Are U.S. golf courses too green? (3/4ページ)

American golf is target golf. It's played in the air: lush tee to lush fairway to lush green. It's largely one-dimensional, mostly carries, many of them forced.

"We get so caught up in the power side of the game that we've lost the art side," Liddy said.

Yardage is less relevant in links golf. The four and five sets of tees common to upscale American courses not only are unnecessary on links; they aren't there to irrigate, to fertilize, to mow, to maintain.

Cost isn't Liddy's lone consideration. There's "true green."

"Links courses have been sustainable for centuries," he said. "If we could cut water, cut fertilizer and chemicals, it would benefit the environment. We need to bring that discussion forward."

Liddy would like to see existing courses return to nature, to golf's roots, accept a little bounce, a little brown. He believes courses like the Trophy Club in Lebanon, Hickory Stick in Greenwood and Rock Hollow in Peru, all Indiana courses he has designed, could be adapted. And he would like to see new courses that are less contrived, less artificial, less given to the power game and less demanding of expensive and painstaking maintenance.

"It's never going to work until the average golfer accepts it," Liddy said. "Superintendents' hands are tied. The average golfer watches Augusta and sees all that green and that's what they want."