Standard of Golf

[Matthew Hunt]

How good a golfer to you have to be, to be a GCA.

Although I have an Encyclopaedic Knowledge of Golf and the way it is played (Well not compared to some of you guys ) I only play off 28, and most GCAs are off 5 or below.

PS How do you post pictures on GCA?

[TEPaul]

Matthew:

I don't think a good golf architect has to be a good player, although I think in some cases it most certainly helps and perhaps a lot.

I just think a good GCA must be extremely aware of the entire spectrum of possibilities of golfers' ablilities and expected playabilities. In other words, observation in this vein is crucial.

If a GCA does not have that type of real awareness his capaciity to make all kinds of mistakes is enormous.

And then there's the technical construction side of things---eg drainage, construction durablility, all kinds of economic efficiencies to do with construction and maintenance etc.

[wsmorrison]

Matthew,

Search the records on here, it is spelled out very clearly every now and then.  In brief, you have to reside the photo in jpeg format on a host site, I use comcast.net (home.comcast.net) others like photobucket and sites like that.  Photobucket makes it easier because you can store it with a complete file name for posting.

When you do that, the photo is stored with a specific URL.  For example, let's say I want to post my photograph of the 16th hole at Shinnecock Hills (SHGC16.jpg) that is stored in my comcast photo file (~wmorrison11) To insert a photo into a reply, you just type in the reply box:

{img}http://home.comcast.net/~wmorrison11/SHGC16.jpg{/img}

Using [ ] rather than { }  For explanation purposes I substituted { } for [ ] around img and /img, otherwise it would think I was trying to post a photo and you wouldn't have been able to see the insert line.

[Gary Slatter]

I think a GCA should be a good golfer to shorten their learning curve.  There are too many "beautiful" golf courses that are not good designs, many built in the last 15 years.  This may be a result of the designer and the client both not being "good" golfers.   Similarly, I think a course super should be a good golfer, to better understand the green doesn't have to be green.
But there are way too many really good golfers who know nothing about GCA - they spend a lot of OPM learning the business, and it looks like people like to keep spending to have a "name" attached to their golf park.

[John Kavanaugh]

I think it would be great for golf and the many players who struggle with the game if you became an architect and never got better than the 28 you are today.  The best combination is great putter and horrible ball striker.  Try to limit the wiffs and always keep a great attitude and your potential clients should think. "With a game that bad the guy must be a work-a-holic..always a good thing."

[Sean Leary]

It has always shocked me that there are as many high handicappers on here that are as interested as they are in GCA...I think it is great, just surprising..

[John Kavanaugh]

It has always shocked me that there are as many high handicappers on here that are as interested as they are in GCA...I think it is great, just surprising..

Sean,

Why..are you shocked when you see a guy in a wheelchair at a baseball game.

[Tom_Doak]

Matthew:

It is possible to be a good architect even if you are a 28 handicapper but you should spend a lot of time around good players to see what they can and can't do, so you understand their perspective.

You'll also have to have a thick skin ... some good players will undoubtedly dismiss your abilities no matter how great a course you build, because they can play better than you.

[Bill_McBride]

Doctor MacKenzie wasn't much of a golfer, he did okay.  His designs hold up so well today because of his awesome green complexes and placement of hazards and bunkers.

[Sean Leary]

It has always shocked me that there are as many high handicappers on here that are as interested as they are in GCA...I think it is great, just surprising..

Sean,

Why..are you shocked when you see a guy in a wheelchair at a baseball game.

Its a good point, John.   I just always assumed that people would have to be reasonably decent to care about it. Obviously I was wrong, and as I said, that is a positive.

My low handicapper friends, for the most part, care more about the difficulty and the fairness more than the strategy. That side of the spectrum doesn't work either.

[Jordan Wall]

It has always shocked me that there are as many high handicappers on here that are as interested as they are in GCA...I think it is great, just surprising..

Well, you'd have to define high handicapper.
After all, your pretty damn good...
 

[Sean Leary]

Jordan,

20 plus...

and I am not that good, just play a lot and get the most out of my game.

[Jordan Wall]

Jordan,

20 plus...

and I am not that good, just play a lot and get the most out of my game.

Well I'd say your pretty good.

You should have seen me today at Harbour.
It was beautiful.
55-41 for 96.
 

[Karl Bernetich]

Matthew,

You said most are 5 hdcp or lower -- actually close.
There was a thread about age, hdcp and fav. GCA recently.  I pulled the "data" and here's what it said.  Based on a small sample... ~ 60 responses (that I could use)

Avg. age:  43.7  sdt. dev. 9.7
Avg. hdcp:  -7.6  std. dev. 5.4
Fav. GCA:  McK (14), Dye(, Ross(6), Colt(5) were the top vote getters.

I sorted the data by age v. GCA and hdcp v. GCA to see if there were any trends. -- not really.

Unscientific survey and some of the replys were hard to group.  For handicap, my favorate response was "parallel parking."

So, brings me to another point -- top 12 courses thread.
It's looks like a survey but unless we can assemble the info, it just becomes "banter" for the thread, which is OK.  I'm not voluntering to pull the "data" off the thread (too hard to manage in this format).

Is there is a better format to post a "survey" questionair in a web based forum ?

I would think a GCA would be interested in some of the trends.  It's surprising how different opinion and data can be.  (It's what I do ... 6sigma stuff).