…no hole is a good one unless it has one or more hazards in a direct line of a hole. Max Behr, who is one of the best American golf architects, states that the direct line to the hole is the line of instinct, and that to make a good hole you must break up that line in order to create the line of charm.

ALISTER MACKENZIE

No fraternity of characters was more charismatic, literate or humorous than the architects practicing golf course design from the turn of the 20th century until the Great Depression when the Bobby Jones-inspired golf boom came to an end.

Culled from a variety of sources, the following quotes, notes and anecdotes reveal the brilliance of the game’s most eccentric artists: the master architects from golf’s "Golden Age."

By no means does this collection provide a complete representation of each architect who ever offered an opinion during the “Golden Age” of golf design.” Instead, this is a compilation of the best things written by architects noted for their courses and their insights. Some names you will know, others may seem anonymous. The only qualification required for inclusion was a design credit to their name and eloquent thoughts worth savoring.


From Sports Media Group
October 2005
$19.95, 184 pages, Hardcover with end sheets featuring architect signatures

Lines of Charm features over 100 illustrations, including period advertisements, cartoons, architect caricatures, architect sketches and other course design related artwork

Each chapter is introduced with a classic anecdote followed by quotes on these topics:

Golf And Architecture
The Old Course at St. Andrews
Links
How the Game Torments the Adventurous Soul
The Architect
Standardization and Local Knowledge
Planning and Construction
Upkeep
Strategy
Hazards
Water Hazards
The Golfing Landscape
Trees
The Redan
Approaches and Greens
Blindness
Slipping into the Rough
Committees, Players and Criticism
The Ball Problem
The Architects (Appendix bios)



Just some lines of charm:

The real test of a course: is it going to live?  H.S. Colt

A hazardless golf links is Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, or whisky and soda without the whisky. It is insipid and uneventful, that is, it is not a golf links.  Horace Hutchinson

The only course that will remain difficult under all conditions will be one that is designed and kept for golf of a stereotyped, monotonous character, and this makes a most uninteresting proposition.  Bobby Jones

Don’t be afraid to ask your architect questions, for if he is a true master of his craft he will not only welcome them but also discuss them. Surely I have had some queer theories advanced and some absurd suggestions have prompted a short answer. It is a bad habit and as I grow older I am trying to break it. A.W. Tillinghast

A badly routed and planned course can be improved, but it rarely can be made perfect. It is analogous to a bad fitting coat. Alister MacKenzie

Putting greens to a golf course are what the face is to a portrait. C.B. Macdonald

Time was, and not so many years ago, when a hole 400 yards long on average ground was a good two-shot hole for the star players; now, the same hole is perhaps a drive and spade for the better class golfers. William Flynn