Hard surfaces, after all, bounce rather predictably. What is true about links golf is that because of the pitch and shape to the surface, each shot is packed densely with subtlety. And because these targets are immensely difficult to discern, links golf throws into stark relief one's own ignorance. But this sort of golf can be exhilarating because it breeds the closeness of a relationship. I'm not talking about a mystical, intangible relationship, but about the way a sensitive golfer literally feels the golf course asking him to expand and experiment with his game.
Courses become texts to be read.
Golf becomes less an activity of repetition and more an interpretive art. Nicklaus was the best reader of golf courses who has ever lived. And the more seemingly empty the course, the better reader Nicklaus was. By all accounts, this is was not something Nicklaus came to immediately. He struggled in Britain as an amateur.