are courses ruined by highways?

[Matt Kardash]

yesterday i played a new graham cooke course called "les quatres domaines"(you guessed it, i'm from montreal with a course name like that)....i must say i was surprised by this course..for montreal public standards this course was a fine one, however the holes were not all that memorable...but to my point this course was flanked by one of montreal's busiest highways, and several holes were played parallel to the highway...i'd say that at least on 5 or 6 holes you could hear the hum of traffic , sometimes quite loudly....if a highway is next to a trully great course should it take away from the merits of the design?..

however another aproach is the one that pat ruddy seems to be taking at his "club de golf de l'ile de montreal" (montreal island golf club)...his course is also flanked by a busy highway but he built just about the biggest hill imaginable to stop the noise (from the highway the hill looks quite good, very sruffy looking...maybe he spent so much time on the hill it's the reason he hasn't fininshed his "links style" course yet after 3 years

which approach do you prefer, build a sound barrier or no barrier?

are there any great or very good courses that you know of that you can see and hear a highway way too much..does the highway highly diminish the quality of the course in your opinion?

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

Wolf Creek in Alberta.

The highway does not do it any favours, but the course is wonderful.

[Joe Hancock]

Unfortunately, there are sites that are less than perfect for golf. On the same hand, many of these sites are better suited for golf than just about anything else. Airports, flood plains, developements, land fills and such are other examples of areas that, while not perfectly serene golf sites, may be best used as golf sites in many communities that need more golf.

Joe