[Mark_Rowlinson]

Potentially huge golf developments may arise in China and India with their burgeoning wealth.  We may run out of oil sooner than we have estimated, or terrorism achieve that effect, putting an end to the globetrotting golf industry, or even the 60-minute journey to the golf club.  Global warming will have considerable affects on vegetation, including grasses.  Rising sea levels will drown some courses.  Increasing radiation may force a change of culture, people preferring to stay indoors rather than endure the sunlight - or will they play at night under floodlights.  

I'm not suggesting that any of these things will happen, but what are the issues that will shape the future of golf - and architecture, in particular - over the next 50 years?  

[John Kavanaugh]

I would like to see a greater interest in golf course architecture rather than just 18 holes at the cheapest closest place to home or work.  Take this site for instance where architecture is mandated to be the primary subject...If you look at the current OT topics on the front page we are distracted by the war, computer products, the PGA and one of it's current stars, past stars of the PGA, new irons to hit the ball further and the stock market.  If we don't care enough about golf architecture to discuss it on this site who will in the 19th holes and pro shops around the world.  It is time we lead by example and take the same pledge I did yesterday and focus on the task at hand...for the good of the game.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

In the light of comments made on the thread about ladies' golf holes, I should have added greater gender equality.  Should I also have considered those other sins of ageism, racial and religious discrimination?

[Glenn Spencer]

John,

The home page says that the site is here to promote frank commentary on the world's greatest golf courses. If you want to talk about the courses and their holes, start discussing a few COURSES and I will be there all day with you. Start with Crooked Stick or your place if you like. I can go all day on both.

[John Kavanaugh]

I think gender equality is the future of golf and it's architecture.  As our wives continue to out live us and stay healthy they are a vital market that will only grow.  I doubt if 30 years ago a membership at a private club would automatically transfer to a spouse as they do today.

[Aaron Katz]

I'm intrigued by the possibility of a 18 hole course without sand bunkers where every hole intersects with at least one other hole.  

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Mark,

All is not doom and gloom ---

----- even if the world is getting more environmentally conscious and golf courses are being reined in for their indulgent use of fertiliser, chemicals and water. Even if hybrid grasses are now being brought into question. Even if on the construction side the golf courses have more and more restrictive regulations to consider and must provide more ecological compensation areas.

Look on it as the dawn of a new age where the “minimal” designed golf course will become more acceptable and the traditional grasses, among others the beloved fescues, will take precedence over the garden type golf course vegetation. Where “fast and firm” will be the norm and “green and lush” restricted to wetter lands.

Mind you, as long as money speaks loudest, the third world courses will probably continue to support “maximal” golf courses until environmental regulation catches up with them.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Mark, I have never been more excited about the future of golf architecture. I have grave concerns with the current politics of the US in particular. However, a by product of these policies is a consentration of wealth at the top creating financing for a great many visionary projects. The movement toward minimalism and using technolgy to make better courses which work with the land is a great thing. We seem to be coming out of the show how much dirt we can move over substance period in architecture. My concerns are with the ruling bodies and their oversite over equipment rather than architecture.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I do not discount entirely your concerns with energy and terrorism issues. I just do not se ethem as impacting the game in a negative way. I see the opportunities in China and India as great for expanding the game significantly into large population and economic centers. The evolution of the game and architecture their is infront of us. that is very exciting to me.

[Daryn_Soldan]

I believe that as we move forward water will play a much larger role than many people have expected or forseen.  This is not just applicable to GCA but to agriculture, land-use planning, urban design, and development patterns just to name a few.  I'll try to add some more thoughts on this later but for now here are some issues I had in mind.

Water:
Too much / too little
Expense - current but also value as a resource in the future
Ownership / Legal issues
Regulation
Quality - or lack there of
More people in places with less
Competing uses
Renewability
Management practices and associated consequeces - good and bad

-Daryn

[TEPaul]

John C-S:

I like that post of yours a lot. Very good!

[TEPaul]

Mark:

Fifty years from now the leading driving distance on tour will be 261 yards and golfers all over the world will look back at those obsolesced tees behind them and in a variation of what Sundance asked Butch Cassidy, they will say;

"Who were those guys?"

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Tom, Don't you have to become Boss of the USGA and R&A at the same time to achieve that?  Would that it could happen!

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