Golf Course Architecture - Issue 66, October 2021

45 Photo: Clyde Johnson that the changes these pioneers brought about did not vastly improve our links courses. Each one remained individual, subtle and governed by the land it lay upon. Their potential had been maximised. It wasn’t called the Golden Age for nothing. The trouble is, we had to keep tinkering. Human nature just won’t leave anything be. The floodgates didn’t open initially but since the advent of social media and the internet, the perceived need for clubs to keep up with the Joneses has accelerated exponentially. Instant gratification is king. Subtlety has left the building. Architects might argue that they are only serving a club’s needs when called upon to present renovation plans. But there is a duty of care where at every step of the process, the first question should be: “Why does this need to be changed?” This isn’t happening regularly enough, the result being that our links courses – once the bastion of individuality, quirk and variety – are moving towards homogenisation, similar solutions being applied to them all. Like a slow-growing tree, many of these courses have evolved to be unrecognisable from when they were initially routed, the magnitude of change often unrealised by the members. Almost always, they come to resemble their neighbours and brethren more closely, the maverick touches disappearing with time. Individuality removed; death by a thousand cuts. There are always reasons, many of them very valid. Erosion can bring about changes as storms batter the first line of defence (though if one green is lost to the sea, don’t reroute three holes). Health and safety concerns need to be addressed (but tend to be overplayed on courses that have stood the test of time for longer than any of us). Championship logistics require changes to accommodate spectator flow and infrastructure (yet seem to always come with additional reshaped greens and new bunkers). To enable Royal Portrush to host the 2019 Open, space was needed for the tented village. The removal of the old seventeenth and eighteenth and replacement with two fantastic holes At Seacroft, Clyde Johnson restored a deep bowl to the front-right of the sixteenth green