I've just finished playing a few holes with the deputy-captain at Wilmslow. Since last I played there in the summer they have chopped quite a few trees down to let more air in to the course and they have allowed wild meadow to prevail in the unoccupied parts of the course where previously there had been ornamental rhodadendrons and the like. Some of those trees had been seriously impinging on strategy (16th hole) and the newly aerated hole is a great improvement. There has been some complaint from the members, but it struck me that they were doing a great deal for ecology and shunning eye-candy at the same time. Anyone hitting their ball into the wild areas will lose the ball, but the fairways are wide, there are three cuts of rough and anyone going there deserves to lose the ball. Maybe the message is getting through - it was not long ago that members were being encouraged to supply young trees for planting! The deputy-captain summed it up with, 'It's not a garden, it's a golf course'. The old buffers won't like it, but I fancy they are on the right lines.