Looking at the aerials in the current Bendelow thread, I was reminded of how often I am struck by the relatively(!) boring routing of so many US courses I have seen on the TV at the weekends.
Those views, currently courtesy of the Bloomin' Onion, so often show the regimented up and back or left and right layout of even those courses considered 'great'. Lots of parallelism and lines of (now) mature trees defining fairways.
It occurs to me that perhaps this might have a lot to do with american city planning history. Assuming most cities follow the layout of the 'block' concept, what would have been left for the likes of Tom B. would be a square or rectangular plot confined within roadways set on a rectilinear grid. The simplest - and indeed possibly often only - way of fitting in 9 or 18 holes would have been to arrange them like sardines in a can.
Maybe I am too overly critical of these layouts and perhaps I need to cut them some slack. Certainly, when the cameras get down to ground level, many of them can be visually quite appealing (and we know they can play pretty hard too!)
Hurrah for City Planners!
FBD.