I have been thinking of something for a while and thought I would run it by everyone. I am sure that many of you far more advanced on golf design issues have considered this topic more frequently than me, but please indulge me.
I know what I like re: golf clubs and courses. I like normal members that don't think membership in a club makes them better than any other golfer, just more fortunate, and who treat the employees at the club like friends, more than servants. I like simplicity over elaborateness on clubhouses. While some may like the east coast stately clubhouses, I find that clubhouses at The Dunes Club and The Golf Club are more to my liking. I like strategic designed courses that are more fun than hard to play. I don't mind hard, but not when it is accompanied by boring. In fact, my favorite shot in golf is the hard shot that is unique and fun to hit - put me on the bottom of the swale on the right of #16 green at Pacific Dunes with a bucket of balls and I will hit that shot all day. I like firm, fast conditions over over-watered and slow. I like when putting off a green is a possibility. I don't mind blind shots and actually think every course should have a couple. I like deep, penal hazards with flare over flat bunkers with little character. I like creeks more than lakes and ponds. I like walking with a caddie over riding in a cart.
However, that is only my opinion. If someone believed the exact opposite of every one of my preferences, would that make him or her wrong? The more I think about it, I don't think so. I may not like many RTJ courses, but if someone thinks they are the best that golf has to offer, what makes them wrong?
Many times on the site over the past year, there were contentious discussions re: golf courses and architectural issues where some completely wrote off another's opinion as uninformed. I am sure that I have done it also. However, when you dig down, isn't golf just like art where beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Listen, if you ask 90% of golfers what their favorite hole on a course is, they will say the one with the body of water on it (whether it be a lake, pond or ocean), regardless if inland holes are far better designed, more fun to play and ranked by every expert as better. Who knows - maybe all of us don't get something re; golf courses that the average golfer out for a walk does.
Listen, I love discussions on opinion and will certainly keep my opinions where they are. I will even argue with people if their opinion is not the same as mine. But the more that I learn about this great game, the more that I think almost any feature on a golf course is acceptable, so long as a group of people like it. Am I wrong?
This is pretty cool. We feel pretty much exactly the same about golf in virtually every criterion you have mentioned! Scary.....