Muirfield's choice

[Brett_Morrissy]

Quick question: does anyone know why Muirfield does not have OR chooses not to have a "pro shop" and home a shop for their wares at Gullane?

[Tom_Doak]

Brett:

It's been that way for at least the last thirty years, and probably always.  I just figured that they didn't want to pay a professional to sit around most of the time.  The club is very quiet for several days of the week.

[Tim Johnson]

Brett
There are shops in Gullane that have Muirfield related stuff for sale. I was able to buy a print of Muirfield in one of the shops but I dont remember if hats, golf shirts etc are available with the proper Muirfield logo on them. It may be like St Andrews, if you dont buy it at the 2 approved shops in St Andrews, you will be buying a replica logo hat or golf shirt.

[Shane Wright]

The Gullane pro shop up the street has all the Muirfield items you would ever want. 

[Rich Goodale]

I'm pretty sure they still sell golf balls and tees from the same desk where they will fill up your glass with gin from the "water" cooler marked with a skull and crossbones.  What else do you want?  Official Muirfield tea towels........??

[Steve Salmen]

This was told to me by a member.  When the course was finished, they were in talks with a professional and had basically agreed to terms except for which party had the right to the golf ball concession.  Neither party budged and the HCEG did not hire a professional then, nor have they since.

[Niall C]

I've just finished posting on the Dornoch thread trying to articulate that its a club and it should do what the members want, not what others want of them. HCEG certainly seem happy to do it there way. Very understated which I love. The simple stick in the ground with the yardage on each tee.

Compare that to another top 100 course I know where they have put in new furniture at each tee so that now you have a ball washer (with club logo), a bench (with club logo), a towel for the ball washer (with club logo) and markers for 3 different sets of tees (all with club logos) in a club with only male members.

A pal of mine who's a member calculated that each tee had the club logo 11 different times. Clearly they aren't going by the principle that sometimes less is more.

Niall

[Bill_McBride]

I've just finished posting on the Dornoch thread trying to articulate that its a club and it should do what the members want, not what others want of them. HCEG certainly seem happy to do it there way. Very understated which I love. The simple stick in the ground with the yardage on each tee.

Compare that to another top 100 course I know where they have put in new furniture at each tee so that now you have a ball washer (with club logo), a bench (with club logo), a towel for the ball washer (with club logo) and markers for 3 different sets of tees (all with club logos) in a club with only male members.

A pal of mine who's a member calculated that each tee had the club logo 11 different times. Clearly they aren't going by the principle that sometimes less is more.

Niall

One thing I love about our club is we have NOTHING on our tees. It simple "wood" blocks with color of tee and a brass plate with that tee's yardage.  I think there are four ball washers and a few benches.  No signs!

[Tom_Doak]

I've just finished posting on the Dornoch thread trying to articulate that its a club and it should do what the members want, not what others want of them. HCEG certainly seem happy to do it there way. Very understated which I love. The simple stick in the ground with the yardage on each tee.

Compare that to another top 100 course I know where they have put in new furniture at each tee so that now you have a ball washer (with club logo), a bench (with club logo), a towel for the ball washer (with club logo) and markers for 3 different sets of tees (all with club logos) in a club with only male members.

A pal of mine who's a member calculated that each tee had the club logo 11 different times. Clearly they aren't going by the principle that sometimes less is more.

Niall

One thing I love about our club is we have NOTHING on our tees. It simple "wood" blocks with color of tee and a brass plate with that tee's yardage.  I think there are four ball washers and a few benches.  No signs!

Bill:

Get rid of the tee markers, too, like Ballyneal, and then you'll be onto something!

[Wayne_Kozun]

Is it just me or do many of these threads end up turning into the Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch?

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..