Ron may be underselling how pervasive the discussion of trees was on this trip (which was probably my fault). It was a always a topic during the rounds, usually after the rounds with the various pros / maintenance personnel, and especially during my evening reviews of historic aerials. I was a little shocked by how vehement my reactions were to the level of plantings in some areas. At times, I found myself astonishingly pissed off by certain clusters of Christmas Trees and other pine derivations.
Normally, I've been the defender of trees against the "all trees are bad" school of thought that sometimes rears its head on GCA. Moderately used, trees can be an interesting part of the golf landscape, especially single specimen trees located at strategic points.
I've never fully bought into the idea that "complete tree removal" is ideal for many courses, or that it will bring strategy back into the game by adding wider fairways and rewarding ideal angles. That theory only works when you have boldly contoured or angled greens which truly dictate an approach angle. Unfortunately, not every course has Ross or Travis greens, and many can be attacked aerially from ANY angle, especially given the technological advances of balls/clubs. Given this, trees are often necessary to provide the strategic rewards / punishments that may be lacking in the green complexes.
The problem I saw on this trip was that there was often no "subtlety" in the tree management decisions of the past. Fairways lined on both sides by geometric rows of pines serve no strategic purpose. They are one-dimensional and punitive, similar to heavy rough, and leave no potential for difficult recovery shots. Strategic objectives that could be accomplished with one or two trees are instead overdone by clusters of 15-20 plantings. On top of that, some plantings had nothing to do with safety or shot values - rather there happened to be a 50 yard area of open space and someone demanded it be filled.
Over the course of six rounds, we witnessed a wide range of tree management practices and attitudes from the people we encountered, which made for quite an interesting case study, considering most of these courses did have the boldly contoured, strategic greens by Ross & Travis that make trees more expendable.
In general, if you read Ron's "Wee Reviews" linked above, you get the sense of the days and variation in tree practices. I'll add a few of my thoughts a little later.