To make my point a bit more clear, just let me add the following to the discussion.
To me, golf in the first place is a sport. Although I like other elements connected to golf like nature, tranquility, tradition, beauty, esthetics, harmony, social gatherings, good manners, luxury, life style, status and so on, it’s the challenge of hitting good shots and making low scores that really attracts me.
Therefor a golf course, in my view, first and foremost is a sports field. Slightly different from a tennis court, ballpark or a soccer pitch, but in essence the same. A piece of land, made suitable to play a game.
Ocean views are great, and so are rustling trees, towering dunes, murmling brooks, blossoming azaleas, snow-white crushed marble, reflections on mirroring lakes, meandering streams, bunker complexes with rough edges in MacKenzie style, split fairways, island greens, wooden bridges that run in half circles, et cetera. But all these things, which are beautiful in themselves, are not needed to play golf.
And the same goes for secondary facilities like impressive club houses, valet parking, bag drop-offs, fleets of shiny carts, gourmet food, long whine lists and so on. Again, very, very nice to have, but of no significance for playing the game of golf.
To play good and serious golf, only three things are needed: 1. Land; 2. Healthy grass cut in different heights; 3. Hazards. All other things are ornamental. Take for example the first and last hole at The Old Course. Forget about the R&A Clubhouse, Hamilton Hall, The Rusacks, the Old Grey Town et cetera, but focus on the course itself: nothing more than a large area of short cut grass. A straight forward out of bounce fence on three sides. On the 1st a ditch that crosses the fairway and guards the green, effective and extremely simple. On the 18th nothing more than a small depression at the front side of the green. No bunkers with rough edges, no magnolias, no dunes, no lakes. Two fantastic holes, plain and simple and at the same time attractive and great fun to play.
Now the point I want to make: why don’t we design and build more of these basic, simple, unpretentious holes and turn them into nice little, well maintained, modern golf courses. Sports fields that are easy accessible, where people, and especially young people and newcomers to the game, can play there rounds, learn to play good golf and have fun. Nothing more and nothing less. I believe that such golf courses would be an important addition to the portfolio of existing courses and would attract people to our sport who now are scared away by the opulence of many golf courses and/or the security guards at the entrance gates.