David,
Great care must be given when dependence on individual "quotes" from architects, past or present, become an important and potentially deciding factor on an issue facing a club's long-term state. Especially is this so where tree removal, and plantings by the way, are the subject.
For example, In an article in the May 1932 issue of Golf Illustrated titled "Trees on the Course," Tilly wrote, "I find one of the greatest joys of my profession in working among the trees, for I cannot conceive an inland course without them. I like many."
If during your presentation you seem dependent upon what was said to make your point, how can your position but fail if someone stands and shares this Tilly quote?
Just as Wayne said about Flynn, I, too, echo about Tilly. He didn't have a philosophy of trees on a golf course that was all-encompassing; rather, he approached each course, and onm some occasions, individual holes within a course, separately.
The first questions you should be asking is, 'What was the design intent of the architect as to shot angles and course playability?'
Shot angles has become almost a mantra among those who espouse wholesale tree removals, citing the inability of players to advance a shot because their ball came to rest either behind or under a tree. They claim that an 'option' to advance the ball or go for the green is taken away by the mere existence of the offending monstrosity. He is quite wrong in this.
Shot Angles are what the architect built into the design to encourage and punish what he conceived as the proper route and way to play a hole.
For example, a well-placed fairway bunker can both reward and punish a shot with the deciding factor simply being the ball rolling a few feet more forward or sideways than another. Do we say that the bunker has removed shot angles by doing so? No, rather we declare this as strategy and play result based upon choices of shots offered previously.
Really, is it any different with trees used properly as part of a design? For example, Tilly also wrote, "It is likely that the building of inladn courses through trees has developed the holes of dog-leg character as nothing else could have done."
No, tress, even large amounts of them, are an important design aspect to many of the golf courses in America and properly so.
This does not mean that they should not be removed where they improperly impact on a hole's playability or health of its turf. To the contrary, "But often we find a large copse or a thick forest which must be penetrated. Those who grieve because of this necessity fully do not realize that opening up the fairway will not be a program of indiscriminate destruction but rather a painstaking effort to cut through in such a manner as to bring to view the best trees which long have been hidden away among unlovely companions."
Tilly wrote that a year earlier in Golf Illustrated in another article also titled "Trees on the Golf Course."
My suggestion, concentrate on what the Raynor had in ind when he designed your course back in the 1920's and carefully examine his plans. Do they show trees at all? If not then maybe that part of the design wasn't included. If they do, especially if they show large stands in areas where holes are routed but would not be part of any play, then it is most likely that these are plans which he was making a definitive statement on as per tree locations.
Concentrate on the health of the turf first for waht golf course ever is considered of any real beauty if the grass is hideous or diseased?
By the way, you might mention that over 9,00 trees were taken down on Bethpage Black prior to the 2002 Open. Most people barely noticed. Last year nearly 300 more were removed and many people did and complained. Go figure...