Can public courses survive the public?

[Michael Dugger]

Michael,

Bandon #1 was changed back because of public outcry.  Or should I say the outcry of critics.

Changed....changed back....which is it?

That we've had confusion here simply illustrates how vague your arguments can be, Barn.

I'm done here.

[Michael Dugger]

I mean this thread is freaking stupid!

9 times out of 10 the consensus around here is it's private clubs and their greens committees that take a good course and screw it up.

Now Barney's wanting to pick on the public.

Face it, we're screwed, is that it John Kavanaugh?  

Mucci stated ages ago the only way to go is a benevolent dictatorship.

Didn't everyone agree?  I thought they did.  

This discussion is dead....
 

[Phil Benedict]

As a general proposition I think private clubs are changed to make them harder, because members want the course to be recognized as a tough track.  Public courses, particularly resort courses like Bandon, may be responsive to player complaints about a particular hole because repeat customers are their lifeblood.  You gotta keep the customer happy.

[Robert Thompson]

Can private courses survive their members?

I am comfortable in saying that most of the poor changes to private clubs come from pressure by non-member groups...The public so to say.

Explain how this is so? So a non-members now have sway over private club renovations? This sounds so ridiculous that I assume you must have meant something else.

[Phil Benedict]

Can private courses survive their members?

I am comfortable in saying that most of the poor changes to private clubs come from pressure by non-member groups...The public so to say.

I have to agree with Robert that this is a preposterous statement.

[Garland Bayley]

Can private courses survive their members?

I am comfortable in saying that most of the poor changes to private clubs come from pressure by non-member groups...The public so to say.

Explain how this is so? So a non-members now have sway over private club renovations? This sounds so ridiculous that I assume you must have meant something else.

John seems to conclude this by inductive reasoning from a sample space of one (ANGC). This of course is one of the many forms of Fallacy that John puts forth here.

[John Kavanaugh]

Can private courses survive their members?

I am comfortable in saying that most of the poor changes to private clubs come from pressure by non-member groups...The public so to say.

Explain how this is so? So a non-members now have sway over private club renovations? This sounds so ridiculous that I assume you must have meant something else.

First of all let me say this again.  If no one but members ever saw or played a course a course would never be changed.  I see everyone who is not a member of a course to be the public, that being the USGA, golf writers, PGA pros and executives, fans of golf, chemical company executives, guests of members who feel the need to critique courses in a way they would not your home, unethical/ambitious superintendents, developers, architects..etc, etc.  It is in everyone but the members self interest to see a course changed for either monetary or egotistical reasons.  If not one person in this group ever saw a given course there would be no reason for change.  Members are generally happy people until some outsider mucks it up by telling them why they should not be happy.

ANGC is not the single glowing example of change that is made to benefit outside play.  Merion is obvious, Pine Valley didn't clean up its bunkers for the members, Oakmont killed the trees not to eliminate shade but to appease outside forces, The Riviera...Oak Hill, the recent change at The Honors...It goes on and on.  It is never the members, I mean really, does you wife throw out your favorite chair and replace it with some unsittable piece of Euro-plastic to impress herself or you...nope, its the muck raking public that visits your home every Godforsaken holiday.  It's the public stupid.

[Jim Nugent]

First of all let me say this again.  If no one but members ever saw or played a course a course would never be changed.  I see everyone who is not a member of a course to be the public, that being the USGA, golf writers, PGA pros and executives, fans of golf, chemical company executives, guests of members who feel the need to critique courses in a way they would not your home, unethical/ambitious superintendents, developers, architects..etc, etc.  It is in everyone but the members self interest to see a course changed for either monetary or egotistical reasons.  If not one person in this group ever saw a given course there would be no reason for change.  Members are generally happy people until some outsider mucks it up by telling them why they should not be happy.

St. Louis CC made a fair number of changes since 1970.  Was that due to outsiders?  CBM was constantly changing NGLA.  Again, due to outsider pressures?  Or do you consider him an outsider?  

Don't know, just interested to learn what happened.  Any way you cut it, you're making memberships sound pretty gullible, pretty sheep-like, pretty easily led down the renovation path.  

Another question: do the members end up with a better course that they like more?  Does Oakmont's membership like the course more now, after the trees got cut down?  

btw, which outsiders were responsible for pushing through those changes at Oakmont?  

[John Kavanaugh]

St Louis CC has a much more liberal guest policy than ever before.  I am sure Oakmont's members like their course more because everyone has told them how much better it is now.  Newsflash...The USGA was behind the scenes at Oakmont.  CBM was changing NGLA because he could...that is the consumate outsider, the meddling architect.  Architects drive much of the change..why not?

I doubt that in the case of St. Louis CC you can call that change...It seems like architectural maintenance to me.

[Chris Cupit]

First of all let me say this again.  If no one but members ever saw or played a course a course would never be changed.  I see everyone who is not a member of a course to be the public, that being the USGA, golf writers, PGA pros and executives, fans of golf, chemical company executives, guests of members who feel the need to critique courses in a way they would not your home, unethical/ambitious superintendents, developers, architects..etc, etc.  It is in everyone but the members self interest to see a course changed for either monetary or egotistical reasons.  If not one person in this group ever saw a given course there would be no reason for change.  Members are generally happy people until some outsider mucks it up by telling them why they should not be happy.

ANGC is not the single glowing example of change that is made to benefit outside play.  Merion is obvious, Pine Valley didn't clean up its bunkers for the members, Oakmont killed the trees not to eliminate shade but to appease outside forces, The Riviera...Oak Hill, the recent change at The Honors...It goes on and on.  It is never the members, I mean really, does you wife throw out your favorite chair and replace it with some unsittable piece of Euro-plastic to impress herself or you...nope, its the muck raking public that visits your home every Godforsaken holiday.  It's the public stupid.

John,  I like your take on this but re: The Honors, it is important to remember that the course was created for the purpose of hosting (and hopefully honoring) amateur golf.

I agree that if it weren't for outside play, the constant changes at The Honors wouldn't have occured consistently over the last 25 years.

 But, these changes are not so much a response to "guest play" or outside opinion as they are an attempt to keep the course relevent in an age when the fundamental challenges of the game are threatened by an unwillingness to reign in the enormous distance gains by the top 1/2 of 1% who The Honors looks to have play every few years under  tournament conditions.  It's a broken record but the distance gains by the young kids today has fundamentally changed the nature of the game.

Under the present rules and given the fact that no one is going to put more slope in greens and then run them at 8.5, the only thing to do is 1.  back the tees up (thankfully with Pete Dye's help, The Honors has lenghthened the long holes and has left the short holes still short--maintaining nice variety) and 2.  flatten the greens so David Stone can get them brick hard and fast--that's the game now--length and ultra fast and firm greens:(

The course was never meant for "members only".

Come down some time and play The Honors 11.0 .  I'll give you a chance to win some money back in foursomes

[John Kavanaugh]

The course was never meant for "members only".

I like that take.  The members also are not the ones regulating or building the modern equipment.  I say the members are innocent even at The Honors.

[Jim Nugent]

St Louis CC has a much more liberal guest policy than ever before.  I am sure Oakmont's members like their course more because everyone has told them how much better it is now.  Newsflash...The USGA was behind the scenes at Oakmont.  CBM was changing NGLA because he could...that is the consumate outsider, the meddling architect.  Architects drive much of the change..why not?

I doubt that in the case of St. Louis CC you can call that change...It seems like architectural maintenance to me.

At St. Louis CC they moved the 5th green to an entirely new location.  Looks like about 30 or more yards short of the old green, in a punchbowl over the crest of a hill.  This totally changes the character of the hole and the second shot.  So much so, some here argue number five is the true Alps on the course, not number 18.  The old 5th hole, the one I knew, was as much an Alps as it was a Short.  

That is a lot more than just maintenance.  Did it come from outsiders?  That would be ironic, given how hard it is for any outsider at all to join that club.  

You call CBM the consummate outsider at NGLA.  I thought he was the consummate INSIDER.  He found the site, bought the land, designed the course, built it and played it umpteen million times.  Dictator, maybe -- others who know his history can speak better to that.  

As I understand the tree-removal changes at Oakmont, they were mostly restoring the course to the way Fownes built it.  Didn't know the USGA was the driving force behind that.  Fownes was famous for constantly tweaking and tinkering the course.  Was he also an outsider in your opinion?  

[John Kavanaugh]

Jim,

It was my understanding that the 5th at St. Louis CC was a restoration.

Why do/did you think guys like Ross, Fowles, CBM, Mackenzie and Dye change up courses where they reside.  I don't think it is to impress the members.  Do you think even Nicklaus changes Muirfield for the members?  I think members would be a hell of a lot happier not seeing the local archie out disrupting their course once again...not to mention footing the bill.

[John Kavanaugh]

Members have a primary responsibility to have fun at the course where they play.  They join, they do not control.  I can not speak for muckrakers who lose focus of the primary responsibility and influence macro-decisions.  

[John Kavanaugh]

Who are the hardest members to get to vote for change.  I'm guessing it is the members who have been at the club the longest.  It is not because they are poorer than the young or new member.  It is because they have finally taken the time to be happy with what they have.

[Jim Nugent]

Jim,

It was my understanding that the 5th at St. Louis CC was a restoration.

Why do/did you think guys like Ross, Fowles, CBM, Mackenzie and Dye change up courses where they reside.  I don't think it is to impress the members.  Do you think even Nicklaus changes Muirfield for the members?  I think members would be a hell of a lot happier not seeing the local archie out disrupting their course once again...not to mention footing the bill.

John, if St. Louis CC is a restoration, isn't that true of Oakmont as well?

[JESII]

John K,

How exactly would CBM have been the ultimate outsider at NGLA?

Other than that, I agree with your premise here...but we've gotten off the path of the thread, which is wondering how PUBLIC courses can survive the public...

Tell me about the architecture of public courses? Are controversial holes like the 14th at Bandon Trails commonplace? Are there others (I now forget any other examples that may have been provided for public courses) that have met the same fate?

[Paul Stephenson]

I don't agree with your definition of an outsider.  I fail to see how an employee is an outsider, but it's not a big deal and I'll work with your definition.

I do agree that outsider "can" influence the decisions of private courses.  Especially when that private club is desperate to bring those "outsiders" to the inside as members.  These types of private clubs are not the ones that get discussed much around here.  The ones mentioned so far in this thread have waiting lists a mile long.

As for public courses surviving the public.  It depends on what you mean by surviving.  If it is business entity that we are talking about surviving, then they must.  If it is the architecture, it will more often than not take a back seat to the business entity surviving.

They are businesses, not museums, and will do whatever they can to keep Joe Public coming back.

[Garland Bayley]

... Oakmont killed the trees not to eliminate shade but to appease outside forces, ...

Next I suppose you will tell us that the outside public was sneaking onto the grounds and planting all the trees. Clearly for your supposition to hold members themselves could not be responsible for planting all those trees on the course, because they were happy with the treeless course that was created by Fownes.

[John Kavanaugh]

When did Mr. F. die and how old were the trees that were recently destroyed?

[Garland Bayley]

When did Mr. F. die and how old were the trees that were recently destroyed?

So are you saying Mr. F was influenced to plant trees by the public?

[Ken Moum]

When did Mr. F. die and how old were the trees that were recently destroyed?

So are you saying Mr. F was influenced to plant trees by the public?

I think it's been assumed that one outside influence caused the tree planting. IIRC, H.W. Wind called the course "an ugly brute," or something similar, which prompted a beautification campaign in the 1960s.

Nevertheless, i have been around golf courses and green committees long enough to know that club member don't need any pressure from the outside to make dumb alterations to their courses.

Unless outside influence includes members who play somewhere else, like the course and then decide they need to emulate that course.

K

[R_Paulis]

Not the caliber of Bandon, but Soule Park is an example of how a muni can get modified due to public pressure. The men's club was not too fond of the difficulty of a few holes so it looks like their getting changed. But I think I'm rehashing a message topic of a few weeks ago...  

[Tim Pitner]

Not the caliber of Bandon, but Soule Park is an example of how a muni can get modified due to public pressure. The men's club was not too fond of the difficulty of a few holes so it looks like their getting changed. But I think I'm rehashing a message topic of a few weeks ago...  

Isn't that an example of the "members" pushing for a change?  

[R_Paulis]

Not the caliber of Bandon, but Soule Park is an example of how a muni can get modified due to public pressure. The men's club was not too fond of the difficulty of a few holes so it looks like their getting changed. But I think I'm rehashing a message topic of a few weeks ago...  

Isn't that an example of the "members" pushing for a change?  

True the men's clubbers could be considered members, but it feels like Soule gets so little play they could also be considered the public.

Is it true men's clubs generate enough revenue to force changes? I've been told by one of the leaders of the men's club this is the case.