The golden age was a rivival of the naturalistic links tradition.

A revival assumes a design period between the original style and the revived style. I don't understand your point.

With 70 years of an alleged school of design, your dark ages, if those in the "Golden Age" had a sense of your historical perspective, in much the same fashion that you want today's designers to have a sense of historical perspective when it comes to the "Golden Age", those designers would have not made the radical departure to the new age, the Golden Age"

You want "historical perspective" to influence today's designers, yet, you maintain that "historical perspective" didn't and shouldn't have influenced the "golden Age" designers.  For if it had any MEANINGFUL influence, the dark ages would have been perpetuated.

My point is that you can't view and champion "historical perspective" in a selective, rather than a consistent context.

Either "historical perspective" is relevant as a constant, or it's irrelevant.[/color]

The Dark Ages were not inspired by the naturalism of links golf.

That would indicate that "historical perspective" had little or no influence.[/color]

It appears to me the Dark Ages inspiration was the common aesthetic and the geometery of other sports (tennis, cricket, soccer). Another words they ignored their own history and were affected by modern fashion. In the latter part of the 20th C, there was a general move toward historic styles (no matter the medium)....golf followed suit.

This is where we disagree.
You ignore "historical perspective" in the context of golf course architecture, and chose to shift mediums away from golf course architecture to other disciplines.

If golf course architecture was viewed with an eye toward influential "historical perspective" the dark ages would never have been born, because the historical perspective was Linksland golf course architecture.

And, if golf course architecture was viewed with an eye toward influential "historical perspective" the "golden age" never would have sprung to life so quickly because the Dark ages would have been continued much longer.

Your bundling of all arts and style into a single monolithic movement that evolves simultaneously, uniformly and almost identically is incorrect.  What you seem to ignore is the nature of golf course architecture, which is the preparation of a field of play on a living organism.  

Not once, since the origin of GOLF, has the principle of the game changed.  A player must get the ball from point A to point B in as few strokes as possible.

Taking the game from its linksian origins to land essentially unsuited for golf is the principle cause of the departure in the structure of the field of play, and not some alleged movement inspired by events and fads unrelated to golf course architecture.

It was the difficulty, or inability of the novices, the experimentors, the early inland architects, to structure a field of play on land ill suited for that purpose, especially when the only context in which they understood golf and its field of play, was in the context of the links.

It was the difficulty of the challenge, including the lack experience, ability and expertise in transitioning and transposing the game from its linksian origins and principles, to strange land, ill suited for the purpose, in a historical context, that led to the radical departure in the design in golf's early inland courses.

But, that's just my opinion.  

Everyone with a memory has a "historical perspective".
It's the degree to which it influences you that is the critical question, and the one I allude to above.[/color]