Jeff - of course I knew that you are the last person to condone a lot of these links changes. But I needed an opportunity to say that £750k is quite a lot of money.
Yes, occasionally there are pressing erosion concerns or safety concerns that the club want addressed. And you can’t blame M&E for picking up the phone when clubs call.
And although the work is executed technically well, I’ve a sneaking suspicion that on many of these courses, the architects are maximising their opportunity to introduce change rather than convincing the club that less is more.
In addition to that, I’m seeing the same type of solutions being offered to every club. Put simply, it is an eighties style solution of containment mounding, tightening the landing area and championship golf... Just because it has been given a modern flair with natural edges bunkers and open waste areas does not make the concept different. I don’t like the homogenisation.
For what it’s worth, a few of the Tom MacKenzie led projects break this mould: Trevose - for one - has a bunker scheme that embraces a little bit of fun and diagonals and deception. He led the Cruden Bay and Dornoch re-routing work to add impact and wow, neither strictly necessary I guess but a completely understandable motive, even if getting rid of nicely contoured old classic greens is questionable (ditto 14 at Nairn and the proposition around 9 at RND). It also has to be noted that many of the courses Martin Ebert is working at are demanding of a “championship” solution for those few big professional events.
I’ll also add that there are usually certain small changes that make perfect sense at each course and as always, different opinions see different things.