"but if it can be done on very windy, sandy, and completely treeless sites like Sand Hills, I'm not sure that it's as big of a feat today than in Crump's time?"
Mike:
Do you have any idea what Sand Hills GC goes through in that vein?
It's just incredible. You should speak to Bill Coore about that someday. He says he's never seen anything like it. To date they haven't figured out how to handle it---to just fix things every year or just let it evolve and see what happens.
You know this old saw---"It's not a good idea to F... with Mother Nature"?
Well some need to start to take it more seriously when they do golf architecture study and analysis.
In that vein I have a wonderful story for you involving Maidstone GC and that wonderful dune that basically blinds the super cool par 3 8th hole.
Some decades ago some overarching important member got all ticked at that blindness formed by that natural dune and had the whole thing removed late one fall after the course shut down.
The next spring when he came back Mother Nature had put the thing back just about exactly the way it had been the year before. And so it remains to this day
By the way, I was up there last week and around daybreak I sneaked up behind the 9th tee and 8th green though the dunes in my Range Rover. You want to see what really natural dune-like bunkers and blowouts look like---that's the observation spot par excellence.
Unfortunately it became a bit problematic getting out of there. I had to alternate between the extreme sand and rut setting and the rock climbing setting. I didn't think i was going to make it outta there but finally I did. However there was so much sand and shit on and under the car I had to take it over to the Maidstone Maintenance Department and hoist it up and hose it off.
When me and the car were all cleaned up I picked up my wife so she could go to the new POLO kids store on the star stocked main drag to shop for her little grandson and do some star gazing.
She was really concentrating on her shopping as I was day dreaming and wondering who asked the pretty little waspish POLO sales girl to wear corduroy short shorts and knee high riding boots. All of a sudden I hear all these English accents and as I turned around who do I bump right into but Sir Paul McCartney. Nice guy he is---real down to earth.
The next day me and Mike Tiernan went over to some fancy Indian take-out restaurant in Amagannsett to pick up some curry stuff for the troops and who do I bump into again but Sir Paul McCartney. For some reason he had the same clothes on he had on the day before. I guess that's some kind of British or European thing.
This time he looks at my cap and says; "Where is Prairie Dunes?"
So I said: "It's in Huchinson Kansas, and who in the Hell wants to know? By the way, if I run into you again tomorrow are you gonna have the same clothes on?"