Cross Bunkers and the 'Steeplechase' design style.
Going back to this JH Taylor quote from the May 1920 issue of Golf Illustrated:
"Let me get back on to the tracks of my original theme and try and help the reader to realize that the heavy ball may possibly be an unjustifiable appendage to the game. We in Britain have seen ruthlessly eliminated from our links the cross bunker.It is a very rare thing indeed to see on any course this most effective trap. True, we do come across occasionally a deep,wide abyss that has to be crossed in the progress to the hole, but the old rampart-like structure that reared its head, proudly bidding defiance to one and all is gone. The purely artificial links will not tolerate it. I have often wondered why. We are told that the origin of the word "links" are those waste places by the sea where the game was first played. Such a place is Sandwich and Westward Ho! in England, Monifirth and Montrose in Scotland, but even there, which should be sacred, the blighting hand of the modern improver is seen. Hills have been removed, passages cut through miniature mountains in order that the players should not lose distance by having to hit a moderately high ball to carry them. I am thoroughly convinced that golf was meant to be played in the air. The ball was never meant to be trundled toward the hole. Obstructions should be carried boldly. The usual flat depression that goes by the name of bunker is as often as not jumped and taken in the stride as the ball goes scuttling along. There is not a prettier strike in the game than the high dropping shot up to the hole guarded by a high bunker.This requires great incubus of judgment in elevation and strength and betrays the hand of the master when successful. This sentinel that guarded the approach to the hole so effectively was condemned for no convincing reason and was swept away with impunity without scarcely a plea being heard in its defense.The high cross bunker was the last remaining link that bound the golfer of the early nineties to those old stalwarts of a generation before and it was hard to see its passing. It was the swansong of the lighter ball, as, by its passing, the heavier ball came into its illicit own. By its greater density and momentum it could not be nulled up when the high obstacle was close up to the green and therefore it was decreed that it must go, and with its going was rung the death knell of the long high-drooping stroke.We now see that the ground is clear for a long way directly in front of the green so that the lumbering heavy ball may be propelled with a low trajectory and undignified gait. Gone forever I fear is the boldly pitched up mashie shot, pitched to within a few yards of the pin. At a distance of 130 yards or so we tremblingly drop it well short, hoping that with good luck in its run it may eventually come to rest on the green somewhere"While Taylor was speaking of the aerial game as it was played with the guttie compared to the haskel ball. I believe the sentiment equally applies to today. The game as we knew it in the early 1900's has greatly shifted to being an aerial game. Golf balls and golf clubs today are designed with the intent of hitting the ball high and keeping the ball in the air as long as possible. Players, especially in the US, are not taught or conditioned to think of play along the ground, unless the putter is in their hands. The desire to play the ball in the air.
While we few in GCA greatly desire to see the ball played more on the ground, we must realize that those opportunities for great ground play are few and far between. So rather than trying to force the square peg into the round hole, why not take inspiration from the past and design for a more aerial focused game?