Sean:
Behr wasn't a terrible writer or a bad writer, he just had a sort of old fashioned or Edwardian style of writing. To assume because Behr's writing style was odd he wasn't intelligent is a real mistake, in my opinion.
I've been reading Behr's collected articles on architecture for years, over and over and over again. More than any writer I'm aware of with his writing I've had more of what one might call "Blue Thunder Moments." It's as if after reading some thought development on his part numerous times, all of a sudden it's sort of BOOM---Reva---(fucking)---lation!!!
Far more than any writer on golf or architecture I'm aware of Behr pretty much looked really deep into the "golfer's" mind and probably right into his soul too.
Where I believe he ended up with his premise on a golfer inherently objecting to something (such as a hazard or obstacle) he felt was artificial or man-made (and wanting to remove it) and not really objecting to something like that he felt was natural was essentially an inherent anthropological comparison of Man's inherent relationship with Nature vs Man's inherent relationship with Mankind itself. I think his point was Man inherently feels it's easier to complain about and rid himself of something put in front of him to trip him up by another man than it is to complain about and rid himself of something put in front of him to trip him up by the eternal forces of Nature like water, eg. oceans, rivers, seas or mountains, hills, ridges or even a naturally occuring dune and such and such....
And then of course there is that other elusive Natural component of golf that influences architecture indirectly that he knows he could never possibly rid himself of or do anything about anyway---the WIND!
Or, alternatively, you could boil all the foregoing down to a briefer and more understandable aphorism such as----bitch all you want about any old golf architect but don't ever try to fuck with Mother Nature!