Many of us have made friends through this site.
Those friends in turn may invite us to come play their course.
Once there, we are insistent on paying our guest green fee as well as paying for our caddie and our host’s caddie as well. Perhaps we treat our host to a nice dinner afterwards. All this falls under the term ‘obvious’ and applies to 90% plus of those reading this.
However, more and more, I hear of people saying they are members of GolfClubAtlas as a way of inviting themselves onto a course. Horror stories include a GCA.com poster calling a private club member on his cell phone on the weekend who the member didn’t even know to coordinate a round and remote private clubs being bombarded by people introducing themselves as members of GolfClubAtlas.com.
Such boorish behavior gives GCA.com a black eye, and that sickens me. The health of this site is dependent on Discussion Group participants discussing architectural issues, be it on Travis, Tillinghast, Raynor, Thomas, etc. The rub is that much of the best work of these architects is found at private clubs. Thus, the health of this site is tied to members of private clubs feeling free to discuss such matters without worrying about being hounded for access.
More and more, people suggest that I take the Discussion Group off line, with access restricted via a password. They contend many more club/board members would participate if their comments weren’t open to the world-wide web. Perhaps they are right but I have resisted that tact to date as the Discussion Group has been of great value to lurkers and people in general interested in learning more about golf course architecture. By reaching more people, I contend/hope, the site helps more.
Participants within the Discussion Group who want to use this site as a means to pry, bully, or cajole their way onto courses will find that their spot disappears among the 1,500 registered participants. There is no three strike rule in golf either. Odds of re-joining at a much later date aren’t good.
Golf is still a game of gentlemen, though people like Ted Sturges, Jeff Goldman, Brad Miller, etc.
continually stretch that term. We all know what the right behavior is. To the small number of people that find acting gracious a burden, please email me at morrissettr@ccafinancial.com and I’ll give your spot to one of the people waiting to join.
Cheers,