Guys,
Thanks a lot for the feedback...I'm really glad you all enjoyed it. If there are any ways you think I can make it better, or information you want that I might not have included, just let me know. I wrote the thing for guys like you...and I want to make sure you all get as much as you want out of it.
As far as your individual comments:
Mr. McCallon-
I’m glad you asked about what else we’re up to at AzaleaGolf…though I warn you in advance--there’s no short answer to that question.
I’ll run down quickly for you what we’ve got up there now:
First and foremost, I’m really trying to get the Home & Home program up and going. Check out the site for more about this…but, in short, it’s designed to provide as many active members of the military as possible with free rounds of golf. Ideally, servicemen/women can log on, send us an expression of interest and their availability and get an email back with a tee time that’ll be set up and waiting for them someplace near home on one of their available dates.
We’re also working to build a solid library of editorial content including reviews of all things golf, essays on golf course architecture/design, travel guides, top ten lists, articles on the professional game and basically anything I feel people might enjoy taking a look at.
A plethora of contests and promotions is a big part of the formula for AzaleaGolf as well. With the economy in the shape it’s in and the effect that has had across the game of golf, I wanted to find a way to use my site to feed golfer’s passion for the game without asking them to reach into their wallets. Rounds are down, the total number of golfers is down, business and personal budgets for golf are tightening by the minute…but I believe the immeasurable statistics regarding the game haven’t changed much at all. Golf nuts are still golf nuts, whether they can afford to be or not. Nobody loves the game less because of the economy. Hopefully, our contests can provide a way of nursing that love while offering golfers a chance to win some free golf stuff.
Our biggest current contest is the AzaleaGolf.Com Masters Match Play Shootout…a March Madness-style bracket contest using the scores of Masters Participants. We’re giving away a first prize package of $800 worth of the equipment of your choice between Titleist, TaylorMade, Calloway or Nike to the entrant who can earn the most points. As a grand prize, we’re also going to give away practice round tickets and accommodations for two to 2010 Masters Tournament to the first entrant that correctly completes the bracket and returns correct answers to the four playoff questions.
We’ve also got an Armchair Architecture Contest going (I posted about this a while back) relating to the Masters. The premise is simple: over two blank pages, in any format, entrants will give us their best shot at redesigning any of the holes on AGNC’s famed second nine. I’m giving away a $300 gift certificate to TGW.Com as well as copies of Paul Daley’s upcoming Golf Architecture: A Worldwide Perspective Vol 5 and free golf balls to those who submit winning entries.
Finally, we’ve developed and launched the beta version of our own unique Course Rankings/Ratings system. This idea was born right here at GCA…as I read and studied the contempt of most on this site for how courses are currently ranked and rated by most major publications and websites. A common lament (and one that I share) is that there really is no such thing as “the best” when it comes to golf courses and golf course design…a “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” sort of thing. I hope the way in which we’ve structured our system will help combat what I believe is a fallacy in how course rankings are currently structured.
The fallacy I’m referring to is how existing rankings are based upon a static interpretation of the data they collect. I’ll use the Digest rankings as an example. They have a number of categories/criteria by which they evaluate the courses that are considered as part of their ratings program. Raters plug in their numbers for each category and return this data to Digest…then Digest packages it for distribution according to a formula that reflects how THEY feel each criteria should be weighted.
We’re going to do it differently. Instead of a static interpretation of course ratings/rankings, we’re going to provide our users with a fluid interpretation of that data. After we’ve collected enough ratings from enough users for enough courses, we’re going to create an interface that allows users to see an interpretation of that data based upon their own personal feelings for what makes one golf course “better” than another. Users will rate the weight they give to each of our 24 criteria and our system will spit back to them a ranking of the top X courses in a given area based upon a formula that reflects their personal tastes. Instead of getting THE Top 100 courses…you can get YOUR Top 100 courses.
We’ve got some other tricks up our sleeve too…but we’re waiting to unveil those until Masters Week when the site launches in full. For now, I hope you enjoy the features I describe above…and my apologies to everyone for this lengthy and shameless plug of AzaleaGolf.Com.
Mr. Daley-
I’m glad the Home & Home program got your attention and I thank you in advance for any efforts you might make to contribute. Though it may be a bit of a pipe dream to think I can get it off the ground and large enough to do some good for a decent amount of military folks, I’m really hoping I can make it happen. If everyone is as sympathetic to the cause as you are, I might have a shot at pulling it off.
As an FYI, in time, I’m going to have a few other ways people can contribute to the program beyond just direct round donations. I’m developing an interface for a silent auction feature as well as a way people can make tiny monetary contributions via the AzaleaGolf site. Hopefully, I can manage to procure a few cool items for the silent auction and raise some money to pay for free golf for as many servicemen as possible.
Thanks again for your support of the program, and let me know if you have any questions, thoughts or ideas about how I might be able to improve upon it.
Mr. Goerges--
All told, the thing took me about three really intense weeks of writing. In case you couldn't tell by my posting it at like 6am two days into the tournament, this wasn't something that I had in the works months ago. I founded AzaleaGolf around New Year's and, after a couple of weeks of work getting it off the ground and rounding some of my ideas into tangible concepts, I started working on the guide. As far as help goes, AzaleaGolf is a joint venture between myself and one of my closest friends from both college and high school...but I did all the writing of this thing on my own. I'm glad you enjoyed the results, and I hope I can scribble down some things here and there in the future you might enjoy as well. (On that note, check out Paul Daley's upcoming book Golf Architecture: A Worldwide Perspective Vol 5 when it comes out in April...Mr. Daley was gracious enough to include an essay I wrote about RCC in there.)
Mr. Craig--
Funny you should mention liking number six even as a kid...that hole was one that always piqued my interest when I was younger. I loved the bunker in the middle...though my little sister maybe liked it more than I did-- always calling it the "doughnut" hole and asking every two shots over the first five holes when we would get to play the "doughnut" hole...
I looked forward to it when I was young because it was the only green I had a shot at hitting in regulation at RCC for a good long while. I'm by no means the biggest cat on the block now, and back then I might have been mistaken for someone's Mini Me...so distance wasn't exactly the strong suit in my golf game. #16 was shorter and more reachable distance-wise, but banging a driver up there left me with not much of a chance to hold that tiny green. I'll never forget the first time I "hammered" a driver the 120y or so over the big front bunker after spending about a year hitting the top lip every single time I played it. Amusingly, that shot ended up darn near going in before settling a few inches away...but in the decade or so since then I haven't come even half as close to making an ace there as I did that first time. Sure is a stupid game we all choose to play, isn't it?
Mr. Henderson--
I included that yardage to the front-left as it has always been a club tradition to play the front-left pin by taking a middle iron of 160y over towards the 16th tee and then another middle iron of 160y back over the trees. I felt it would be inappropriate not to include the applicable yardage in the guide.
Just kidding...thanks for the tip about the typo. There are a few spots here and there where the web version didn't quite match up to the Microsoft Word copy...I thought I eradicated most of em' (one of the reasons this thing is coming out Saturday and not five days ago), but as Paul Daley could tell you I'm by no means a savvy editor...likely a result of too many papers in college being completed about 90 seconds before I was supposed to hand them in...
Anyway, I appreciate the head's up. I'll be fixing that ASAP.
Mr. Reilly-
Not sure why you couldn't get the page to load, but I'll call my web guy and dig around...he's been making some edits and touches here and there all day so it's possible that it was just poor timing that you tried to check it out during the few minutes every so often where he's FTP-ing files up to the site.
Also, as soon as I'm done with this post, I'll check out your post about #8 and throw in my thoughts.
My apologies to everyone for the length of this post...but I wanted to make sure I was at least half as thoughtful in my responses as you all were in your comments and evaluations of my work.