For me this site is, has been, should remain singular is because...
1. It is light, openess, exposure. Certainly you may have to dig through threads, topics, posts #25-250 to catch it, but this site is simply good raw information...even in the exchange of opinion, but certainly through the factual weigh-in on topics of the board's creation. Pictures, quotations and voluminous research in addition to first-hand accounts may result in a different conclusion than their presenter channeled it to us, but the raw factum is here, more than anywhere else on any database in the Golf realms that I have been aware of, and I've spent 30 years immersed in cognitive reverie for the game. If you and I have a parallel "thirst" for the game beyond its playing, then perhaps you share my sense that it is more often quaffed here than any other non-playing venue. The annoyances and vigorous OT diversions tend to be the only area where the "heat" is greater than the "light" and we all go through self-reflection to govern that. The "light" remains much greater than the sometimes withering "heat."
2. Variety. Outside of pure conjured silliness, can you think of one area of golf--from drainage to hot dogs, from Best of to Worst of, from Template holes to Native grasses and anything under the sun in this fascinating game that is not covered by a post and response in this venue? I really can't. In concert with its wide exposure, cited in #1, this is akin to a Library of Alexandria on the sport and its many avenues. Certainly GCA is rightfully the core mass from where all is magnetized, but even in our silly adjuncts of comparing Trevino to someone, frequent jots on slow play, and a thousand or more satellite interests, this site ends up being the finest comprehensive "journal" on the Game that has ever been...we have rolled the distant past, the intermediate past, the present and the speculations of future directions all into one locale...That's the board, its interviews, its course tours, its timeline, its specialized features and its experienced IMO pieces in concert with one another in one location...rather easily searchable (unlike many of the academic data bases I've encountered). I do not want to hear about Arab Spring, Nukes in North Korea, Sequestration and proclamations of national interest, but "Drivable 5s," "tiger is Back" "Finest Clubhouses in Europe"...bring it on; I might just have something to offer or express.
3. Many Voices. I trust many voices, many armchairs, many experts, many experiences, specific first hand accounts, and specific first hand accounts verified by other ones. It infuses me with a confidence that no one is going to talk and walk wrong bullshit about Olympic or Pebble or Hazeltine, because its likely that someone hand with first hand, demonstrable knowledge is going to speak. If someone said incorrectly, that a Winged Foot hole had been altered or was originally named this, or once played at this yardage in the 29 Open...you can take it to the bank that myself or a chorus of others who are there with some frequency are going to edit the erroneous, verifiably so. Those with the most experience of the most places and the most subjects can sometimes wield that like a hammer, but eventually others become as learned and either join or dissent from that imperium, creating either its firmament or its new and evolved foundation.
So the site has achieved a lot and who knows how valuable it will be to later generations. It is an ultimate compendium of golf that fuses together leading contemporary and historical opinion with the hard evidence from a variety of dedicated voices intimately involved with the game, in all its architectures... surrounding the fundamental architecture of the course.
cheers
vk