It’s easy to forget that everything you see in front of you from the tee wasn’t always so. It’s even questionable if the architect of your course back in the day even thought about what the hole might look like and play like 50 or a 100 years later. Whether it’s a tree, a bush, a mound or a stream, many think that chopping, clearing, flattening and diverting natural golf course elements is to be avoided at all cost.

But even golf holes that have a super-prominent, massive tree at a dogleg weren’t always that way. Once upon a time, when your mother or grandfather played they saw something completely different. As will your great grandkids 80 years from now. It’s golf’s circle of life. And we should be careful to not be too precious with any single element of the mix.

When my good friend Glenn, a member at highly ranked Prairie Dunes in Hutchinson, Kansas, sent me some photos of........

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