[Matt_Cohn]

Doak, Crenshaw, Greene, Hanse, Foster, Phillips, Eckenrode...the mainstream of 2000's golf course architecture has a very identifiable look and feel. These big names seem to have similar visions of how a golf course should look and play, and there are lots of guys I didn't name there who are also doing very good work—and in many cases, very similar style work. In a nutshell, they're all building courses that look like they were built 100 years ago.


Who's doing something different? Is there a Mike Strantz or Pete Dye out there, building great stuff that really contrasts with mainstream 2000's golf course architecture? Are there any new ideas?

[Ronald Montesano]

Well, there's this guy named Robert Trent ...


Contrasting stuff would have to depend on the topography to some degree.


The guys you mentioned all fit into the fair and playable category. The ground game category. The putting is an adventure category.


What's different, I suppose, would have to contrast to a degree with those categories/philosophies.


|| Geometric Golf || Heroic Penal Golf || Small Flat Greens Golf ||


I'm not certain what could be done differently.


Don't forget Dan Hixson

[Tom_Doak]

Doak, Crenshaw, Greene, Hanse, Foster, Phillips, Eckenrode...the mainstream of 2000's golf course architecture has a very identifiable look and feel. These big names seem to have similar visions of how a golf course should look and play, and there are lots of guys I didn't name there who are also doing very good work—and in many cases, very similar style work. In a nutshell, they're all building courses that look like they were built 100 years ago.


Who's doing something different? Is there a Mike Strantz or Pete Dye out there, building great stuff that really contrasts with mainstream 2000's golf course architecture? Are there any new ideas?

I will disagree with your premise.  If everybody was doing the same thing, everybody would be churning out great golf courses.  Maybe you should look beyond the surface to try and scout out some differences.

[Mark_Fine]

I will go out on a limb and predict one of the top architects is going to do something revolutionary and the one that does will clearly distinguish themselves as the visionary for future golf course design.  It needs to be someone like Doak or C&C or Hanse or even Fazio because they all have the credibility that if they do it, it has to be pretty darn good and worth studying or maybe replicating or at least inspiring to other architects to take similar risks. They also need a client willing to back them as golf courses are not cheap.  The difficultly is all these guys have a standard and essentially a brand to keep.  Who here wants to commission one of these guys to build something totally new and different when they know they can probably get a world class or at least an outstanding closer to what you would expect design with minimal risk.  Can any of you imagine C&C for example building from scratch a course like Tobacco Road - I don't think so.  But if they did something totally different, it would likely be embraced and maybe they could change the direction of design (at least for a little while) as was done by some of these guys in the last 20 years.  Good luck to all 

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom's response is telling: because if you look beyond/beneath the surface, ie the aesthetics, there is only one main consideration left, ie how the course *plays* -- its strategies and challenges and questions and recovery options etc. In other words, the 'shots' it asks/allows you to play.
Hey, maybe there's room for Golf Digest's rating criteria after all!

[Mark_Fine]

Peter,
Play Tobacco Road and see if you feel the same.  The design and aesthetics and variety of obstacles of the course makes figuring out the “shots it is asking” very hard to decipher and very challenging.  In some ways it is more a mental test then a physical one.  You don’t say on any hole “it is all right in front of you, just execute the shot”.  It is more a matter of which shot 

[Tom_Doak]

I will go out on a limb and predict one of the top architects is going to do something revolutionary and the one that does will clearly distinguish themselves as the visionary for future golf course design.  It needs to be someone like Doak or C&C or Hanse or even Fazio because they all have the credibility that if they do it, it has to be pretty darn good and worth studying or maybe replicating or at least inspiring to other architects to take similar risks. They also need a client willing to back them as golf courses are not cheap.  The difficultly is all these guys have a standard and essentially a brand to keep.  Who here wants to commission one of these guys to build something totally new and different when they know they can probably get a world class or at least an outstanding closer to what you would expect design with minimal risk.  Can any of you imagine C&C for example building from scratch a course like Tobacco Road - I don't think so.  But if they did something totally different, it would likely be embraced and maybe they could change the direction of design (at least for a little while) as was done by some of these guys in the last 20 years.  Good luck to all 

Mark:


This might be the silliest post you've ever made, and that's saying something.


For one thing, your premise is wrong:  Mike Strantz DID build Tobacco Road, and it did NOT change the direction of what everyone else was doing.  So why would that direction change now if one of us managed to mimic it?  [It wouldn't be that hard to do.]


Second, while I feel we are all capable of building something radically different if we wanted to, I think I can speak for myself and maybe for Bill Coore that we have spent the last 20-25 years putting out what we believe the future of golf should look like.  If we did choose to do something different in our old age, it wouldn't mean we had totally changed our philosophy or ethos, and that we wanted everyone else to copy those courses instead.


Third, I doubt you would recognize something radical and different if you saw it.  I am not sure why Mike Strantz's work was totally different than anything ever, but a fully reversible course [The Loop] or a bunkerless course [The Sheep Ranch] are just more of the same.


Matt can lament the lack of creativity all he wants -- as long as he remembers who is copying whom -- but the only way to change it is for someone to go stick their necks out.  It's actually a very good time for that, if there's someone out there who really has the talent.

[Matt_Cohn]

I think I can speak for myself and maybe for Bill Coore that we have spent the last 20-25 years putting out what we believe the future of golf should look like.

Hi Tom, thanks for your replies and as always there's a lot to digest. This line was interesting. One way to phrase my question is whether there are architects out there with notably different visions for what the future of golf should look like, either stylistically or otherwise, and whether any of them have merit.


I wouldn't say every architect is doing the same thing, but I do think that a lot of courses built or renovated these days look very similar. I don't know exactly what else I want to see, and maybe financial realities make it hard to try something wildly different. But yes, I wish there were more wildly different stuff out there than what I've seen.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom,
Mike passed away too early to know where he would have taken design and at the time he built Tobacco Road he was not all that well known and surely not a leader in the GCA profession.  Many at the time thought Tobacco Road was over the top.  There is a big difference who does these things and who doesn't.  Also sounds a bit condescending to Mike that what he did would be pretty easy to do but he probably felt the same way about your work so the feeling was probably mutual

Your second point validates my point about some of the top architects being set in their ways and have a style/brand to protect. Can't blame them.  Why take risks?  I just think one of them will step out and do something very different.  Time will tell. My guess is it will be Gil Hanse but we will see who is first. 

I might recognize more than you realize but you think what you want.  Maybe Mike fooled me and most everyone else who has played Tobacco Road but very few if any courses out there are anything like that design.  Yes it incorporates many ideas used elsewhere.  I can see concepts coming from courses such as Lahinch and Prestwick and Royal North Devon and Royal St. George's and North Berwick and the list goes on but who else has designed and built an 18 hole course like he did at Tobacco Road?  I didn't expect it to get copied but I did expect him to continue to introduce us to designs that were each very different from the last one he did. He was a breath of fresh air and he could have made a real difference as he gained popularity and recognition but we will never know.  By the way, isn't The Old course reversible and isn't Royal Ashdown Forest bunkerless?  Played both and recognized both. 

[Tom_Doak]

I think I can speak for myself and maybe for Bill Coore that we have spent the last 20-25 years putting out what we believe the future of golf should look like.

Hi Tom, thanks for your replies and as always there's a lot to digest. This line was interesting. One way to phrase my question is whether there are architects out there with notably different visions for what the future of golf should look like, either stylistically or otherwise, and whether any of them have merit.


I wouldn't say every architect is doing the same thing, but I do think that a lot of courses built or renovated these days look very similar. I don't know exactly what else I want to see, and maybe financial realities make it hard to try something wildly different. But yes, I wish there were more wildly different stuff out there than what I've seen.

Matt:


"Look" might have been a bad choice of words since I was referring more to how we think golf courses should play -- fairly wide off the tee so it's easy to find a ball, fairly challenging on the approach shot, interesting around the greens.  And equally importantly, our courses feel like they are a natural part of the land, even where we've made changes.


But your question is a good one:  are there architects who have a radically different vision of what playing golf should be?  Jim Engh was the last one I can think of, and he's not working much these days, so maybe not that many people really bought into his vision.  I can think of a couple of other guys who would stake their claim, but it remains to be seen whether they will build courses that attract golfers and clients.

[Kalen Braley]

Mark,

Do you think what Gil did at Streamsong Black was different enough?  Never seen it in person, but it certainly seems to be fairly polarizing among GCA members with a lot of unusual shot and recovery requirements...

P.S.  I've always thought Jim Engh's stuff was very out-of-the box, and while I've enjoyed his courses, I know many here don't prefer it to put it nicely.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,
Mike passed away too early to know where he would have taken design and at the time he built Tobacco Road he was not all that well known and surely not a leader in the GCA profession.  Many at the time thought Tobacco Road was over the top.  There is a big difference who does these things and who doesn't.  Also sounds a bit condescending to Mike that what he did would be pretty easy to do but he probably felt the same way about your work so the feeling was probably mutual

Your second point validates my point about some of the top architects being set in their ways and have a style/brand to protect. Can't blame them.  Why take risks?  I just think one of them will step out and do something very different.  Time will tell. My guess is it will be Gil Hanse but we will see who is first. 

I might recognize more than you realize but you think what you want.  Maybe Mike fooled me and most everyone else who has played Tobacco Road but very few if any courses out there are anything like that design.  Yes it incorporates many ideas used elsewhere.  I can see concepts coming from courses such as Lahinch and Prestwick and Royal North Devon and Royal St. George's and North Berwick and the list goes on but who else has designed and built an 18 hole course like he did at Tobacco Road?  I didn't expect it to get copied but I did expect him to continue to introduce us to designs that were each very different from the last one he did. He was a breath of fresh air and he could have made a real difference as he gained popularity and recognition but we will never know.  By the way, isn't The Old course reversible and isn't Royal Ashdown Forest bunkerless?  Played both and recognized both.

I have a great deal of admiration for Mike Strantz's work, particularly his way of creating dramatic-looking hazards.  I think everyone in the business builds better-looking features now because we've all studied what he did, but nobody has tried to outright mimic his style, out of respect.  I am sure that I know a few guys who could do it if we turned them loose.  That's not to say that they could design a course as good, but they could mimic the style.


I am never more energized than when someone tells me I can't do something, but never more annoyed when someone says I have a brand to protect.  That's baloney.  I would posit that my courses look much more different from each other than Mike Strantz's courses do, but that's partly a function of his work being confined mostly to one part of the USA.  It's also partly a function of people looking the other way at all of the courses where I've built a different look.  St. Emilion and The Loop and Memorial Park look pretty different than the stereotype of my work, but I can't help it if people pay more attention to Tara Iti and Pacific Dunes!


Also did Mike Strantz ever visit Lahnich and Royal North Devon and Royal St. George's?  Honest question, I don't have any idea, but I was surprised to see you cite them as his inspiration for certain holes.

[Mark Pritchett]

 Many people confuse different with good. 

[Joe Hancock]

Whether it be the developer, the architect, the shaper, or some other person of influence on the design of a golf course, the most important thing (in my mind) is the visionary be true unto themselves. If you’re *trying* to do something different but you aren’t truly different(or different-thinking) then you’re fighting the process.


It’s one thing to learn a new way or have a change of preferences, but it’s quite another to pretend to be artistically radical when your nature is quite conservative. Serve the game of golf while remaining true to yourself and it should work out well…..


I guess if you are looking for something different, seek out the architect whose logo is a bowl of psychedelic mushrooms on the horizon, or something like that……

[Mark_Fine]

Kalen,
The Black was under construction when I was last down there so I have only played the Red and the Blue.  You are right about the Black from what I have heard from guys whose opinions I trust and the reviews from them are mixed.  I reserve judgment until I see it myself (Covid has slowed travel for me until very recently) but hopefully in 2022 I will swing down there. 

I used to talk to Jim Engh regularly many years ago.  As has been said, he definitely designed some unique layouts.  I think the last one I saw was The Golf Club at Black Rock.  Jim had an incredibly diverse site and did his thing (which as we both know was very different from most).  Some holes you love and some you shake your head but he definitely was trying to be different and I always admired him for it.  Change takes time especially in a game filled with tradition but it will happen, always does as most anything that is stagnant usually dies.  Who knows if we will see it in our lifetimes but I know a few who have ideas and we will see 

Tom,
Mike Strantz did one of his last interviews for Forrest and I for our Hazards book.  His wife (Heidi if I remember her name correctly as it was back in 2005) helped while he was in the hospital - Mike insisted he wanted to do the interview even though he could no longer really talk at the time 


He was told us he was inspired by many of those courses I mentioned and others that heavily influenced him were St. Andrews and Royal County Down.  He also loved Pine Valley and said he rarely would he ever build a course where at least one thought from Pine Valley didn't pop into his mind. We only used a portion of what Mike told us in our book as we had to limit content but I still have some of my notes.  Mike was infatuated by Hazards (no surprise).  One of my favorite quotes from Mike that we did manage to include in the book was about the definition of "unfair", a term he and I both agreed has no place in the world of GCA.  Mike said, "One of the definitions of 'unfair' is marked by injustice, partiality, or deception."  Mike said that sounded to him like it could be part of the definition for the game of golf itself 


Mark,
Very true.  Different for the sake of being different is one thing.  Stone Harbor was different but it was not very good at all.  But there are always exceptions and different is what sparks innovation otherwise nothing would ever change.  Sometimes it is a bumpy trial and error process to find success. 

[archie_struthers]

 




You could build something totally different than anyone else but it might really suck 


I've played a few courses by a name designer (better golfer)with a plethora of 90 degree doglegs , a course built to honor ancient Greek and Roman mythology and a course with so much going on I wanted to blow it up by the ninth hole . Really  enjoyed imploding a par three totally surrounded by wood planking (Greate Bay #2) yikes....a green with a giant tree growing in the middle of it , etc etc etc.  I thought a brilliant guy from around here named Ed Carmen built something unique at Running Deer, but it just didn't quite play right. Visited what was supposed to be a spectacular closing hole in OC Md. that required a six iron lay-up and a three iron second shot , not too good etc etc etc and this is within a couple hours from my home in the deep south of NJ>


We appreciate good design that flows, that's why lots of the architects we like work so hard to keep it from being a crazy staccato of difficult holes one after another. They agonize over and over about how to rout it so the challenges resonate with all kinds of golfers, not just guys who are scratch players or hit it 320 yards.


So I'm not thinking bottleneck fairways to reign in long hitters on multiple holes. Or wild over the top green that are not puttable as soon as they get firm and fast or the wind blows. Or bunker complexes that have 18 DA's like the 10th at Pine Valley.




Maybe someone could build a seemingly benign 18 holes with some radical kick plates in the fairways or even on the greens that mandate a specific trajectory that is foreign to most of our great  players of today who hit it very far and very high as a rule. That's what someone with real special talent might do , someone "so good with the stilletto" that you can't see the pain coming.  Now that might be a dream that's achievable. 

[Peter Pallotta]

You'd think that if a radically different vision of what playing golf should be was actually possible we would've seen it by now -- at least once, at some point over the last 150 years. But we haven't. Not even once. We didn't see it when golf (and gca) moved from the Scottish linksland to the English inlands; nor did we see a radical new vision of golf or gca when the game migrated across the oceans from GB&I to Australia and America, ie to Chicago and Long Island and Philadelphia; and we didn't see it as golf spread across North America, and to California and to the deserts and the mountains; nor was some new way of thinking about how the game might be played expressed in the work of RTJ or Pete Dye or Tom Fazio or Mike Strantz, not at the swamp that was Sawgrass nor at Tobacco Road, for all its flash -- for in order to have 'deception' the 'norm' has to be honoured/implicit; and even as dramatic a shift as a literal renaissance in golf course architecture didn't bring about a 'new vision' of the art-craft in any of its essentials. And all of this is not a criticism, it's just a reality. The game is the game, and it abides -- thank goodness.

[Mark_Fine]

Archie,
Great points and some good examples.  No one here is arguing different is always better. 


Peter,
Wasn’t there a story back in the early 1900’s when the head of the U.S. patent office resigned because he said there was nothing meaningful left to invent 

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark, I get your point, but I think that's the basic mistake/misunderstanding around here. Golf architects don't "invent" anything; architects "create". An analogy: They've been making movies in the same way for almost 100 years, and story-telling's essential narratives and fundamental 'narrative structures' had been around for hundreds of years before that -- firmly established long before Shakespeare made such genius-level use of them. And they still apply, in precisely the same way, whether it's a DeMille biblical epic or a Woody Allen comedy or a Martin Scorcese mob movie. Nothing has changed for decades; no one has 'invented' anything new in even longer than that -- and yet, year after year after year, talented filmmakers (and golf course architects) produce/create a new batch of wonderful pieces of work, all of the unique, each and every one of them different. In one sense, all of it is 'new' and 'different' -- but in another sense, none of it is.

[Michael Chadwick]

This thread is rife with some gross oversimplifications. What the premise seems to ask though is if anyone can be identified who might change course design away from the current paradigm that arguably began in the 90s with Sand Hills, Pacific Dunes, and so on. I'm wary of why anyone would want to do that. It would require departing from the tenets of the first Golden Age that the leading contemporary architects referenced by the OP have spent their careers reintroducing and modernizing for golfers after what GCA's homepage refers to 1949-1985 as design's dark ages. There were already decades of "mainstream" course design and construction that repudiated what OTM, Colt, Tillinghast, Ross, etc. did--and now you're looking for someone so bold as to forgo not just architects of that ilk but also C&C, Doak, Hanse?     


I have zero concerns that a shared sense of "similar visions of how a golf course should look and play" among top architects working today would ever actually lead to a feeling of mundane sameness at a course to course comparison. As Mr. Doak mentioned earlier, that's a fault of not paying close enough attention.     


The flip side to that question is that there are plenty of existing designs and working architects whose style clearly contrasts with those the OP considers mainstream, if that's what someone would prefer. Black Rock was already mentioned, but I'll refrain from listing additional courses I think would also apply.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I’m sure there have been a few architects with vision over the years (like Strantz) but history usually writes who the “Visionaries” were and it most often comes hand in hand with success.


Since the 6 or 7 ODG “visionaries”, I’d argue that we’ve had 4 so far that will be remembered in the history books - Trent Jones, Dye, Coore & Doak.


I think Tom defined quite clearly up above that he and Bill have a similar belief in how their courses should play. A part of that translates in to look (such as free flowing width, hiding transitions to fit in with the landscape). So they definitely use some similar tools to achieve their visions.


But that certainly doesn’t mean the courses look the same under the surface framework. And I’ve said a few times on here before that purely aesthetically, I think Tom mixes it up more than his modern contemporaries (from what I’ve seen, often on photos). Whether it be St Emilion or Renaissance or Common Ground or Barnbougle Dunes or The Loop, they are all quite different.


I do think that framework often identifies the work though. I’m not sure the courses “look like they’re 100 years old” (to quote Matt above). Or maybe the point is that there are no 100 year old courses (in America) that still look like they did…. But one of the reasons St Patricks is “different to any other links built in GB&I” is because it works within that framework. It doesn’t make it less than great though. In fact, it is part of the reason it is great.

[Ben Stephens]

Here we go again!

I can see where Matt is coming from.

If people play a golf course not knowing who the architect is they would see similarities across the spectrum - the style and appearance of courses by Doak, Hanse and C+C are quite similar even if they play differently. Do they share shapers who have similar approaches or learned within.

I feel it is becoming a bit stale despite the great sites they have been working on and conservative rather than do something out of the ordinary

Pete Dye stands out as you can identify a Dye course as it has its own style like Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry in Architecture maybe call that period from 1960s to 2010s as 'Dyeism'. He had a hybrid of old and new ideas and created a style that stands out on its own.

Has anyone really tried to replicate Pete? like the others have in regards to Thomas, McKenzie and Ross et al.

Andrew Green is slightly different as his shaping and bunkering are more jagged like at Inverness, Congo, Oak Hill and Scioto.

Desmond Muirhead came up with really quirky designs and most don't realise he co designed Murifield Village with Jack (correct me if I am wrong)

Lido is both new and old - it has been replicated by computer and that information has been relayed to the ground in terms of contours and shaping is this the future of golf course design? Can design through computers create a new style or vision - I believe it will happen hopefully sooner than later

[V_Halyard]

The irony of this thread is the proposition of a “stale redundancy of excellence” atop the GCA food chain and perhaps that would be a bad thing.
It’s not real.

Let’s step away from the drafting table a bit.  At least in the US, we have a long way to go with regard to the saturation of design excellence for the bulk of golfers. If there were 100 Originals each of C&C, Doak, Stranz, Hanse, DMKidd, King/Collins Rhebb/Johns Etc, this might hold more validity. A Hanse Match Trail would tasty. Devries and Foster munys… delicious.

Access to great GCA is rare, so to propose that the contemporary GCA+ pool has become “stale” or redundant is a bit of a stretch. There is no contemporary GCArchie with a high volume catalog akin to Ross’.

We wish there was a glut of great golf architecture but in reality, many retail golfers (granted, again, in the US) are playing circular greens with seed smuggled from the baseball outfield and off the black market from the  Tackle/Helmet/football stadium.
(Ok that’s harsh but not too far off) Find some bunker sand to buy right now. Go ahead… I’ll wait…

Others have nice courses but there are still not enough. Our best publics are over sold and can be saddled with 5 and 6 hour rounds regardless if they are in urban or rural areas.  We don’t have a very high GCA+/Golfer ratio.

Cirba and Bausch were at Jeffersonville with Ron Prichard and they learned that the Jeff was going to do 60,000 rounds in calendar 2021. 60k. We need more “GCA+” across-the-board to fulfill the demand. Sweetens is on a waitlist status, some Lawsonia tee times are sold into 2023 and you have between 06:00:00 am and 06:00:10 sec am to get a tee time at Houston Memorial.
On the high end, every top gca course weekend is likely sold out through 2022 and into 2023.

When we have a course by the aforementioned in every city, and I can ride a train town to town with my clubs on my back and play two a day, then maybe this proposed “similarity glut” is a thing. Ross is likely the closest GCArchie to have his own eco system.
When there is a Houston Memorial Park Golf, Goat Hill, Common Ground,George Wright, Lawsonia, Winter Park 9, Sweetens Cove, Tobacco  Road, Jeffersonville or the like in every town, we still would have barely broken the surface of a demand for contemporary GCA excellence. And when the Covid bump levels out, GCA excellence will likely prevail.

Right now, we’re shouting in a very small room. I wish Stranz was overbuilt.

[A.G._Crockett]

Whatever the future of GCA might be, it is NOT Streamsong Black.  It's different and unique, but it is not something that can be duplicated elsewhere. 


I loved the course, but I don't think there are many properties with 16,000 acres of land available like the Streamsong property. Even there, they will go VERY slowly on building another full 18 hole course, simply because the best terrain from the phosphate mining has been used; building another flat central FL course would probably cheapen the brand.  (I think they are planning a short course near the lodge?)


The greens at the Black are 11 acres, and I think the average is more like 3 acres of greens?  (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong about those numbers, but you get the idea.)  The amount of contour on those greens only works because they are so damn big to begin with.  Plus, if you played the Black for the first time without a caddie, not only would you not know where to hit any number of shots, but you'd hit to the wrong green at least a couple of times.  It's a unique course for sure, and a great one, but it is NOT the future of GCA. 


In that regard, Streamsong has much in common with Tobacco Road; it takes a visionary approach for courses like the three at Streamsong or The Road to be built, but guys like Tom and C&C and Hanse and the late Mike Strantz need a good canvas and quality paints to let them do their best work.  And there are only so many of those around.

If it's in any way repetitive to play any two of Tom's courses, or C&C's, or Hanse's, I have yet to see it.  But the commonalities of design are a HUGE step forward, and I hope it stays that way. 


And FWIW, if I were a GCA and somebody said that I had built a course that looked like it had been there for 100 years, I would think that I had hit it out of the park.  Just my opinion...

[Mark_Fine]

High quality affordable golf is what might be a new trend that is still missing.  Maybe that is an oxymoron, maybe not.  It is along the lines of what V-Halyard said but I don't think it will come from the big name architects unless every community has someone willing to donate eight figures and a big slush fund for on-going maintenance.  Gil doesn't have time to work on these kind of courses and who can blame him when he has Merion, Winged Foot, Olympic,...begging for his time.  Gil emailed me a few weeks ago passing on a project for a lower end course that he didn't have time (how could he) to work on.  But those are the courses where a big or at least some positive difference can be made for the masses. 


Even look at a course like Southern Pines in NC.  The change is dramatic, I loved it!  Might now be the best of the three (Mid Pines and Pine Needles).  But what also is new and dramatic is the new green fee which will go up over 4 fold to close to $200 a round.  Will the locals who played there still embrace it?  They needed someone to write a donation for $10MM so they could keep the fee affordable.  But then you still have a slightly (to put it modestly) expanded maintenance budget that will need to be paid for by someone. 


We are blessed with a new Golden Age of course design but very few of these great courses are ever seen at all or more than once by the far majority of golfers who play the game.  I like the idea of shorter courses with a par less than 70 that are fun but still challenge most levels of golfers and at the same time also capture the current more natural look and feel but are lower in maintenance upkeep and utilize much less real estate.  I don't have the name to make something like this happen but someone will do it and it will change the game for the better. 

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