I tend to fall into the Mackenzie school of thought here—specifically, hunting for lost balls (and losing balls) considerably reduces the pleasure of golf.
Water hazards, forced carries, and OB are often identified as the culprits here, but I can accept these as part of the game. Sure, some routings that crisscross man-made ponds on nearly every hole are ridiculous, but unless you live in a place like Florida, courses that commit these sins are easy to avoid.
The real problem, as I see it, has two consistent manifestations:
- Unplayable terrain (super thick grasses, shrubbery, rocky outcroppings, etc) WAY too close to fairways (and oftentimes not even marked with red stakes or OB stakes)
- Groups of trees with low branches and unplayable undergrowth in the field of play (again, often rarely demarcated as hazards)
As a player, there is nothing worse than blocking a drive into an unmarked black hole, failing to find your ball, and then taking a "walk of shame" back to the tee to try and salvage a double bogey after hitting 3 off the tee. That's not golf—that's torture. I'm confident Mackenzie would agree.
Certainly, some of the "unplayable terrain" identified above adds to the local flavor of a course, but wherever these elements are retained, great care should be given to marking them as hazards where stroke and distance are the penalty (and not effectively OB, which takes bogey out of play).
Furthermore, huge clumps of trees—as well as even evenly spaced trees lining fairways—are all too common among courses of all types (in the US, at least). As far as I'm concerned, the presence of trees along fairways massively reduces options off the tee. In effect, the strategy becomes "hit it straight, or else," and that removes the heroic aspect of golf that is so exciting on links courses.
Tall (but sparse) grasses, bunkers, longer approaches, and hillocks are perfectly acceptable penalties for offline drives, but fatal penalties for poor tee shots likely do more to harm interest in golf than people currently realize. Yes, you should be rewarded for hitting it straight, but at the same time, you shouldn't be killed for hitting a ball offline, either.
After all, even one heroic shot can transform a round, but if there are no opportunities for heroic recoveries (and BS line drive punches under and around trees don't count for your average player), then a distinct and exciting element of golf has been lost.
Based on what I've read, I think Mackenzie would agree
