Adam
Some seem to bask in making golf complicated, utilising their ignorance to continue dulling the full enjoyment of the game, at times overwhelms me.
Some seem to want to justify their involvement in golf instead of playing the real game, yet when they come upon courses like Machrie, Askernish Brora Cruden Bay they seem totally shocked that such places can still exist in our modern world.
The problem is that once we had far more courses that displayed the true merits and magic of the game, but of course these were just too difficult, required some degree of skill, yet screamed golf with a capitol G.
To ignore the real beauty of the game for the modern trends of playing golf without breaking into a sweat defined the rear state of the Game. Fair weather players who prefer to sit back and let the machines do the work, calculate the shots and then show them the plan home. These self-confessed players are the closest relatives there are to the extinct dodo bird of Mauritius. They will no doubt survive but may kill the game of golf for others in the process.
GCA is not about figuring out how to squeeze a few extra strokes out of one's score? That purely the resolve of some golfers. Our average golfers plays the same club week in , week out come rain, wind or snow, score cards take care of themselves certainly more so when the game is enjoyed in fine conditions.
But then Golf is no longer a Game but now a worldwide business – shame on those who take money without trying to maintain some of the traditions of The Game. IMHO Golf Course Architecture has surpassed Archaeology, in that the excavation inherently destroys a site and no matter how much top dressing and faking is introduced cannot capture its original beauty which attracted the designer in the first place.
Why are so many players scared of going back to basics, does all this complicated crap hide their own inadequacies, so what, until you learn to enjoy and relax not much will come to you - hope some of you architects/designers take note.
Melvyn