For some members, the resulting alterations proved out of character with the course's basic design. The name sounded a tad elitist, which was not what the group had in mind. So the group rechristened itself the Donald Ross Society. There are often good reasons for a club to consider reconstruction and to call upon an architect. First of all, a golf course is an organic composition that naturally undergoes changes.
Trees grow in, bunker faces erode, silt builds up in drainage pipes.
Now add some other factors. A green committee, in the interest of labor-saving innovations, decides to take out those old cross bunkers 130 yards in front of a tee. This softens the course and takes out the ground game, while requiring all shots to be flown to the green rather than bumped and run. Now those bunkers 30 yards short of the green lose their bite. Small wonder that so many traditional courses are considered obsolete today.