Golf architecture aficionados often bemoan the negative impact that club and ball technology has had on classic golf courses.

Howard Swan, who has worked on many of Braid's courses, describes the life and legacy of the Scottish member of the Great Triumvirate.

Routing "It is both necessary and desirable that the holes should be laid out as suggested by the lie of the land, every natural obstacle being taken advantage of"

Golf course design, grass choice, and turf management are all intimately linked and unless they co-exist harmoniously the way a golf course plays and looks can be adversely affected for generations.

If golf was once a good walk, spoiled or otherwise, for many it is now a ride. Has the golf cart, and the infrastructure that goes with it, changed the game for good or ill?

With the Open Championship having returned to Royal Liverpool for the first time in 40 years in 2006, attention has naturally been drawn to some of the other links that have hosted the championship in the past.

A recent site visit by GCA revealed good progress on the construction of St Andrews' new Course Number 7.

The restoration of the 18 hole golf course at Askernish in the Western Isles of Scotland, originally designed by Old Tom Morris in 1892 (GCA issue 4), is to go ahead this winter.

One of the most ambitious golf courses in Germany is currently under construction at Wittenbeck on the Baltic coast.

Anthony Edgeworth is one of golf's bestrespected photographers.