Golf vs. the Artificial Intelligence Machines

Joseph LaMagna: Garrett, let’s get a little bit existential.

I’m curious how you’re doing with the AI takeover. The replacement of humans by machines and outsourcing our brains to our AI overlords. Last week, The Atlantic published a piece on how a once-theoretical AI-controlled world is already here. Everywhere you look, you can see AI’s fingerprints. And it has happened fast.

What percentage of writing is original anymore? Business emails, social media posts, sports articles — at this point, AI-generated writing is ubiquitous. I can only imagine what’s happening in high school English classrooms right now. Every essay must feel like it’s been run through the same, digitized central repository of knowledge. Like it lacks humanity.

Across domains, instead of working through challenges and struggling through the process of finding answers ourselves, we’re letting machines do the thinking and the work for us. We’re becoming a world of Trackman thinkers, so to speak.

I wonder what you think this means for the golf world, especially in your field of expertise: golf course architecture. Not the technological tools that will be used (like LiDAR) but the process of ceding creative expression from humans to machines. Will technology push us toward homogeneity in golf course design philosophy, just as other creative domains feel homogenized? Or will the opposite be true: that humans rebel against sameness and that originality, imperfection, and ruggedness will be at a premium in a world increasingly textured by AI?

Garrett Morrison: You've asked some weighty questions here, Joseph. I’ll offer some initial answers, and maybe you can help me find a coherent line of thought somewhere amid them. (Oh God, I’m about to do a list, and lists are a marker of AI-generated writing, aren't they?)

1. I haven't seen much evidence that AI specifically is nudging golf architecture toward greater homogeneity. In fact, I don't get the impression that many current golf course designers have incorporated AI tools into the critical aspects of their workflows, or are all that interested in doing so. This isn't surprising, given that most of today's top architects are a) on the older side, and b) genuinely devoted to site-specific, human-driven methods of design and construction.

That said, I'm sure some golf architects have dabbled with AI (especially for generating imagery, which I'll address in a second) but are reluctant to admit as much to a curmudgeonly architecture writer from Fried Egg Golf.

2. On a 2023 episode of the mothership podcast, I interviewed Peter Flory, one of the minds behind the LiDAR-assisted reproduction of the Lido in Wisconsin, about his experiments with new-age digital technologies. He convinced me that the most important application of AI in golf architecture would be in the creation of digital renderings. Because consumer-grade text-to-image models are now available at low cost, anyone can create detailed, realistic images of golf courses with just a paragraph of instructions.

Of course, the quality of this output is generally pretty “mid,” as the kids say. Just look at these AI-tinged renderings of Tom Fazio's proposed redesign of East Potomac Golf Links. They are the equivalent of a chatbot-generated essay on the symbolism of the green light in “The Great Gatsby”: slick, anodyne, devoid of unexpected details, and dreadfully unoriginal.

At the same time, Peter Flory himself has used AI to produce some attractive renderings of imaginary golf landscapes.

So a lot still depends on the intelligence and creativity of the human input. If your instructions to the machine are generalized and conventional, you'll get generalized and conventional material in return. Slop in, slop out.

3. Speaking of which, I think slop — not necessarily the sudden, broad availability of chatbots and text-to-image systems — is the actual threat we should focus on combating. In case you haven’t kept up with Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year selections, "Slop" is the internet's go-to epithet for mass-produced digital content that bears the hallmarks of AI generation. (And I do realize that invoking Merriam-Webster while defining a key term is a rather slop-tastic technique.)

But I don't understand slop as a new phenomenon. AI has simply supercharged its production.

Look at the history of golf course design. During the real estate boom of the 1980s and 90s, a handful of large golf architecture firms churned out a great deal of what might fairly be called slop: repetitive, placeless, anonymous courses lined by cookie-cutter houses. These weren't created by AI, but they might as well have been.

In reaction to this trend, the likes of Bill Coore and Tom Doak emphasized site specificity, historical homage, and human craft. And golfers responded enthusiastically. Coore's 1996 design at Sand Hills achieved immediate acclaim, as did Doak's work at Pacific Dunes five years later.

So yes, the spread of generative AI will inject a lot of dead-eyed, worthless crud into our cultural ecosystem. Simultaneously, though, I believe it will prompt a revolt — perhaps among just a small subset of the population at first (and that’s okay!) — against anything that gives off a sloppish aroma. And this could, as you suggest, encourage a renewed taste and discernment for "originality, imperfection, and ruggedness" in all forms of art, including golf architecture. Which I would love to see.

That might be overly optimistic, but I’m going with it. You have to be optimistic about something these days.

Joseph: Well, Garrett, I appreciate (and share) much of your optimism. Though I regret to inform you that another dead-eyed, worthless piece of crud has entered the golfsphere.

As highlighted by our colleague Brendan Porath on social media, “Duff Foreman,” a completely fake, AI-powered persona, will join Notah Begay and Ryan Burr in the commentary booth at next week’s New Mexico Open. “Notah brings the lived experience — what it feels like standing on 18 with a one-shot lead, I bring the measured layer,” Foreman told KOAT, an ABC-affiliated outlet in Albuquerque.

Ah, yes, “the lived experience.” A totally normal way to describe humanity.

Admittedly, of all the potential dangers AI presents, I’m not too worried about Mr. Foreman. I don’t think Jim Nantz is going to be replaced by a bot anytime soon. Plus, I must acknowledge that there is great fun to be had with AI-powered golf bots, as we discovered at this year’s PGA Championship with the PGA of America’s chatbot.

Still, continuing to blur the lines between reality and fiction feels like a dangerous road to keep plowing down, particularly when it comes to realistic renderings of fake people. I know it isn’t that big of a deal, but something feels deeply off about giving a machine a face, a name, and a personality, and dropping it into a broadcast booth alongside real human beings as though it’s just another member of the team. Shrink!

Anyway, I hope Mr. Foreman crushes it in the booth next week and blazes a trail for future generations of AI-powered bots looking to break into sports commentary.

Garrett: I’m not sure any line from any movie has stood the test of time better than this one from Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

That about sums up my thoughts on “Duff Foreman.”

Sometimes we publish articles under the by line of The Coop when it's truly a team effort.