Confidential Guide Online?

[John Kavanaugh]

The seller has contacted me and said the book is from the Santa Barbara Public Library.  I have sent an email asking them if the book is missing from their collection.  The seller has indicated that if the book is stolen property he will return it to it's owner.  SBPL is indicated as an owner on the above list.

[Andrew Hastie]

   Thanks Tony for list explaining the Doak scale.
I wonder does Tom use a particular formular to get these rating.

[Joe Hancock]

A little OT, but one thing I appreciate about JK is that when he has a feeling something inappropriate is going on, he acts upon it rather than just doing lip service.

In this case, I hope that Tom Doak is glad someone had the fortitude to at least follow up on a "different" situation involving his book.

Thanks John.

Joe

[Dan King]

No need to go to the Library of Congress to get a list like the one Pat Craig posted. You can find out any libraries that have a particular book using www.worldcat.org. I use it through school and get an identical list as the one at the Library of Congress. Without logging in, it gives a list relative to your location. I'm guessing if you register (it is free) you will get the complete list like I get.

I once found a copy of Alister MacKenzie's Golf Course Architecture in a New Age-type bookstore in SLO. It was the reprint. But it was only $13 because a store like that would have no idea what such a book was worth. I think now with the Internet that is much less likely to happen, but I still go in and check book stores that would not traditionally have much in the way of sports books.

Dan King

The smaller the ball used in the sport, the better the book.
 --George Plimpton (on why books about golf and baseball are better than books about football and basketball)

[wsmorrison]

A very good friend of mine tried to sell a duplicate copy of his CG on eBay and someone tried to scam him.  The guy accepted a buy it now and emailed my buddy that he was acting as an agent for someone.  He said that when he received the book he would send a check from his client.  There was also something about a big commission that he would split if my friend sent him some money.  I kind of forget all of the details but it was definitely a scam and eBay was alterted.  Be careful.  If it is too good to be true, it rarely is.

[Kalen Braley]

Amen to that Wayne.

When selling on Ebay, always get the money first...

[James Bennett]

Nice to see Dan King posting.

James B

[John Kavanaugh]

The auction ends in three hours and I have hit a brick wall.  The Santa Barbara Public Library owns two copies and one is on the shelf and one is currently checked out.  If they had ever owned a third copy and sold it the book would clearly have the word "Discarded" stamped inside the cover.

This leaves several possiblilities in my mind.  One...The seller did not list or see this fact in his description of the book.  Two...The seller misinformed me of the origin of the book.  Three...The book was checked out and either lost or part of some evil plan.

If the winning bidder is a member of this group as only he can be please research the history of the book and either enjoy it for what it is or return it to its rightful owner.  Thank you.

[ed_getka]

John,
   If one copy is checked out it is probably by the ebay seller who will then just pay the lost book fee to the library. Is there only one library for all of Santa Barbara? Some towns that size have more than one branch.

[John Kavanaugh]

Ed,

I have been in constant contact with the library and have discussed this possibility with them.  If the book is declared lost by the person who checked it out they will be fully investigated.  I have informed them of the value of the book and they were surprised.

[ed_getka]

I'll bet they were surprised. That is some serious price appreciation. And people think stocks and real estate are where the money is.

[PCCraig]

John,

 You are quite the detective! I'm sorry to have been so distant from this thread...I'm currently on Spring Break and the computer has become something of second fiddle to golf!  

 However, I was surprised to find so much activity on this still. I have to admit that the ebay book sounds very sketchy. I wonder if this is a constant problem within libraries? Librarians have no way of knowing the value of every book, and there are collectors with access to lists like the one I posted. It would be REALLY interesting now to go back and see a WorldCat list from two or three years ago!

 But thanks for following up John.

Everyone else,

 The house where I am staying this week has a copy of the Confidential Guide, and I noticed that the Durban CC discription was printed twice...as described above. Does anyone know if this printing of the book is more/less of a collectors edition, or how many of these were printed?

 Thank you guys!

Pat

[John Kavanaugh]

I don't think the buyer is a GCAer after all.  She does seem to have a shoe fetish though as indicated by her ebay purchases.  Interesting at the very least:  http://myworld.ebay.com/kate3456/  note: The book sold for $380.

[ed_getka]

Pat,
   They are all collector editions at this point, with the original versions Tom handed out to his friends being by far the most valuable, next would be the maroon/brown copy without pictures that was limited to 1000 copies if I'm remembering correctly, and finally would be the trade edition with pictures and dustjacket. I can't remember how many there were. I seem to remember something like 5,000-6,000 copies, but I could be wrong.

[Daryl David]

Pat,
Tom commented that there were 2000 printed with the duplicate pages.  They were recalled from the bookstores, but some had been sold by the time the recall was completed.  There have been 3 mentioned in this thread and now with the one you saw, we know there are at least 4 out there.

[Tim Leahy]

I just received a notification from a book search I had placed that a copy of the guide is available for $1447 "like new" . Hopefully Tom makes some copies available for those of us who aren't collectors and just would like to read it.

[Dan King]

I feel almost guilty sitting on four copies of The Confidential Guide. Two of them are Renaissance and two Sleeping Bear. I remember seeing the ad for the Renaissance one in the back of Golf Magazine. It was $100 but it was right after I had read The Anatomy of a Golf Course so despite knowing very little about Tom Doak I bought copy 187 of 1,000. I loved it, lent it to a friend for a while and ordered another one to give to him on his birthday. While waiting for the book to arrive, he said the book was rubish because it gave a poor rating to Torrey Pines -- my friend's favorite course in the world. I figured he didn't deserve the book and kept the second for myself.

When I worked at GolfWeb, golf companies were always sending us free stuff. I'm a lefty, so I didn't share in the clubs that were sent, so I got all books that came our way. Therefore, I have every book Sleeping Bear ever put out in their short history. Often times I would buy a copy also just to support Sleeping Bear, so now I have two Sleeping Bear copies.

I don't really want to sell any of them. But for those of you just looking for a chance to read one, I'd be happy to lend a copy. One of my Renaissance copies is currently on loan to a friend, but I could loan out a Sleeping Bear copy or two if anyone is interested. Just pay for shipping.

Send email dking @ danking.org.

Dan King

In fact, I do not mean to offend architects at all. As a designer, I understand that many of the perceived weaknesses of courses are caused by things outside the architect's control -- insufficient acreage, budget constraints, or input form the client. Weak holes are often the result of necessary trade-offs: to get to the hole you savor, you have to play over inferior ground.
 --Tom Doak (The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses)

[John Kavanaugh]

One of our own posters a Scott Seward is now selling his Confidential Guide on ebay.  I kinda like this guy so bid it up.

Link to sale: http://tinyurl.com/3dhl2w

[PCCraig]

The more I seem to research and search for a copy of my own, the more interested I become with the story of the Confidential Guide. While I am not much of a book collector, this story makes me want to get into collecting golf books!

The funny thing about when I discovered the "Inverted Jenny" Guide, the first thing that came to mind was "Shoot, I kinda want to read about Garden City!"

John,

Thank you for all of the great detective work! You really know your stuff.

Pat

[John Kavanaugh]

John,

Thank you for all of the great detective work! You really know your stuff.

Pat

No...I just think that given everything Doak has done for this site we could at least try to protect the integrity of the book.  That would include not selling copies on ebay.