Having just lost a detailed response to Sean's post at the vagaries of GCA.com, let me simply say this:
--The answers which have been posted, IMHO, have generally been good if you're preaching to the choir, but rather less effective if not. Tim seems to be winning the argument to me, here - I'm more convinced by his opinion than I was at the start of the thread, which for me says something about the quality of counter-arguments thus far presented.
--Honest, well-argued disagreement should be welcomed, shouldn't it? I don't find anything remotely stubborn or nonsensical, never mind "self-centered" (to quote a recent post), about Tim's position, which is not something I can say about all of his detractors...for that matter, Tim's position is quite moderate anyway, wanting only a rough idea about where some pins are only on holes with large and hidden or semi-hidden greens, and therefore hardly worthy of such forceful criticism.
--Why is visual acuity deemed by some to be an important skill to have in golf, when the game has evolved in a direction - whereby it is easy to generate precise yardages on the vast majority of courses - which invalidates that skill? The skill set needed to escape bunkers before Gene Sarazen invented/popularised the sand wedge is far different than what it is now; should we all become Luddites and go back to life without them? Sure, there are some people who refuse to invest in modern technology, or even step backwards in time to the era of hickories and gutties on a regular basis, but let's not confuse such ideas with anything mainstream.
--The ridiculous thing is that great architecture often succeeds by causing you to disbelieve the facts you have in your possession - even when you calculate a yardage and have that knowledge in your possession, it tricks you into trusting your eyes instead of your brain and thereby disowning that knowledge. Taking that knowledge away altogether turns golf into less of a sport and more of a hobby, which I suppose is fine if you don't play golf as a sporting contest but less so if you do, whereas giving that knowledge back does not invalidate the greatness of any great architecture. (Some of the arguments here sound like the Catholic church's insistence on withholding Bibles from their lay congregations, on the grounds that directly disseminating such knowledge was dangerous, around the time the Protestant Reformation was popularising their individual usage...)
Cheers,
Darren