I've never understood the desire to be universally loved. To me golf course architect is an art, and the best art will always have legitimate detractors. Great art should touch you in ways that are very personal, and therefore, can not reach everyone. It doesn't make the critics wrong or poor critics, it is just the piece of art didn't touch them as it did others.
I've always been a big fan of cool jazz. However, for some strange reason, Miles Davis doesn't do it for me. I can't really explain why, but his music doesn't work for me. Perhaps I first heard his music when in a funk, or maybe it is something else. Many people, whose opinions I respect, love Miles Davis, and I know with my taste in music he should be high on my list of favorites, but he is not.
Golf courses are very similar. I don't like Spyglass Hill. I've played it probably a dozen times, and it just doesn't do anything for me. I know plenty of people who think Spyglass is the Cat's Meow, but I'm not one of them. I'm sure it has something to do with not fitting my game, but there are plenty of other courses that don't fit my game, that I still appreciate.
The problem with golf architecture is it both wants to be an art form and for business reasons, universally popular. Art gets in trouble when it goes for the popular rather than the artistic.
Cheers,
Dan King
The most beautiful of all courses we have made is Cypress Point, and at the same time it is also the most difficult of all our courses. When we constructed Cypress Point we expected we should be snowed under by hostile criticism.
--Alister MacKenzie