What a good reason to post those pictures!
I'm afraid there are many detractors on this forum. I am not in their number. Before anyone starts to criticise his work at Hoylake, do we know precisely what his brief was? Do we know to whose brief he was working? The criticism stems mainly from the fact that the new greens are not in the same style as the pre-existing ones. I asked the question at the Hoylake dinner of whether, if the R&A demanded it, they would sanction the alteration of other greens in this manner. The plain fact is that Hoylake is a course which has been developed many times, with a host of individual alterations made for one reason or another and - like Birkdale and Sandwich - it will probably continue to be developed in this way to keep up with the requirements of a major championships. Is there general dislike of his previous alterations to championship courses made in order to keep them in the roster, and to satisfy the R&A's requirements? What of the alterations made by others? Or are all championship courses preserved in aspic and never touched?
It was Darwin who said of MacKenzie that, 'some of his holes on flat, dull, and featureless land come as near to making a silk purse out of a sow's ear as is humanly possible.' I am not going to be silly enough to compare MacKenzie with Steel, but it is when you encounter rebuilding work to minor courses done by people such as Steel and Hawtree on minimal budgets, probably driven by an edict of the health and safety brigade, that you begin to appreciate the skill of their work.
I'm afraid too many cruel remarks have been made on this site about Donald Steel for him to take part in these discussions, and I very much doubt that he would wish to contribute to the interview section, given such treatment. If any of us has the power to write about golf courses as eloquently and with such keen observation as Steel has done over many years perhaps we might then have the credentials to criticise him as we do. I, for one, am not even in the same book, let alone on the same page as Steel and will, therefore, refrain from criticism of him.