Paul
Hell....why don't we just blow them all up? ....golf courses that is.
In my ongoing research into courses with a connection to Old Tom Morris, I have come across quite a few sites of old closed courses.
To stand back and look at these sites as they are today i.e. returned to farmland recently ploughed, or just an over grown strips of land between sea and dunes. Sites like Crawford, Colliestan and Uisguintuie where once thousands walked over the land and enjoyed a game or two of golf. Yet now they are empty and soulless, with no evidence of the entertainment they once gave. Knowing their demise in part was due to all those young men never returning from the two World Wars just leaves you with a deep sense of sadness. So your comment of ’blow them all up’ does not settle well on my shoulders.
A golf course IMHO should reflect the land and its surroundings, not look out of place and artificial, the reason why I keep on talking about ‘Land fit for Purpose’. If a course cannot work with the land then it should not be built. But for commercial reasons we have compromise upon compromise forced upon us. Return these courses back to their natural state but not by blowing them up further destroying the natural balance.