TMac's use of the word "street view of gca" in the Strategic Architecture thread got me wondering what constituenticies the "street" might include in 1910 or so?
Did the guys at NYC's first muni discuss gca as they strolled the fw? Was there a lot of discussions at the clubs? Or were the magazine articles and books read by those contemplating a new club and the gca's and a few proponents that followed the subject? Were club discussions centered around how the course might have cost some golfer or another a bogey, or a match rather than deep principles?
Does anyone have any idea how many copies of the various books the golden age guys wrote may have sold? The typical circulation of the magazines containing gca articles?
Its an honest question, not a trumped up one. Somehow, I thought that the internet had sort of democratized the discussion of gca and spread it. If 1500 care to join this web site today, how many would be interested 100 years ago?
My guess is it would be limited to those green committees starting new clubs, and maybe the top 20 competitors in our national events. However, even the Merion boys seemed pretty clueless about gca until CBM gave them a private session. There was no evidence of Wilson taking great interest until after being named the committee, although he had worked on another course while at school.
My impressions could be way off, but its interesting to contemplate whether gca had made a huge impact on the next levels of players at that time. Granted, the opening of new courses did have to be exciting, and there do seem to be many articles about those, and their holes, but was there a lot of critical depth of thouught on those, such as the ones Joe Bausch posted, or is it pretty much the "driver, six iron" type analysis outside the few gca's who wrote their opuses.
Discuss.