TonyM:
It's probably better and more indicative to quote everything in that post from another thread that you said in the first post of this thread was stolen from another thread. It was from Dave Schmidt to Tom Huckaby;
"I don't see it, Tom. And I still want to know what JK would see in that picture!
If what you said was true, somebody would have noted something original by now. Nobody has. Nobody will. We're just not that good.
Brilliant thought is a prerequisite to brilliant writing. The latter cannot exist without the former.
I know brilliant writers. I went to school with a few, I've worked with a few, I'm friends with a few and I regularly read the rest that are out there in the world. There are none in golf, except maybe Dan Jenkins when he's on. It's hard to do with a topic that simply isn't that intellectually challenging."
Tony, personally, I don't buy much of what Dave Schmidt says on here. For that reason I guess I don't buy that much of what he thinks about golf and golf architecture and it occurs to me he probably feels the same about me and what I say and think on here. That also includes what he apparently thinks about the Rules of Golf (because that happens to be the subject we've mostly discussed with one another and mostly off line). And now it probably includes what he says about golf writers or golf writing.
But when I say all that I sure don't mean to be rude or in any way denigrating and I sure don't mean to insult him personally or what he says generally. I don't intend any of this that way and I hope he doesn't take it that way.
But then what does it mean? What do I mean?
I believe, and have for years, that there is just something practically ineffable about golf and apparently golf architecture too, and in a way and a depth I'm not aware exists in most other sports or games. David Schmidt may not look at it that way and probably doesn't. I don't pretend to know why it is so in golf but I believe it is. I do recognize, though, that it is golf above all other games that I know best. I just don't know that much about other games and sports even though I've tried them and played them, but I guess never in the way and in the depth I have with golf and perhaps now golf architecture. If I had with other games and sports perhaps I'd feel about them and their playing fields the way I do with golf----but some nagging little jot always tells me I never really would with the others.
Also I believe that there is some undercurrent phenomenon to do with golf and golf architecture that far more than other games and sports makes so many who play golf take it remarkably personally, perhaps internalize it somehow and filter out their opinions about it and all things to do with it as if they are the only ones who are right in their opinions and consequently most all others who don't completely agree with them are wrong.
What is it that makes so many golfers do that and think that way compared to other sports and games? I don't know, I probably never will but I have little doubt it is both true and one of the eternal fascinations about the entire thing. Unfortunately, that very thing may tend to make some of us or even most of us on here act both a little and perhaps sometimes a lot intellectually arrogant sometimes.
I'm not saying what David Schmidt thinks about golf writing is wrong. If he feels there's not any really good golf writing and that works for him that's fine. It doesn't work for me and I'm pretty sure his opinion may not work for numerous others as well. Matter of fact I know it, I've seen them, I know them and I've talked to them and I'm talking about both the readers and some writers.
But my ultimate point is if he feels that way it in no-wise means he's more intelligent or better informed about any of it, including writing, than anyone else because I think more than most other games or sports anyone gets out of it what they bring to it, and that really is unique, personal and can be vastly different from one to another.
Intellectual arrogance on here seems to me to be something that has created some unexpected and unwanted dynamics, arguments, personal problems between some etc.
In that vein, I would give you again one of the coolest and most contemplative thoughts and adages I've ever heard on golf and architecture. Unfortunately I'm giving it to you for about the thirteenth time, but so what, if it's good, repeat it, even many times.
Bill Coore said: "Always try to know what you don't know."
I thought about that for a long time (some years) and then I asked him: "But Bill, how can you know what you don't know?"
He just chuckled and said: "That's true, I just mean we always need to remember none of us know it all and none of us probably ever will."
I suspect golf has some real mysteries for the basic reasons of its unique differences from other games and sports that are both deep and enduring and it holds them close not letting them go easily and I think that's very cool. But I also feel maybe I've gotten somewhat anthropomorphic in my attitude towards golf and architecture by extension so maybe it's real mysteries isn't just golf or even in it, maybe they're in me and in you too.
Isn't it true to say that when one looks in the mirror they don't usually see what others see? Maybe they don't want to see what they see and maybe they do, but in my opinion, all of that is definitely not unimportant!
Same probably goes for what someone, anyone gets from a writer and a book.