Webb Simpson, fwiw, is a really bright guy who actually learned to play the game on a TINY golf course in Raleigh, NC, Carolina CC. It's ancient, short, and tight.
And I'll mention this in re what Simpson had to say. A number of years ago, there was discussion about raising the basket in basketball because height had become so important. At the height of the debate (pun intended) Al McGuire pointed out that if you make the basket higher, you make height MORE important, not less, and that if you wanted to bring the little man back to the game, you should put the basket in a hole in the floor.
It isn't a perfect analogy to golf and the issue of length, but it works. Longer golf courses have done nothing but make length MORE important, not less; in the drive to make pros hit 6 irons instead of wedges into par 4's, we've lost sight of what sorts of things really make the pros work hard, and that's all Simpson was pointing out. A lot of you are hung up on what the headline writer chose, rather than what Simpson actually said, which was measured and well-considered.