Great Wall Street Journal Article on Remote Golf Courses

[JNC Lyon]

Here is a great article from Thursday's Wall Street Journal Magazine.  I think the article is very well done, and many people on this site will have an interest in it:

http://magazine.wsj.com/nomad/big-trip/wild-green-yonder/?blog_id=137&post_id=6740

[David_Tepper]

John -

Interesting article, thanks for the link.

DT

[Gene Greco]

Penny's response to the article in the WSJ:


"It is great to read, here at the WSJ, that golf has followed the same evolution of how homo sapiens treat their planet. A game that went from being at one with the elements and using nature to entertain oneself to something that controls, shapes, manipulates nature at great expense (both environmental and financial), making it an elitist game where wealth is measured by the pretensions of its environment. Hopefully this article will inspire a greener and less invasive approach to golf. Thank you Alastair Gordon!"
.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I didn't realize that Eddie Hacket was a child prodigy.  He would have been 13 when he designed Ceann Sibéal,

[RJ_Daley]

Just a generalistic observation... we have read a number of peans to what is essentiallly 'pasture golf' and they have often appeared in publications that are oriented towards the 'wall street' or corporate world.  You see these romantic accounts of some intrepid golfer finding an off the beaten path pasture golf course and singing its praises.

If it weren't for those well heeled, and probably bored and sick of being othewise stuck in the canyons of investment, banking, advertising and other industrial settings of the urban centers become bereft of wide open natural places, we wouldn't have great natural and remote settings like Barnbougle, Bandon, Mullen, Valentine, Holyoke and the like.  These people who can, will go to great lengths to get away and enter a romantic setting for the chance to play their otherwise familiar game of associations and commerce connections in the hinterlands. 

So we get these outposts of 'get away from it all' natural golf in the remote places, except that they come with all the comfy trappings of the pampered and well served.  I'm not putting it down, because these are the people in the population of all golfers that can stimulate the efforts to create these enclaves of golf intune with remote natural environments.  But, it is notable that for the most part, the remote locations golf clubs need their corporate strata members and the occasional article singing remote places golf placed in their traditional journals to keep the romanticism about these places going.   

[jeffwarne]

Just a generalistic observation... we have read a number of peans to what is essentiallly 'pasture golf' and they have often appeared in publications that are oriented towards the 'wall street' or corporate world.  You see these romantic accounts of some intrepid golfer finding an off the beaten path pasture golf course and singing its praises.

If it weren't for those well heeled, and probably bored and sick of being othewise stuck in the canyons of investment, banking, advertising and other industrial settings of the urban centers become bereft of wide open natural places, we wouldn't have great natural and remote settings like Barnbougle, Bandon, Mullen, Valentine, Holyoke and the like.  These people who can, will go to great lengths to get away and enter a romantic setting for the chance to play their otherwise familiar game of associations and commerce connections in the hinterlands. 

So we get these outposts of 'get away from it all' natural golf in the remote places, except that they come with all the comfy trappings of the pampered and well served.  I'm not putting it down, because these are the people in the population of all golfers that can stimulate the efforts to create these enclaves of golf intune with remote natural environments.  But, it is notable that for the most part, the remote locations golf clubs need their corporate strata members and the occasional article singing remote places golf placed in their traditional journals to keep the romanticism about these places going.   

RJ,
Did you read the article?
 
No doubt there's been an explosion of well heeled remote asshole traps (fortunately many recently built have been great courses )that offer exotic "rustic" cabins complete with exotic wine cellars .... however, the courses highlighted in this article hardly qualify as nouveau riche retreats and I'd be surprised to find a wall streeter at any of them and I've been to all of them save Askernish.

Highland Links-corporate strata members???
Ceann Sibeal-you're kidding right?
Machrie-awesome course-empty and the water comes out brown (at best)
Aberdovey?-in western Wales ( it's a wonderful club and course but hardly a bastion of nouvea riche)

I've taken the "pampered and well served" on numerous trips to just such courses(and many more even more obscure)  they've never heard of and they were thrilled.
granted they were hand picked traveling companions...
Alastair in fact called me about the article and interviewed my friend Michael Thomas (whom I took to Aberdovey,Pennard, and a multitude of remote Welsh courses. (a little disappointed I got no mention as Alistair's itinerary was strangely nearly the same as my suggestions)

I seek out such places because they are exactly NOT what you describe, and have not been to some pretty fantastic remote courses (that you describe)here stateside because I crave the flavor and simplicity of the local courses described in his article.

[RJ_Daley]

Jeff, I'm probably to blame as perhaps I didn't get across my point that it isn't these specific outposts of remote golf mentioned in the artlcle per se that are frequented by the well heeled and otherwise situated by their work in the canyons of commerce.  It is the placement of these romantic tales by some intrepid golfer who seeks out and finds such places to write about, and often those writings are placed in the journals most often read by those corporate types.  It is their Walter Mitty sort of day dream of getting away from it all.  Not many of them go to the far afield golf courses in the artilcle, and that "may be" because they don't have the creature comforts they are accustomed to.  So... they get national memberships and support new enclaves built in the remote areas that I mentioned, but with the well appointed creature comfort lodges we see at SHGC, PC, Holyoke, DR, Bandon, etc. 

So, don't get all upset that I am saying those actual outposts of remote golf in GB&I are somehow dominated by wealthy corporate types, only the romantic notion of the get away in the natural remote environs written in their journals translates to the development of interesting golf courses "with the creature comforts' that I mentioned in Mullen, Holyoke, Barnbougle, Bandon, etc...that have cropped up as substitutes for the real deal we see described in the article.  If those courses listed in the article would build lodge facilities of well appointed trappings, I'll bet they would get a large trade of corporate types that would make the effort to hang out there for the get away.

[PCCraig]

Great stuff.

Between the WSJ Magazine and GCAer JP Newport in the weekend edition, their staff is becoming a new go-to source for interesting golf articles for the T&L/Links/Elite golf set...

[Niall C]

Couldn't help noticing that the pics were from our very own Aidan Bradley, and up to his usual very high standards.

Niall

[jeffwarne]

  If those courses listed in the article would build lodge facilities of well appointed trappings, I'll bet they would get a large trade of corporate types that would make the effort to hang out there for the get away.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO  
hopefully that never happens

Funny I have no desire to return to Rosapenna post large hotel

[Jud_T]

I guess I qualify as one of those bored corporate a**holes.  I've decided to go straight to the Trump Aberdeen Hotel's creature comforts and skip the golf altogether...