V, you asked for ‘thoughts’ so I’ll toss one out:
Trouble is, fewer & fewer seem content with letting golf simply be golf and golf courses simply be golf courses. Most everyone nowadays seems to feel the need to add ‘vision’ into the mix, or ‘revitalizing the neighbourhood’, or ‘restoring Detroit’s storied place on golf’s championship map’, or ‘celebrating public golf the way it was *meant* to be played’ (or debating which yet to be built course will ‘definitely be a 10’).
It sounds good, it sounds smart, but it implicitly denies the inherent worth of the very game & golf courses the proponents of such grand ideas (supposedly) love and value.
Reminds me of Ken Burns’ documentaries: a wonderfully talented fellow, but after the Civil War series I could barely watch his ‘Jazz’ or ‘Baseball’ series. He seemed determined to make everything ‘mean’ something more: a Ted Williams’ opposite field double on an 0-2 count wasn’t ‘merely’ a great piece of hitting, it was actually ‘a clarion call announcing America’s post war boom — when Red Sox’s fans cheered Williams, they were also applauding their own new-found prosperity’; and a great solo by Charlie Parker wasn’t merely a soul stirring feat of technical mastery and artistic genius, but actually — who knew? — ‘the last stop in the vast migration from agricultural life in the rural Great Plains to industrial life in the teeming Urban Centers’.
Sounds good, sounds smart — but if you really love jazz and baseball, then a great solo or a great piece of hitting are beautiful and worthy all on their own, in and of themselves, and both already have all the ‘meaning’ they’ll ever need.
Which is to say: if you claim to love Donald Ross, then just let Ross be Ross. That’s enough, and more than good enough. Leave the ‘visions’ to the mystics.
Maybe it’s my working class roots showing, but give me Old Money (like England-old money), a shabby clubhouse, an (un-restored) Doak 6, and a membership that doesn’t give two hoots what *anyone* thinks of their club every single time.