I just noticed one reason Tom Doak supplied why more clubs may never provide more short courses like Cruden's St Olaf---eg they generally compete for space with practice ranges.
Although the historical reasons are all obvious why they were almost never originally provided in maybe the first 3/4 of the entire 150 years of GCA, is there any doubt that the failure to provide space for practice ranges was the single biggest glitch in architecture's history?
No one can blame the early architects and golf course planners because practice balls and range practicing virtually never existed for so long but is there any single item in the history of golf course architecture that was responsible for the redesigning of old courses like the lack of practice ranges?
When I think of all the old courses in my area this problem has affected probably 90% of them at least, including my own.
The old saw in real estate is location, location, location. The historical saw in GCA should've been land, land, land.
Frankly, the only two courses I can think of right now that dodged this bullet right out of the box are PVGC and my old club, Piping Rock. Piping's massive practice range was originally two old polo fields next to the clubhouse that preceded the golf course.
Macdonald wanted to take those polo fields for golf holes and the club wouldn't give them to him which infuruiated Macdonald. Their refusal was obviously more fortunate than they ever could've imagined back then.
