What strikes me most about some of these responses is the overwhelming feeling that everyone here thinks that the golfing public is generally ignorant about the history and the finer aspects of the game.
I think the wine analogy is a good one, except for the fact that when the wine aficionado and the wine hack are done trying to talk, they both drink the wine, and they both end up with the same empty glass...akin to the golf aficionado and the weekend duffer ending up with the same score every time.
But what it really comes down to, IMO, is a question of golf as art versus golf as a game. Many GCA participants are in the former camp.
I consider myself a fairly good player - a low-ish single digit handicap. However when it comes to architecture study, beard pulling, and feeling the architecture, I am no such thing - I'm an 80s shooter at best, occasionally breaking 80...which still makes me better than the vast majority of the golfing public on topics like many mentioned in this thread.
Back in high school, I played basketball. I had a several "Above the Rim" brand tee shirts that featured various trash-talking style basketball sayings or epigrams. One of them comes to mind:
"You can talk the game, but can you play the game?"
For all the talking that I can do about the game, and of course I love to talk about it otherwise I'd never be on this site or any other golf discussion...I'd much rather be able to play the game. There are guys that I play with that are plus handicaps that could not tell me what Cypress Point, Pine Valley, or Merion are...let alone Barnbougle, Kidnappers, or Sand Hills, yet these guys can spank me up and down a golf course, maybe even lefthanded.
My point is, we can get offended, shocked, surprised, floored at people not knowing some of the things in this thread. Some here feel its an obligation to teach, enlighten, or at least to try...but how many of the people that you've come across that were unenlightened ended up beating you with a lower score on that or any day...and if they did, doesn't that mean that in the grand scheme of golf and the ultimate drive for lower scores...that they are the ones winning?
Maybe we are the ones that need enlightenment on occasion. I'm not saying that playing well and being learned are irreconcilable, however if someone chooses the former path and excels in that area, how is it different from an average player learning all the history and architectural nuances of the game whilst shooting a modest store? And, who is anyone to tell someone in the other group that they're doing it all wrong?
Rant off