The only reason why I bring up gatekeeping is related to the concept of terroir. When a word is linked to a thing that provides an experience, and then that thing becomes intentionally restrictively locked up in language, many folks who would like the experience will be less likely to, or worse, get a crap substitute. When branded, or regional, or otherwise tightly defined words become generic, it can lead to weird issues. Many here may think that, yes, well we shouldn't use non-generic terms generically, we should say photocopy instead of xerox, but we don't do that, everything from frisbee, to dumpster, to videotape, and windbreaker were all trademarks.
I will again turn to the example of Champagne. Is there a noticeable difference between the sparkling wine in the Champagne regions and sparkling wine just across the border in Belgium? I would say no, I'm sure some would disagree with me. However, I'd probably say that few, if any of us have gone out of our way to get sparkling wine from across the border in Belgium. This is terroir, and the arguments for it are dubious, but reasonable. That we have likely had a hundred bottles of sparkling wine from the Champagne region, and none from Wallonia, is what I mean by gatekeeping. The generic term being renarrowed by law, has made life difficult for folks outside of Champagne.
Still, I'm generally fine with the concept of terroir. I am because they are tight regions. You know exactly what you're getting. I would have no problem, say, creating an appellation called Forth Links, that included the courses from Anstruther to North Berwick. I think that would be good for consumers, and good for golf. That is a specific region, with specific wind patterns, specific native grasses, and a specific experience. It would also be an experience that is substantially different than say a Dornoch/Murray Links region or a Hebrides Links region, and that's all within Scotland.
What I find rather frustrating about the loosely narrow term we use, is that courses along the Bass Strait are somehow lumped in with courses on the North Sea, even though the climate is completely different. Are there similarities? Of course there are, but my entire point is that these similarities are what we mean by links golf, because they are different. We might say we're playing twelve months per year, but we're definitely not playing all year at Highland Links outside of Provincetown, Mass, because there will be snow on the ground through much of the winter. Because we have a loose definition, in various climates, I find it extremely difficult to say that it's a tight enough definition to deserve a appellation-style term restriction.
I would prefer a brandy/cognac distinction for links golf. That is, yes, we have the generic brandy, for the thing that gives us the generic experience, but if you're talking about the place where that thing originated, the place you can get the authentic experience, you have a stronger term or appellation.
The reason why this is important is that, without a term for what we mean by links golf in an experiential sense, the term links-like is meaningless. Growing up in Austin, I played Roy Kizer, which is advertised as links-style... which is complete bullshit. Yet, when I play Metropolitan in Oakland, it is quite reminiscent of links courses. Lord knows that playing the Lido in Wisconsin seemed exactly like a links course. If we call all three of those courses links-like, the people at Roy Kizer are going to be completely misinformed.
I love links golf on links courses. I love "links golf" on non-links linksy courses. I like to see the links-link qualities in the parkland courses I play. Without the term being generally generic, the second two statements shouldn't make much sense, but they do. When we say sparkling wine, we can be drinking a sparkling Pinot noir (I've had one), but unless we nail down what we mean by Champagne, beyond the appellation, then people buying sparkling wine could be buying absolute crap. That's all well and good for the wine makers in Champagne, but it's bad for the folks buying sparkling wine in Texas.