From Melvyn's reply
"I digress for a moment, please bear with me.
The USA has its culture at home, when its troops or large group travel to live overseas, do they embrace the local culture, no, the first thing we see is a mini USA be it done by The Military, its Embassies and collective group of citizens. Nothing wrong there, you are maintaining your status quo.
So pray tell me what I am doing wrong in my wish that golf should remain as it was and is on our Island. I wish to see the game remain challenge by Walking and Thinking. To have a consistency in golfing equipment that’s allow a golfer to follow and understand over the years where his game has gone. To return to an old course hardly touched for 25 years and play it again knowing he retained the original scorecard and his clubs are more or less the same, it is indescribable.
So there you have it I am asking for the very same thing your own country offer its citizens, consistency wherever you go in the world, again just like staying at The Hilton, same effect. However some of you seem to take pleasure in attaching me, some calling me an elitist forgetting that’s the very thing you do yourselves, but in a much bigger and far more expensive way. Please note I just want consistency on the golf course back to the days of pre carts and distance aids (for me that’s the 1960’s early 1970’s."
Melvyn,
Thanks for the response. Your reply on what is positive, I basically agree with.
In regards to consistency in my country. The only thing consistent is our inconsistency.
I played a golf course for a charity event this week. Drove through two neighborhoods. One neighborhood was decidedly Asian, and the signage on the shops and buildings was amazing. I then went through a largely Latino neighborhood, and it was pretty clear that their culture was dominant in the storefronts and shops. The radical differences in cultures and beliefs in this country is reflected in communities AND golf courses. Remote, inexpensive places for the locals, exotic/over the top courses for those desiring it.
Growth of this country, as well as the attraction to the game, spread golf across the land to sites that many in Scotland may see as unsuitable to golf. In my eyes, as I drive across our land, I am forever visualizing golf holes and courses stretching along highways and country roads. Sometimes on beautiful sandy land, sometimes with simply beautiful vistas. The good and the bad our country has given golf, is an expansion of the game, to areas not originally thought to be for the game. To me, providing a venue for anybody to be introduced to this game is a positive. Ideally, that would come with a way to KEEP them interested in it.
As far as my question that led to your response, I simply asked what you LIKED about American golf. If my question was seen in any way as an attack, I am uncertain what to say.