Ben:
Shall we dance this song again ?
My undies are quite fine thank you ... I just wonder if you bother to read what I have already written ?
Ben, c'mon let's stop with the silliness OK. You listed four (4) courses -- you placed specific ones on one side to highlight them as being the epitome of what golf needs. You then placed two other courses on the other side. Are we following the program correctly?
How do you know what the qualities of the golf courses you listed if you have not played them. Oh, forgive me, I see, you simply just glom onto what you have heard from others or what you have seen from pics and that becomes the manner by which your understanding of these layouts occur. Now, I get it. Ben, let me try to help you if I can -- if you are making assertions on what is good and not good for the game -- your overall credibility would go up 1000% if you knew just what the hell you were talking about. If you had been to the four (4) courses in question and played them and THEN made some sort of distinction between them I would have more respect for the points you have sought to make. Too much of what passes itself off as insight is often nothing more than deep left field seats analysis.
You advocate low construction and low operating budget courses with a healthy dose of quirk -- let me refresh your own ignorance but Four Mile Ranch already does that. I guess you figure since it's an Engh design that it can't possibly have those elements.
Ben, it's laughble when you say I "distilled" what you wrote -- let's try this again shall we -- you placed CG and RC on one side as what golf needs and had FMR and WC as poster children for what ails the game. I didn't do that -- you did. Got it now.
Ben, people can have a "basic gist" for anything -- but it doesn't triumph over the actual playing of the course itself. I too share your concerns that golf cannot follow certain models in the vein of the CCFAD or the gated community types that simply drain valuable resources and only cause the prospective future players to engage in other pasttimes beyond golf. You are 1000% right to be concerned and I commend you and others who feel we can have quality golf design that accomplished that. Just realize that before you start to post candidates on either side of the divide. If you ever play Four Mile Ranch you will see that it meets your baselines in so many ways and in my mind is even better than what either CG or RC now provide.
Adam:
I respect your thoughts -- even when we often part company -- but classic school types who embrace that style as the be-all / end-all would likely find Wolf Creek not their cup of tea. So be it. That's not insulting to those folks but clearly accurate from many I have heard from when discussing the course in question.
Insulting? Surely, you jest.
In fact, I know classic course lovers who embrace their affinity for such courses and how they find Wolf Creek to be lacking from their own personal tastes. Maybe I should take their response as "insulting" -- I don't. I do see it as being narrow-minded in what quality golf design can be. That is, of course, their prerogative.
Wolf Creek is very much a controversial course and no doubt there are places that use the topography of the desert quite well in different fashions -- you mentioned Pinon Hills and I do like the layout (when it's not man saturated w H20).
Adam, if you talk about "insulting" comments -- then I find your take on Wolf Creek that it is "souless course with no cohesiveness between any sequences of holes" to be totally unfounded. I am more than happy to point out what you clearly missed. Likely you only played the course once and did not really have your eyes open to a range of different holes and how they work in concert with each other and the spectacular site upob which they are located.
Viva la difference !