So, in my byline below I have the phrase "I think golf culture should be more like beer culture than wine culture" and I think this conversation is illustrative of what I mean by that.
I moved to in Northern CA about a decade ago, and my girlfriend is from Sonoma County. There is a bit of culture clash between Napa and Sonoma which, I think, is relevant to the golf world. Napa is home to some of the most artisan wines in the world, and much of the region is set up to sell people on that experience. The idea is that someone in an expensive suit tells you that you are drinking the best wine, it's won these awards, this is why it matters, and you're in a beautiful setting that's appropriate for this exclusive experience. And, without question, the wine they're selling you is indeed amazing.
Sonoma County also makes some of the best wines in the world, but ironically, they're much more known for their beer. Russian River Brewing, Lagunitas Brewing, Bear Republic, Moonlight... etc. The clash in culture couldn't be more evident. Even the esteemed Russian River eschews any sense of that marketing-as-product you get in Napa. Their tasting room is a bar in downtown Santa Rosa, that has regulars, and basic pub food and pizza. The same culture clash exists in their wine industry too, where the best wine I've ever tasted was in a warehouse in a parking lot, made by the same wine makers that made the high-end wine on a vineyard for a fancy members-only winery.
What does this have to do with golf culture? There will always be an audience for "the best" golf courses. The napa-style best course, made by the best people, in the best setting, which you're paying top dollar for... if you're even allowed to access it. It will always exist because the gatekeepers and exclusivity are almost necessary to justify the experience of greatness many people are seeking. The bona fides are necessary for the product.
What does this have to do with ML in golf course development? I've studied a bit of Machine Learning (which is a term i much prefer to the nebulous "AI"), and so I have a fairly elementary, but educated view of how many of these algos work (I've even tried my hand at a couple automatic golf hole mapping U-net algorithms and failed miserably). Machine Learning is nothing more than a tool that educated people can use to help them complete a task. Could it make it easier for use to develop a golf course? Sure, in theory, but I'm very skeptical at this point, but let's assume I'm wrong about that...
If this comes to pass, that "AI" will make golf course development trivially easy. Then developing a golf course will actually became achievable for much, much less wealthy individuals. Much like how you can trivially brew a batch of beer for pennies in your cellar without being able to buy a plot of land in wine country, I would hope the use of ML could make the backyard par 3 an achievable goal for folks with a cottage in the country. And the few folks that excel at that could even go on to become famous designers much like the folks in Sonoma County with their (at the time) highly experimental/avant garde beers.
The idea that we need to protect the golf course architecture cannon from AI just seems so backwards to me. The idea that we can go from a world in which only the educated (and obviously very talented) few can try their hand at golf course design (your Budweisers, Coors, Millers, and
dare I say Jones's), to a world where you could have a couple of extremely popular architects in every metro area seems like a huge win for golf culture (and more importantly, pace of play
)