John, Do you think for one minute I'm going to believe that BS? ? ? ?
But you do bring up a point. The fact is that I do think people should have opinons of what they see, as well as describe what they are seeing. So many seem to be consumed with their own game, and not consumed about the feature which dictates all sorts of play and challenges.
Yes, it can be about personal likes and dislikes and experiences and traumas. Such is life! We hit a golf ball, and if it succeeds in our quest of challenge, GREAT! If it doesn't I can only hope to try again! I guess so many are so consumed with their score-card mentality we forget why we are here in the first place.
It moves me to see Donald Ross' quirky features that dictated his style; or Dr. MacKenzie's abilities to mix natural settings with artificial ones and not know the difference. (sadly you can really only experience this nowadays at Cypress Point or Royal Melbourne, because so many of his courses have changed so drastically.) There was Tillie and his uncanny ability to change design styles from site to site and still capture the strategy and beauty of Nature's themes. Then there was Captain George C. Thomas, whose abilty to apply all of the same principles of all of the above mentioned names, and translate them so perfectly for golf. He was the very best of amateurs at this trade. Unfortunately, you probably haven't fully gotten to appreciate his works, even from afar, because-(1) so little of his original work is left, and (2) You have the biggest name in Modern Golf Architecture screwing-up his masterpiece--Riviera. Tell me John, after so many people talking on this website about Golf Architecture In America, have you actually picked it up and read it, and where you could actually make the statements above and get away with it?
There is also C.B. and Seth and Banks and Bende. Colt & Alison, Wilson and Stanley; Flyn was also "in" and so many more I can't begin to type, all that priacticed their art with great passion and without spite. Yes, some of them did it for money and for a living. But there are others that didn't even think about presenting a bill.
Do you actually think for one minute that C.B. MacDonald designed courses in the same reasons as Tom Fazio? What about George Thomas as compared to Rees Jones?
I have been surprized many times by people that have mentioned an architectural feature here or there, that I either missed or had never even fathomed seeing. I can learn from the most meager to the most humble to the most arrogant, just as long as I have an open mind to learn.
In closing-----
I have spent the majority of this night, not looking at Golf Club Atlas, but actually studying an aerial photo from 1938 of a mundane local public course that is now 83 years old. It was a 12 hole course up until the 40's, and due to the bright reflected light of the aerial, you can't make out a lot of features. However, a while back I located some softwear for free off of the internet that allows you to not only layer a transparency over the newer Mapquest aerial, it allow you to adjust the band colors which block out some of the reflected light; which has allowed me to see holes that were once Redan's, chevron-shaped bunkers, and horseshoe-shaped greens that have disappeared over that 83 year period of time.
Does any of this sound like I haven't tried to learn a thing or two about golf architecture? I hope with your VERY smart, wise and creative mind you can see where I'm going with this.