Peter, Rick et al,
Since we're doing dad comparisons, I thought I'd introduce my old man to the discussion.......
My dad is a 69 year old man with a dodgy knee, a knackered shoulder, a golf 'swipe' which would leave you none too impressed and an inability to remove any golf ball from any amount of sand. He plays the game about six times a year. He's a working class lad with no education and wouldn't himself claim to be an intellectual. You get the picture.
What has always impressed me though, despite all these apparent shortcomings in his capacity to 'get it,' is just how much he actually does like traditional golf courses. I am my father's son, clearly. For him, and this can be similarly evidenced any day you choose to pay a visit to my own club when conditions are firm and the female octagenarians are out in force , the quick fairways are anything but a problem. When you can only duff the ball 100 yards all that roll is a god send, as is the luxury of taking the putter out from 60 yards short of the dance floor.
But I got to asking myself why he's so appreciative of a links or dry heathland. Certainly he can't really articulate it. Is it really as simple as being able to hit the ball further because it's dry? And then it struck me.....and then I reconsidered and wondered if perhaps I'd created a narrative which suited me. I asked him about it and concluded that I hadn't crafted a story to fit my world view, although I can't honestly claim to have applied a scientific control to my investigation. Anyway, it occurred to me that my dad, a man for whom 'working class lad does good and demonstrates his aspirational social climbing by joining a water fountain park,' should be part of the programme, a man for whom voting for Margaret Thatcher was more a social statement than a political conviction, didn't get the memo telling him that lush and green was all part of the good life. No one told him that 'American style golf course in the heart of Hampshire' was meant for him, to be worn as a badge of honour to mark his rise up the social order. For him a pond doesn't mean classy, it means danger. And my dad doesn't feel the urge to demonstrate his ability to thin the ball into every hazard he sees, nor does he feel the need to demonstrate that he can miss ever 20 yard wide fairway he walks across before searching through thick rough for a golf ball he's never going to find. And he's a man more immune than most to advertising anyway. It has nothing to do with smarts and everything to do with apathy and stubborness. So it seems to me that this neanderthal of golf course architecture is better placed than any of us here to form an unbiased opinion. And what he likes, much as was true of golfers one hundred years ago before anyone told them what to think, is a dry course which he can basically run the ball across and have fun with contours. Show me a golfer who claims to dislike mini-golf and I'll introduce you to a liar. Windmills or no windmills, in the end, it's all really just about the ladies putting course at TOC.
It's true that the desire to massage an ego on a golf course which appears far harder than it actually is is a function of carnal man. We are hunters and we need to feel a sense of defeating the natural world. What isn't true however is that this drive is so innately strong that we can't ever distance ourselves from it when involved in a recreational pursuit. We are nurture as much as nature. That isn't to say that we should look down on anyone who sees the golf course as an entity to be conquered; congratulating oneself for taming the 7,000 yard green beast is a matter for the individual. The fact that I couldn't care less is neither here nor there. It does however follow that we can only truly have a broad perspective on the subject of golf course architecture if we stop viewing the course as prey.