Call me odd or very odd but I would not pay the kind of money mentioned on this thread to play any golf course.
Perhaps this kind of thing has just crept up on us so slowly that too few even think of it today but having to pay that kind of money (like $200 plus) to play a golf course one time is just economic exclusionism plain and simple!
I would love to know how many rounds at 130 TOC does in a single day in season or at any other time. Given that we can do the math!
And what's Pebble Beach these days---over $500??
Come on! That's nothing more than an a virtual cash register. Why don't they just charge $1,000 a round; they'd probably make more money and end up actually preserving the golf course. St Andrews could do the same with TOC and they then might not have to make golfers play the course using a God-damned plastic mat to hit balls on the course off of!
Just the very idea of having to play a golf course as historic and interesting as TOC obviously is off a God-damned plastic matt is just about the most incongruous and unattractive thing imaginable, at least to my way of thinking about golf and that great old golf course.
Talk about the deleterious influence of something like the cart in golf-----the very idea of being asked to play golf at TOC off a plastic mat actually obviates one of the most fundamental aspects of the game of golf-----"THE LIE" and the natural and unpredictable randomness of it!
A PLASTIC MATT at TOC??? Come on, give me a break! Who in the hell runs that place anyway? Is it the so-called Links Trust? If so they should be completely ashamed of themselves!
Melvyn, you live there; you take care of this mess will you please?
Sick 'em Melvyn, SICK 'EM!