“Golf needs to reinvent itself"

Lorne Rubenstein considers the collapse of the golf architecture and course development business and raises some wonderful points. First this from architect Tom Mackenzie:

“Golf needs to reinvent itself,” Mackenzie suggested. “It has become too expensive and too slow and perhaps this uncomfortable period will prove there is a market for shorter and more enjoyable courses that can be designed, built and managed more affordably. This may mean dropping course lengths beginning in 7 [7,000 yards], and perhaps even pars below 70 – shock, horror.”

I wonder how it got too expensive, too slow and too long? The grooves?

With the course architecture business all but frozen, developers and architects will have to respond with imaginative ideas. We’ll soon learn whether they’re equal to the task, and whether golfers themselves will be open to the game reinventing itself.

Are golfers really open to shorter, browner, funkier courses that cost less to build and maintain?

I'll believe it when I see more than 30 courses on the Golf Digest Top 100 list that you'd actually want to play more than once.