If The Donald is wrong, then why does the Masters pull such huge ratings, while the British Open does not?
Because CBS produces the hell out of The Masters, and because it is played at the end of what is, for many people, a long winter, and because people at that time of the year are hungry for golf. And, yes, because Augusta National has been such a great and exciting tournament course -- and remains such a freakish display of ... for lack of a better word ... perfection. When I was there this spring, for the first (and likely last) time, I kept thinking of "Pleasantville." Or was it "The Truman Show"? I always mix them up.
And because ABC covers the British Open,and doesn't produce the hell out of it, and shows it on Saturday and Sunday mornings here in the United States, in the middle of the summer, and because, yes, the links are harder to appreciate than Augusta National -- in part, I think, because the color of the links makes it harder to see the ball.
If the Donald is wrong, why do so many golfers list Augusta National as the course they would most like to play (I'm guessing Pebble Beach would be #2), whereas Shinnecock, Muirfield, Sand Hills, etc., don't show up in those kinds of surveys?
Because of much of what I've said above -- but mostly because they see Augusta year after year after year, to the point where they *know* the course though they've never set foot on the property. That knowledge makes them *hungry* to see and play it. Those same people see Shinnecock once every decade or so; they see Muirfield every trip through the rota (and I, for one, think it's hard to "get" Muirfield on TV); they see Sand Hills ... never!
He's just expressing the common man's opinion about what's pleasing to him. This forum caters to golfers with a different aesthetic sense, and though I don't share Trump's opinion, I'm not even going to say our taste is better than his.
Well, okay, it is better, but our view is never going to become mainstream. Trump sells gauche and gaudy (you saw the inside of his penthouse apartment on "The Apprentice," right?) and America, in general, is buying. The Golf Channel isn't likely to risk going broke trying to change that.
Call me Pollyanna (I've been called Pollyanna -- and worse! -- before), but I don't see any reason to think that "our view" (generally speaking) couldn't become mainstream, or at least considerably more mainstream -- if Joe and Judy Wineglass-Sixpack were more regularly *exposed* to courses more interesting for their golf merits than for their waterfalls. How in the hell are they supposed to appreciate the sorts of courses they rarely see?
We need The Golf Channel (and the magazines) to offer such exposure. I envision, for The Golf Channel, a weekly hour-long show (along the lines of "Great Railway Journeys of the World," with an "Endless Summer Meets Click and Clack" kind of sensibility) chronicling a trip to a classic golf course, old or new ... a trip led by, say, a couple of Midwestern golf-nut newspapermen. You available?
Take about your Big Break!
They're never gonna do it -- but what the hell! A girl can dream!