On the Geoff slams Medinah thread, I danced around my major - and serious - question. I'm not trying to slam Geoff (or Brad or Ron) but have a question.
Does a critic need to change his paradigm over time to stay fresh, just like a gca must to avoid stereotyped, repetitive designs?
IMHO, reading every course review/opinion under the prism of it doesn't have ragged edges, wide fw, options, ground game, whatever gets boring. I certainly knew that Geoff wasn't going to be a big fan of Medinah. Fair enough, but Geoff has been beating the drum for a decade about returning to Golden Age design, (with side themes of major golf organizations don't know much) which, IMHO, makes his writing more and more predictable.
I read his stuff and buy his books. I enjoy much of it. However, I wonder if he could freshen his magazine/blog writing for his audience if he came up with a broader/different world view/method or whatever in which to review courses? Could he extend/expand his career/writing by, in a baseball analogy, going to the knuckleball? What do other writers go through in the course of a career?
Admittedly, I am just using one article as an example of this. I haven't hung on every word he has written, so I may be dead wrong. And, he might be able to offer some thoughts on how his world view has changed that aren't readily apparent to me, his casual reader. I know I have changed my thought process, but it may not show up in my work to many reviewers, so its very possible.
Also, its fun for a gca to turn critic on his critics, but since we all discuss gca here, I do think its a valid question, which may bear discussion here. Its sort of like knowing the bent of a newspaper before reading its editorials.
As always, I could be wrong.......have a great weekend and go play golf somewhere where its not 100 degrees!