TEPaul,
Anything that diminshes the effect of the WIND can't be good for golf.
Ergo, trees that create seperation and privacy are not good for golf.
TOC is the posterchild for non-private or OPEN golf.
Seminole now has the same look and feel, open.
Shinnecock and NGLA also present an open field of play.
And, golf at all of those courses is better because of the enhanced value and influence of the WIND.
What you, and the other idiots forget is that golf is about the play of the game on a specially prepared field of play, and not about the whims of pansies and snobs who don't want to see other golfers, or for other golfers to see them.
It was in fact, your great, great, grandfather, Drexel Ronson Ingnatious Paul who began the fad of planting trees at a courses in and around Philadelphia.
Drexel Ronson Ingatious Paul, known as the DRIP, not due to his initials, but, due to a severe bladder problem, began planting thousands of trees at GMCC so that he would have ample locations upon which to relieve himself, in privacy, during the course of his round.
Since he belonged to 53 clubs in the Philadelphia area, it wasn't long before the Dripper had created tree lined fairways throughout the region.
Then, he began Summering in Rhode Island, Massachussetts and Long Island, then Wintering in Florida and California. And, where ever he went, trees followed on all of the fairways of the courses he played.
Unbeknownst to many is that fact that he was the second largest stockholder in the Weyerhaeuser Company.
All this under the guise of privacy.
In minutes, taken from several board meetings, it's noted that he claimed that the tree plantings were to "keep the eyes of the peasants from prying into the affairs of the gentry.
What was hidden from his fellow members and the public, but, widely known to his attending physicians, was that he had a huge bladder, but a tiny PP. And that the trees were for no other purpose than to hide his tininess when he was forced to reveal it in the process of relieving himself no less than 72 times per round. That also accounts for the phrase, "that's par for the course". It had nothing to do with golf, and everything to do with relief.
His most hideous crime was when he joined Pine Valley, an open, Sahara like golf course. Yet, in the second year of his membership, when passengers on a passing train noticed a golfer with a pencil like PP relieving himself behind the 14th green, thousands upon thousands of trees were planted. They lined every fairway, every open space was planted with hundreds of saplings and mature trees.
And, what did he tell the Board ?
That he was planting these trees to keep the prying eyes of the human freight that was riding the rails between Atlantic City and Philadelphia from encroaching upon the privacy of the gentry.
And now, some 80 years later, you cleverly create a diversionary thread about privacy. A thread that is nothing more than subterfuge to obfiscate and divert attention from recent rumors of the "Paul Curse". The ""Tiny"" Paul Curse"
Where are Tom MacWood and Dave Moriarty when you need them ?