Sorry for the subject, but I feel like as a GCA community, we are asleep to what is happening in the UK&I at the moment.
To preface what I'm about to say, I need to give a bit of context. I love golf in the UK. I love the links courses, and heathland courses. From Scotland to England to Wales to N.I. and Ireland, there is so much quality, that I would happily play my golf here for the rest of my life and never complain....
So now that you know this doesn't come from a place of anger, but of concern, I need to ask: what the hell is happening to our great courses here in the UK?! While the pendulum in the US seems to have swayed back towards fun, playability, contoured greens, uniqueness, minimalism, naturalism, and originality, the UK is going in the other direction! It seems like up and down the coast, the best courses are getting assaulted by bad GCA work and bad GCA decisions, which is homogenising the best we have to offer. (Caveat: I am not trying to call out specific architects, and apologies if this seems like an assault on you). Some examples of things I have seen / heard:
- 20 yard wide fairways at North Berwick
- Remodelling of par-3s 8 & 17 at Swinley Forest
- Bunker work at Sunningdale Old, which looks like a cross between....who knows
- Green slope softening at places like St George's Hill
- General uninspiring and unoriginal work at places like Turnberry
- Making greens and holes at Royal Aberdeen more homogenous, most notably the 3rd.
- Bunker work at courses like The Old Course
- Won't mention Wentworth again...
- Praise of places like Adare Manor, which are the most unsustainable golf courses known to man.
- Consideration given to destroying beautiful original holes at Cruden Bay for 'championship' sake.
Ran and others beat the drum years ago, and at least had a hand in helping to educate about what good looks like in the US. Now, I feel like we are asleep here in the UK. And it's only set to get worse. As more and more who don't know better praise this work because it's new, more and more clubs will start to look at their neighbour and think 'We want some of that!'.
But are we really improving these courses? I don't think so. The only improvements I've seen at great courses is where a club has gone back to the original principle of what the course was when it opened: Alwoodley, Tandridge, and New Zealand (with bunker work) to name a few.
What's happening and what can we do? They say the first step to recovery is through acceptance. Can we accept that there is a lot of work happening at great golf courses around the UK that is not good?!