Patrick -
we talk a lot around here about the average golfer and about how he suppossedly doesn't get architecture, and about how such a very small percentage of the golfing public is interested in design.
I think we're wrong about that, all of it.
I think for years it has been a self-fulfilling prophecy -- it's been people who like to think of themselves as elites talking way too much 'inside baseball' more as a theoretical exercise than a genuine desire to share knowledge -- straightforwardly and generously -- with others....and thus, not surprisingly, few others have been interested.
I think simple, quality writing -- as Tom Dunne has done -- is its own reward, and on top of it is the way to prove that the average golfer will indeed read about and be interested in design.
I think good, clear, informative writing -- i.e. genuine communication in other words -- can make just about any subject interesting to a lay-person with even a small bit of curiosity about the world around him...and so it can certainly make the subject of golf course architecture interesting to golfers.
Of course, bad writing about gca sets back that goal dramatically. I mean that -- I think the lay person who tries to read about design but who is bored or confused by the writing itself doesn't immediately assume the writing is bad, he assumes the subject is dull.
Peter