George:
I have learned many things from you, but among the most important are these:
1) no one can speak for the "masses", and I have been guilty of that far too often - my masses don't necessarily equal your masses, without a doubt.
2) I know that fires you up, and rightly so!
As for opinions re all of this... well... certainly one can offer value judgments as to the worth and validity of opinions on any matter. If I were to opine on quantum physics, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for someone to say my opinion is complete crap next to that of Steven Hawken!
But where we differ, I believe, is that I don't find golf to be a game where experience and education necessarily bring one to any higher level of lucidity... To me, the wine analogy holds - an expert can tell me a wine is great, but if I don't like the taste, just why is it great for me?
At least to a large extent, that's how I think it works for golf courses... All the experts in the world can tell someone that Fazio courses suck, but if someone enjoys Shadow Creek or Dallas National or whatever, for what reason does that course suck for him?
I expect you to disagree with this - my understanding of your position is that you think as golfers study more and are exposed to more, they do come to a higher level of comprehension and understanding, and will see why the Fazio courses suck (just using that as an example). Perhaps that is true, to a degree - their "eye" will get sharper and they will look for things beyond waterfalls and nice conditions. But I'd counter that by saying this: just how can anyone decide, with certainty, what this higher good IS in a golf course that anyone should be aspiring to understand? That is, how do you set the standard? Why is it necessarily true that Rustic Canyon is better than Lost Canyons, for anyone, as much as many aficionados - including me - would hold that to be true?
That is likely our basic disagreement. I don't think there is any one set standard that any of us should accept as the gold... to each his own... and it does remain a big beautiful world of golf.
TH