Then EA should just stop providing DLC courses. You have to re-purchase courses for several reasons.
1) Most versions come with updates to the existing courses to ensure accuracy of the course per the licensing agreement with each course. Most courses from a previous version would not work properly and/or have graphical issues that could violate the terms of licensing between EA and each course.
2) Each time a licensed course is used in the game, there is a COST per course that is downloaded or used on the CD. Licensing is a major cost for EA for TW because NOTHING comes with the PGA TOUR license other than the branding and the players names for leaderboard purposes.
3) DLC courses are also used because the 360 does not have enough disc space for 44 courses. It barely has enough for 25 due to the update MS pushed out last year updating the amount of disc space available on the 360 DVD. The PS3 does have the disc space, but they will not give one platform a distinct advantage over another one. A second 360 DVD is not going to happen at this stage of the game since new consoles are possibly being released late this year. And the cost of the added DVD is still there as well as the cost of including the DLC courses on that disc, so it is about a wash in cost to the user.
Lastly, they are including 20 courses on the Standard Edition and 25 on the Historic which is FAR MORE than any Golf game has released on its disc in history. They give users the OPTION of paying roughly $2.50 per course for additional licensed courses. You get updated courses that work properly with the updates to the game engines each year. Giving users the option to bring courses from previous TW games presents technical and legal concerns due to licensing that no one wants to have to deal with. To me, I have the option to buy courses or not. I bought every DLC course (excluding fantasy courses) every year since they came out and IMO, they are a better value every year as the cost of them continues to go downward on a per course basis. Am I happy that EA has taken away the option to earn these courses? Of course not. But they did get reamed by a number of very misinformed game reviewers and it is a damn shame that we, the users of the product are impacted by their misinformation and EA's subsequent decision to remove this feature. I fully understand anyone who is disappointed in this and critical of this. But I do not buy the argument that you should not have to buy courses in subsequent versions for the reasons stated above........