I went back to the first course I ever played, a solid Doak 2, for a scramble last weekend with my 25 handicap uncle and my 33 handicap mother. They're both members, and their $200 dues paid in February are good all the way through the end of 2017. The place has some drawbacks - the fairways are first cut length, the shrunken greens are pancake flat and overwatered and run around 8 on a good day, and the locals frequently drive their 6-seater carts that cost more than 30 years of membership dues onto the course with music blaring and start on whatever hole they can wedge their way onto between groups. But in small-town Central Kentucky it's the only course in the county, and it's cheap, walkable, and welcomes walk-ins with open arms. And damn if there aren't three or four sneaky-good holes in the mix as well.
After playing a hundred rounds or so out there as a child and a few more in recent years, and after nearly a decade of reading and/or participating on this site and mulling over what a renovation could possibly mean for the course, I've finally come to the conclusion that they shouldn't change a thing. Sure, it's noble to talk about how even people paying $25 a round on a daily fee course in God's Country deserve architectural interest. But despite the best intentions of architecture-loving dorks, the reality is that the locals who play the joint don't want a renovation that raises their greens fees and closes the place down for a few months. They love the course the way it is, and just want to play golf. And I agree with them on both counts.
My mother, who is not a very good golfer (as some of you know firsthand) and who is only 18 months removed from a diagnosis of Grade IV glioblastoma multiforme, has been walking the course every week this year after 20 previous years of cartball. In the scramble last weekend, she drained birdie putts on the 16th and 17th holes as our team of three with a combined handicap of 67 finished in second place at -10, beaten only by a team that got to -13 by riding the backs of two college golfers. I'm as big an architecture snob as anybody, and I generally hate scrambles. But watching my Mommy get more and more excited as we did our best impersonation of a golf course F&B operation by taking things deeper and deeper into the red, I honestly couldn't have given two shits about the internal contours of the greens or the lack of strategic width. There's nothing wrong with Doak 1's, 2's, or 3's. There might, however, be something wrong with the people who see them only as a missed opportunity architecturally. They miss out on the opportunity for a lot of fun.