Newport On Architecture As Art; Kuehne

Thanks to reader John for a pair of John Paul Newport stories in the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Report. The first looks at golf architecture as an art form, and includes a nice plug for GolfClubAtlas.com:

These days the best talkin' about golf aesthetics is done by course-architecture buffs, particularly the crowd that congregates online at GolfClubAtlas.com. (If you aren't familiar with the Web site, I recommend it.) In course reviews and forums there, a consensus has developed about what makes for the best courses: holes that blend naturally into the landscape, a variety of strategic options off the tee, routings that ebb and flow in pleasant ways, and occasional eccentric features that bring luck into play.

So naturally the story then includes a photo of the complete manufactured, strategy-free Shadow Creek, with this caption:

The Art of Golf: Golf-course designs (like Tom Fazio's Shadow Creek, top) can tap into some of the same emotions as landscapes like Cezanne's.

The other Newport story focuses on Trip Kuehne's life as an amateur golfer, and includes this motivational quote I know you'll all be jotting down for your whiteboards:

Mr. Kuehne, 34, has a compact, muscular build reminiscent of Bobby Jones's and wears his hair in a fifties-style crew cut. On the day we met last week, he was wearing corduroy trousers with a long-sleeved black pullover shirt, and sat at his desk in front of a large whiteboard scrawled with company "battle plans," client call lists and motivational messages such as "Master the ability to move people -- control the mood, mindset and pace."

Oy. And this claim is a bit hard to believe:

To balance work and golf, Mr. Kuehne is ruthlessly organized. He plays in only seven or eight tournaments a year, chosen for their point-generating impact on the amateur rankings and for promoting his selection to international teams such as the Walker Cup. Between October and April, he rarely picks up his clubs.