Noel,
What's the size of Yale's endowment ?
$ 24,000,000,000
So remind us again, why does the course needs more rounds ?
Pat, your comment in nonsensical. The US government takes in how much revenue and can borrow at rates between 0-2.5% and yet have we abolished all poverty, is there a chicken in every pot etc???. The US government owns tons of national parks, forest etc, are they all in great shape? No! The mission of Yale is to educate its students (its clients) and while the land was bequeathed to Yale all those years ago, I guarantee if New Haven was oh say switched with Greenwich, the club would have been sold or housing now. Whenever I played Yale, I rarely if ever met students. The club is populated by locals and people from as far down as NYC who realize what a bargain it is to play there and the fine hospitality there run by Peter Polaski and his staff. For the money they operate on, the club does a nice job. Could they use more funding? Of course. But institutions are increasingly run to benefit their largesse and perpetuate the employment of people at the university. Do you know anything of the UNION situation at Yale? It is stifling and makes any attempts to get the cost structure of the club fixed in a free market arena.
Stanford has a huge endowment out here and a nice historic golf course which I believe has been renovated twice now and bears only some resemblance to George Thomas' creation. No one screams bloody murder there and this is a club you can play 365 days a year and does not allow outside play like Yale.
Yale's restoration cannot be done on the cheap given the scale of the property and in my opinion the need to reseed the WHOLE course. Yale's turf had many different strains growing on it and needed a complete overhaul to modernize.
I don't see a University spending that money on a game that is increasingly being marginalized and less rounds being played. That is the buttress of my argument on why Yale GC needs to be self-sufficient entity and hope band-aid type cures can address some of its issues.
It is never going to be the V8 Corvette Bahto and all of us would love to see (me as much as anyone). But maybe it can slowly get to a Turbo V-6.. I just don't see it and just because it is backed by an institution with money, I don't expect it. Tom Peters once said companies should "Stick to the Knitting" in order to succeed in one of his corporate treatises. I think Yale is more interested in educating and academics.
Oh yeah, I once played golf with the Yale Endowment CIO's son.. I met David Swensen briefly there after.. I don't know if he was a golfer but I'm sure he's aware of the asset and its value.
Maybe I'll be wrong, I love Yale with my full heart but expecting Yale to spend money on the course to truly make it realize its potential is akin to that great quote in Bergman's the 7th Seal--
"Faith is a torment. It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call."Having faith in Yale's institutional management (not the golf course mgmt and super) to do anything will me like having that faith in god that Max Von Sydow never found..
** Finally kudos to Scott Ramsey and Peter Polaski for making my time at Yale so great. I miss it everyday I tee it up here in the Bay Area.. It truly is missed and lest anyone forget, I vote it very highly on any ranking list.. I know what it is.--GREAT
Oh and how about the Yale Bowl-- A landmark where many Yale teams play and generate revenue.. And what of it--??
http://www.nhregister.com/sports/20141112/yale-bowl-may-be-receiving-more-restorations