Jeff, Tom - let me play devil's advocate for a bit. If the game has changed, it is ARCHITECTS who have changed it the most. Sure, you might argue that you were only FOLLOWERS and not leaders; that you were simply RESPONDING to new technologies and client demands and golfers' expectations. But I'd suggest that, in fact, you as a group/profession have much more POWER and INFLUENCE than you'd care to admit to or be held responsible for; and that it was YOUR ANCESTORS who were in fact the main DRIVERS OF CHANGE, at every stage of American golf and in several different ways. The very stiff tests of golf that were Oakmont and Pine Valley; the 18 great holes/the ideal golf course that was Macdonald's NGLA; Jones' work on Oakland Hills and Firestone; Pete Dye at Sawgrass ; Nicklaus' early work and that of other player-designers; the monstrosities that are the country-clubs-for-a-day, with their elevated tees and 7000 yard back tees. It was architects/your brethren who FAILED TO PROTECT the fields of play in the first place, who failed to honour -- with the kind of good intentions that pave the road to hell -- the origins and ethos and history of those fields of play, and were and are very quick to suggest CHANGES and NEW STYLES to existing courses and ones yet to be built. And so, by changing the playing fields you have CHANGED THE GAME. Has it changed otherwise? Well, the marathon is still the marathon, still a very severe test, and STILL 26 MILES; even though there are an elite few who can now run it in 2 hours and 10 minutes, the vast majority of runners/athletes, past and present, would take 4/5/6 hours to finish, if they can finish it at all -- and so the marathon, in essence, has NOT CHANGED. In the same way, 6,100 yards with random bunkering is a challenging joy to play for the vast majority of golfers, and this has been the SAME CASE FOR 100 YEARS -- and I think architects KNOW THAT. No, the game has not changed for the vast majority of men and women who play it, or who have ever played it, or who will ever play it in the future. Unfortunately, for many decades your architectural brothers were amongst the very few, it seems, who DIDNT RECOGNIZE or maybe even DIDNT WANT to recognize this, and who didn't want the game (in particular, its fields of play) to stay the same. Understandable, really: as in any profession the hot shots and young guns want to make a name for themselves by OUTDOING their predecessors -- it's always longer/faster/louder/more complex. But let's not pretend that it's the BIG BAD world/client/golfer/equipment company/governing body OUT THERE that has been the cause. It may be time to look in the mirror gents.
Peter
More harsh than I intended or would've imagined, even for the 'devil's advocate' role. But I'll leave it the way it is, if for no other reason than it is what my fingers typed without a pause, and so it is at least a direct expression of one point of view. (Six posts I see have come in the time I've typed this, maybe it has become redundant).