A couple of observations that may provide some insight.
Texas did not have a major league pro sports franchise until 1960. And there is no elite Ivy league caliber college or university in this state despite its size, population and wealth. (I suppose Rice may qualify.)
It may be that while these things were originally formed and founded there was no compelling reason to form and found these institutions in Texas.
The state's two flaghip state universities - UT-Austin and A&M - are extremely wealthy with enormous resources and have more recently expended those resources in an attempt at greatness but by most meaures have fallen short. Sure they are very good but I doubt many consider them great.
This place just does't have or inspire greatness to my mind. I have lived here for almost thirty years and I just don't see it much here.
There really may be something to the notion of a cultural inferiority complex. The natives may actually get it, and perhaps their use of a Texas "nationalism" is a compensating mechanism. But no matter how much they display Texas symbols and trinkets, no matter how much they tell others and themselves that this place is great does not necessarily make it so.
And, so it seems, when it comes to golf courses too, greatness has, as of yet, just not been in the cards.
Why? Who can say for sure, but certainly much presented in this discussion helps to explain: history, geography, demographics, weather, poiltics, economics, whatever. It is certainly, like most complex matters, a combination of many things.
Having two kids graduate from UoT-Austin, let me beg to differ a bit and offer an alternative perspective. Of the Ivy League schools, all but Cornell (and look at the two well-known GCAers from there!
) were founded before there was a U.S. Harvard is nearly 250 years older than UT! Do you think that being the recipient of such great wealth for so many more years, not to say anything about all the influential opinion makers they've nurtured in all facets of life, might have a bit to do with our perceptions of culture, politics, golf courses, etc.? While I do fear that immigration, domestic and foreign, will eventually californicate Texas, give the UT system, Rice, SMU, and Baylor a couple hundred years and see how they compare. There are programs at UT today that don't take a back seat to those at the Ivies, and that's before talking price/value.
As to the psychoanalysis, perhaps Mr. Mucci might benefit from a session, but in my 35 years here, I see little evidence of an "inferiority" complex. What Pat says about Texans being members of some of the top golf clubs in the country is true. Many of the "old money" families in Fort Worth, a great city that still holds dear its true Texan culture, also have apartments in NYC, Paris, London, etc., and their kids attend the finest colleges of the world. There is much to learn and enjoy from the old. These folks could live anywhere, yet, despite the weather and very ordinary aesthetics- it is definitely too damned hot here- they remain. Go figure. Maybe the problem is not with what is lacking in Texas, golf, culture, the quality of higher education, etc., but how we choose to define "great" based on how we are trained and, in no small part, where we hail from.
Jim Hoak,
How can something so subjective as one's preference for golf architecture be measured "objectively"? I've heard it say that the criteria used by the magazines is to help its raters HOW to think as opposed to WHAT to think. Don't believe me if you want, but even within the specific criteria employed by GD and GW, assessing shot values or applying the "walk-in-the-park" test is more of a Justice Stewart's "know it when I see it" approach than one derived by totaling a well-defined checklist (there are raters who rely on memory and don't take notes; at an outing many years ago when I was a GW rater, an experienced colleague noted in a public discussion that he "marked down" a course- happens to be on the front page of the DG currently- because it had insufficient well-defined, "properly" maintained women's tees; I could give many more examples).
I can tell you that your definition of "great" is substantially different than mine. I am curious, where are you from? What course (s) were important in your formative years in the game? What % of Golfweek's two Top 100 courses or Golf Digest's Top 100 have you played? Where do you play today (if you care to reveal- don't worry, I've been "educated" by the opinion leaders on the proper etiquette in seeking access)? Do you or have you played competitively?