During the broadcast of the Memorial, Jack was asked what he thought about the trend toward removing trees. After acknowledging the positive impact on turf, he said he didn’t like the trend, saying trees are beautiful and that their removal has resulted in houses and highways now being visible from the course, where they hadn’t been before. He did say that they removed 500 trees at Muirfield Village a few years ago. He thinks trees are particularly important for northern courses. Courses in the north of Scotland and Ireland might disagree.
It's not exactly a controversial opinion.
Trees and their effect on turf are a very important consideration.
But there's no doubt the pendulum can swing both ways, and there's no doubt there's a lot of groupthink on clearing trees, the same as there was with planting trees 40-60 years ago.
We all know trees need to be maintained, pruned and often eliminated(for turf, strategy or tree health issues).
Lymes disease is a pretty serious thing to consider, as the defacto substitute when clearing trees is "unmaintained", "native" grasses, which are often anything but native or low maintenance, to say nothing of increased time hunting balls.
Shade for golfers is also nice.
Trees defining or suggesting shots on doglegs, can also be great.
Trees can also provide a sense of place, and can enhance the beauty of a property
Trees can be very beautiful things, and can also be overdone and/or overplanted, or simply grow larger than intended.
Moderation is key.
We have listed the obvious advantages of tree removal, pruning and maintenance ad nauseum-I just think sometimes we need to take a step back and see both sides.