Chris,
I wished you had gone on for another 5 or 10 thousand words. And this was after I read your piece on #4 first, looking for this one. I will have to read Mandell’s book now. I was amused by the peach orchard experiment. My course (Canyon Springs in Twin Falls, Idaho, USA), was originally a fruit orchard—apples, cherries, walnuts, pears, crabapples, asparagus, mulberries, peaches, and God only knows what else. One can still pick and play your way around: play a hole, eat an apple, munch some asparagus, eat whatever is in season. This after (1880-1900) the rugged canyon where it resides was carved out of a high desert wilderness by the great Bonneville flood some 10,000 years ago. Golf courses evolve. The land on which they evolve and the people who care for that land as it drifts into becoming something as improbable as a golf course is always a good tale in my view. If the course is iconic and endures, so much the better. We make no claims in that department, nor promote ourselves as a pick-in-play destination, but the history is always compelling to me. How the hell did this become a golf course? What lunatics were responsible? Very good stuff and well written.