Here we have a perfectly reasonable smug GCA anti-tree thread. It has all the thinly-veiled clamoring you would expect when the "make every hole really easy strategic!" crowd gets going. The original poster even disclosed his personal biases by explaining how he started thinking about how much he hates trees after he recently had to interface with one when he hit his perfect drive "right up the middle and was very happy with it until I arrived at my ball to find in the middle of the fairway and right in front of the green this enormously huge tree." Replace the word "tree" in that sentence with "bunker" and he gets laughed off the site. But we're talking about a tree, not a bunker, and trees being used to drive strategy and angles is bad architecture. In fact, trees are not even part of the architecture of a course at all, as proved by this golden line offered later:
"I would still argue that the great courses are great because of the great architecture, not because of the trees that happen to be there..."
We had a nice thread going, replete with photos backing up discussion about how all the armchair architects on this site could improve some of the best courses in the world if you just handed them a chainsaw and let them go out and fix things. And then some young dude from Oregon had to return from hiatus and ruin it all...
Connor Dougherty doesn't know this thread is a damn show. He thinks it's a damn fight. And his post is one of the most insightful and observant things I've read on this site in a long time.
Jason, because I disagree with Connor concerning trees doesn't make me smug. I am not sure why you are feeling all the hate, but perhaps a quick look in the mirror may provide a clue.
Ciao