Having finally gotten around to reading (much of) the issue:
Not one comment about my op-ed to not monkey with The Old Course? I wasn't sure it had made this particular issue until I saw the magazine today.
Not one comment? How about two?
(1) I quote your lede: "The appeal of the Old Course at St. Andrews is that it is so unlike any other great course. From the moguls inside the 2nd green to the paved road in play on the 17th, the Old Course is chock full of features that no golf architect would ever dream of building. Its strategies transcend the conventional wisdom of golf course design."
I had the same reaction to your first two sentences. That reaction was: "Really?" My reaction to the third: "What does *that* mean?"
Personally, I thought the appeal of the Old Course was that it was Old, that people had been playing golf there more or less forever, that every great player in history had played there, that most of the greatest players in history had won there, that it was FUN to play there, that any sort of golfer (from the scratch to the foozler) could get around and enjoy himself, that the Old Course allowed and demanded all sorts of interesting tee shots and approach shots and pitch shots and chip shots and putts, that the caddies were entertaining characters, that it was the most public of all public courses, that it was RIGHT THERE in the middle of the Old Gray Town, and, yes, that it looked unlike most of the courses that have followed it.
As for the undreamable features: I suppose you're right that no golf course architect would dream of putting a roadway into play the way it's in play at the Road Hole, or of demanding a tee shot like the tee shot on the Road Hole -- but is it really true that golf course architects wouldn't dream of building a green like the 2nd at the Old Course? If they don't dream of things like that, what in the world *do* they dream of? Isn't it owners (and maybe superintendents) who wouldn't dream of such things?
I ask you, Tom -- What are the features at the Old Course that architects wouldn't dream of?
As for sentence three: I really don't know what you mean there, and would be grateful for your elucidation.
(2) You write: "The five-time Open champion Peter Thomson described the Old Course as 'the rock on which the game of golf anchors itself.' We cannot chip away at that rock forever. It should take much more than a small committee to bring out the jackhammers."
Agree completely. Bravo.
Dan