Rick S: I think it's an overstatement to imply that members of clubs everywhere are hell bent to change their greens. A lot of clubs are watching their bottom line and aren't about to pony up for a $1 million or $2 million restoration, whether it's justified or not.
However, I do think that many clubs are jumping on the "restoration bandwagon" as a result of it being popularized in several forums ... everywhere from the Ross and MacKenzie societies to the ASGCA's "Remodeling University" to Golf Club Atlas ... without any clear idea of whether they have cause to or not.
One prominent example in my own experience is Holston Hills Country Club. The golf course has been exceptionally well preserved from the early years, and the first time I saw it in the late 1980's, I thought all it really needed was some tree clearing and putting sand in a handful of bunkers which had been grassed over.
When I first started consulting there, in about 1994 or 95, they didn't know if they wanted to spend the money to buy sand for those bunkers! Then in 1998 they suddenly decided to rebuild the greens to USGA specs [on the advice of the USGA Green Section and their new, now ex-, superintendent], and they relied mostly on a contractor to get the contours back where they were supposed to be. Now, they want to rebuild most or all of the bunkers on the course, next year.
I did not recommend either of those big projects; I tried to talk them out of both. They were carried through club politics by well-intentioned green chairmen or presidents who wanted to put the club's money back into the golf course, instead of some budget-busting clubhouse renovation.
Some of the clubs which HAVE spent big dollars on their renvoations just blow me away. Lahinch is another ... I think most of the work done there is quite good, but it all stems from a "safety audit" and from the members going to too many MacKenzie Society dinners where other clubs were boasting about THEIR restoration work.