtime no one in the filed of the ProL:ady could reach the green over the hazard. sorry for spelling, stck in Barbados airport
Gary: “Why is the RCGA involved?” I guess because nobody else will step up to bat. Instead of questioning, why not just give credit to Karen Hewson and her crew for putting this (and other seminars) together?
Congratulations to Karen Hewson and her team for putting together the recent discussion forum. Any golf discussion is great and she had some of the best there.
Matt, before people step up to bat they need to know what the game is all about. 40 people surely do not represent the number of RCGA reps at clubs in Ontario alone.
Sorry Gary, I’m not following your line of thinking here. That 40 people bothered to show up is no reflection of the seminar itself or its planning. It is a reflection of how apathetic most Canadian golfers are when carts and beer aren’t involved.
Matt, I agree 100% as per my first comment saying 40 is good.
were you there?
I don’t think it is all that curious that only 40 people attended. Working in this industry and spending the good part of 6 days away from my wife and kids on a weekly basis, I do find it difficult to explain to them I would spend a Sunday away for work.
I find it interesting in that all the comments that follow the article have almost nothing to do with the intent of the seminar. People should be coming away from such things with a renewed perspective so that insights can be garnered and shared to give the industry what it needs to remain strong.