Mike, If you were looking for a bad pun, intended or not, I think disembarked might have been better. I must say that I am really enjoying this thread because it has remained focused on Golf Course Architecture. I particularly would like further thoughts on Tom's attempt at some cause and effect analysis. Lawsonia also enjoys a short season. I believe it as owned by a religious organization which had little interest in investing funds to "improve" the course (or so I was told). Perhaps this explains the long term preservation
Shel:
In the end, most courses are "touched" because of members' egos and the money to carry them out. Holston Hills, mentioned earlier, was spared from this because it wound up being on the wrong side of town, so the members did not spend any money on messing it up. When we restored some of the bunkers there years ago, the work consisted of cutting sod, installing drainage and sand. The faces did not have to be touched because they had never been altered.
Summer clubs are generally run on a low budget; the same people who might be on the green committee at their home club in the big city just want to relax and enjoy themselves. Most of the evolution at Crystal Downs was of the "grown over" type instead of the "dug up" variety, which is way easier to fix.
If Patrick Mucci were here, he would be telling us how a benevolent dictator is the best way to preserve a course, but that only works when the dictator has no ego. Pete Dye, himself, was the one who kept digging up Crooked Stick and making changes: he left it mostly alone until 1985, but after that, he couldn't help himself.
Soon Mark Fine and Jeff Brauer will be here to tell us how Nature is dynamic and all golf courses are constantly changing on their own and we need an architect to watch over them. Sure. But, by far the biggest changes are self-inflicted, and hiring an architect is one possible way to get there.
