Sunningdale Old looks incredible! It's a special place and one of my favourites. That said, every time I look at photos, I think 'what could be'. The scale, ruggedness and aesthetic seems to have been lost, and it now resembles more of a Japanese garden than a heathland golf course. The property must be one of the best in golf, but that scale is hiding in the abundance of trees - and because the playing corridors have now shrunk, so have the bunkers and the greens to fit.
If folks do a little research into how quickly trees, scrub, brush etc grows they'll likely be amazed. And their growth is compound too, so it keeps ever-expanding upon itself ... self seeder begets more self seeders and hey presto, there's a forest. The amount of work needed by man to intervene and halt or reverse the growth the considerable ... manpower, machines, time, cost etc etc.
Once upon a time however, the heathlands (and links, parklands etc) were roamed by domesticated grazing animals and through their constant nibbling away they kept the vegetation, trees, brush, scrub etc in check. Man also removed some timber but this was relatively small scale and was essentially for domestic purposes like firewood, furniture, fencing etc.
Such grazing etc doesn't occur much these days, in fact it hasn't done so in many areas of the UK for circa 100 yrs, and the consequence of this has been continuous and compound tree, scrub, brush etc growth.
This is one of the reasons why I've become quite passionate about courses being grazed by domestic animals. Yes there are some 'dirty shoe' type downsides, but there are considerable advantages too, and not just golfing ones. And the animals don't need to graze the same area of land all year round. If necessary they can be herded to certain parts of the property. Indeed these days the animals can (and do at some courses) have collars attached with sensors placed at strategic points on the property so they herd themselves away from key parts of the course.
atb