I started this thread only because I saw a news story that I thought would be of interest to some, in a lighthearted sort of way. I'm amazed at the legs it has , but that's life, and GCA.
However, the more I hear the apologists like Tom's I and II try to justify trees, the more I get into the camp of redanman and Chip, for the following reasons:
1. If you've ever lived in treeland (the Northeast--I have, I grew up there) you will know that, unchecked, the whole bloody place will be infested with trees in a generation or so, not matter what the land looked like to start with. I grew up on a place called "Pasture" Lane because it has been a pasture, and was in fact a barren field when my parents built their house.. 30 years later it was a hardwood forest.
2. So, golf courses are completely "unnatural" in this environment. To build them you either have to find a pasture than has been cultivated for generations, or chop down a helluva lotta trees. If you don't keep cutting them down, at the sapling stage (they are randy little buggers), they are going to take over your course, eventually.
3. But not golf courses on links land, where trees can only really grow with either a wee bit of anomalous shelter, or through man's hand.
4. So, in this environment, where golf started and was nurtured, trees were a pestilence, and not an architectural feature. The fact that well meaning people call them the latter, in the US and elsewhere is only because they have no alternative.......except the obvious one--CUT all the bastards down!
5. Sure you can rationalize a tree as a "feature" just as you can rationalize the Old Coures Hotel as a feature in St. Andresws. In either case, they suck and are inimicable to the game.
How many other people on this site would love to see places like Merion and Pine Valley and Cypress Point and NGLA and Olympic COMPLETELY naked! Bring us your architecture only then, bitches!.........to quote the legenday curious JJ........