"TEP -
The commentary is interesting because it was written in 1930. After almost all of the great literature of the GA had been published. Yet barely a mention of strategy, playing choices, etc. It's all about how tough (or to use the Ward vernacular "relentless") ME is.
Setting aside the accuracy of the commentary, it's an interesting peek into the mindset of the everyday golf enthusiast at the high point of the GA. The author here clearly thought ME was special primarily because it was so difficult course. All the books and articles by MacK, Hunter, Thomas etc. don't seemed to have had much impact with someone who was presumably a golf journalist familiar with the game and basic design issues."
Bob:
Of course you and I have talked about this kind of thing so much and for so long now and in the course of all those conversations we certainly have said that the mindset of "penalty" and how it should be expressed in golf and architecture as outlined by Joshua Crane (and some others) around that time just may have won the future. And to consider that with all that Behr and Mackenzie, Jones and others on the other side of the subject tried to warn and argue to the contrary!
Is this the "game mind of man" that Behr warned about? Is this the expression of how the concept of penalty should be perceive in golf, that he and the others opposed so?
I, for one, think it most certainly is, despite the dismissals of some on here that all it was about with Crane on the one side and the others mentioned on the other side was the rating of TOC and such. In my opinion, that is definitely missing the forest for a tree---and by a number of country miles.
And this is why, Bob, you really have to do one helluva job rerunning and rewriting that subject as outlined in that so-called debate back then that may have outlined a very significant and fundamental crossroads in the evolution of golf.