So, on the one hand we have the romantics - forever waxing poetic about the experience that a given course provides/allows them: the freedom, the peace, the bounty of ever-changing sensations, the aura of mystery and possibility. On the other hand, we have the realists - measuring tapes at the ready, discerning of eye, an encyclopedic knowledge of the principles made manifest on great golf courses past and present, comparing and contrasting features and shot tests with the rigour of devoted scientists. Worlds apart, you might say, these two: the romantics and the realists, the writers and the rankers; very different approaches to the game and to the fields of play, you would think; the cat's meow for one is the bane of existence for the other. Ah, but no: you would be wrong. Because almost without exception it seems the courses that draw the most love from the romantics ("the hair stood on the back of my neck with the palpable air of the holy all about me") are the very same courses that the realists have over and over ranked high or very on their lists of the the best of all time ("I see here at work the traditionally dynamic blend of severe challenge and variety of recovery options forged through a routing brilliance that exemplifies the best of the golden age"). Which means, it would appear, that in fact everyone judges a golf course in precisely the same way (and are merely using different language to express this); and that the subjectie-objective dichotomy is a false one (with the Behr-Crane debates having never actually occurred); and that what we may like to think of as important debates and heated discussions are based not on strongly held -- and strongly differing - views, but instead on personal and particular pet peeves (little snits and storms of wounded pride amongst siblings). I conclude, then, that everyone who has ever even remotely been interested in and made himself knowledgable about golf courses does in fact agree on what the best architectured* courses in the world really are; and that in fact what we spend ourselves doing here is splitting hairs, just to pass the time. Hard to argue against that, isn't it? I'd like to argue against it, believe me -- but I can't.
*I say architectured instead of designed so as to make clear I'm including everything: e.g. what was there and what was put there, what got shaped and what was left alone, the carefully planned and the happily accidental.
Peter
(Best to all of you for 2013)