Colin,
Why did they remove so much gorse? Rabbits or cosmetics or some other reason?
One of the things that used to make RAGC a really strong challenge was the gorse...it certainly buggered-up Greg Norman's chances in the Senior Open when he hit into it on the left side of the 16th and lost out to 'Mr Course Management' (aka Tom Watson).
Atb
Thomas
I believe that the intent was to return the course to closer to the original design - old photos show that there was very little gorse in between holes, so that is the area on which they have focused. I also understand that left untended the gorse spreads more and more outwards and the plant in the middle effectively dies. The programme started long before I was a member, but is still in progress now. For instance the gorse between the 18th and the 1st holes was only removed after the Scottish Open a couple of years ago - this was where Poulter injured his hand in the last round if I recall.
What I would say is that it makes the course, IMHO, much more playable for the average golfer (member and visitor alike) - you are still punished for going off-line as it's still rough, but you are much more likely to find your ball as opposed to losing it in the Gorse. In the areas first cut it is starting to grow back now, and the new gorse is troublesome to play out of.
Funnily enough one hole where the gorse remains up both sides off the tee is the 16th, so Greg would still be in trouble even now!
Sorry we seem to have got a bit OT...