I am posting some writing here from the Merion thread because Ian told me it was good if you have read it, go on.
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If I was to guess, which I will, the current (golf) generation is in love with an ideal that there are some great things to behold and preserve and also not a lot to love about many of the courses we've created in recent times (past 40 years). Nothing too surprising. Is this a smart generation? Probably not. It is polarized: On one end are the "don't touch a thing" folks, and on the other are the "I don't have a clue" folks. When, in reality, the issue is not about either, nor anywhere in between.
It is (or should be) about creating terrific and fun golf courses no matter what route or approach is taken. Fun, of course, can mean the preservation of a design and charm in order that people can see what was done in days gone by. On the other hand, changing a seemingly historic/classic layout to make it more fun to watch a tournament or play or look out across with a drink in hand is also necessary. We also have an obligation to the future golf architects and golfers, who are infinately more important that those who are dead. Had we not fostered the likes of our great artists no matter the area of their work we would not have the "greats" to behold today.
And the great artists have not just learned from seeing the great preserved works before their time. No. They have also learned from seeing the butchered art and archietcture of their day, and which has also come before them. Seeing bad is enlightening. It is probably what motivates some on this site to chirp so often and loudly.
So, is it OK that Tom or Bob or Jeff or Bill or Mark or Ted or Wendy or Hans (the new golf architects) get a chance to tinker with courses, both classic and non? Yes. Will they make mistakes and annoy some who call their work awful? Yes. But in my book, just one great and terrific new idea that may never have been thought of, which finds it way through the cracks of all this preceived awfulness, is extremely important. Now, do I want to see Tom or Bob or Jeff or Bill or Mark or Ted or Wendy or Hans really screw things up? Of course not. But rarely are golf architects, new or seasoned, given unfair access to do such. It is always a process and whether due to politics or fate or luck or stupidity, it sometimes happens that the wrong person is given a green light to do the wrong thing. Funny, though, that this wrongness is in our present-day perspective and in reality we know not what it will be seen as in 100 years. And, in a 100 years if it is stills seen as wrong it will likely be corrected or changed yet again....as I believe we are doing today, as we discuss.
So, you see, it is a cycle. And in no sport or game or any of the design arts of the built environment do we have what golf has provided: A living canvas on which what we draw is no more permanent than chalk on a sidewalk. For it may last with great heroics but it is not designed to by nature or the movement of people across its skin. The chalk may become messy. It may wash away. But rebuilding and re-drawing it is part of the fun and excitement.
Golf is much bigger than any of us. It will endure past all our opinions as it has gone well past the opinions of others. All of our history of golf is relatively recent. The deepest reaches of it go no further back than 500 years. And almost all of it goes no further back than 100 years. And all that we can say for absolute certainty goes back not much more than 50 years.
The only thing for certain is that the courses we speak about today will change tomorrow morning, and every morning thereafter. Whether from wind, hot air, people, bad ideas, good ideas, or grown men and women with gin and tonics who think they know everything.