Joel,
While making generalizations is often dangerous and unfair, as a rule, "old" people do not like to spend money. This characteristic does not appear to be influenced significantly by the amount of cash flow or wealth (as a bartender during college for a caterer with its own private banquet facility, I often found that tipping and wealth were inversely related).
What these folks do have is quite of bit of spare time and a great need to feel useful and needed. Perhaps the decision makers at your club may wish to identify the strongest opposition to the changes, and bring them in one-on-one to a breakfast or lunch where the improvements are explained in a very basic way. This may be time consuming in the front end,
but it sure beats creating a lot of ill will poisoning the atmosphere at the club.
It seems to me that the cost of removing trees should not be a capital item which would cause an assessment or a dues increase. If this is true, and the disruption to play is not significant, the well documented benefits should be sufficient to bring a large number of the naysayers to your side. Pesonally, I believe that the combination of removing some trees and firming up the grounds should make the Lake course more interesting and playable for most types of players, and maybe even a tad more difficult for the "Sticks".
I wonder what would happen if Olympic would publish a short pamphlet of its tree removal plan in layman's language, followed by a couple of live Q & A sessions and then a vote of the membership? It seems to me, that this would be an appropriate way of addressing the issue, and those who disagree with the results strongly could always find a place more suited to their desires. My recollection is that Olympic has a 10 year or so waiting list, right?
D. Siebert-
I don't wish to imply that I represent the concensus opinion of this site, but I see no inconsistancy with the call for selective tree removal and the desire for some quirk in our golf. From what I gather, few here call for creating unfairness in building a course. What is objected to here is wholesale bulldozing of natural land features to manufacture acres of uniform, mostly level, driving range-type hitting areas. I don't know anyone who calls for a construction or maintenance regime which results in bad lies (from a lack of turf).
Personally, I do like trees on the course, preferably in the periphery of holes. I don't like them right off the tee, and I really abhor them when they create a tunnel all the way to the hole (#7 at Pasatiempo?). Two or three holes out of 18 with sentinel trees to require some thought in shot placement and shape is perfectly okay in my book. As a rule, however, I don't like trees guarding the fronts of greens which require moon shots with anything longer than a very short iron and do not have a ground option available (#18 at PBGL). Trees guarding the entries to par 3s should be de-facto illegal and posted for removal with a bounty.