If I pretended to have played the world's Top 100, could you tell that I hadn't?

[David Wuthrich]

The person might know some of the facts, but as my teacher used to tell me:  "the devil is in the details" and that person would lack that!

[Mark Bourgeois]

Absolutely you could, Peter. I'm not even sure you're a real person. Has more than one person here actually ever seen him?

[David Davis]

Peter,


I think you just blew it. So in the future we might have a clue. However, this would be far from the worse thing we have experience on GCA in the last couple years. Not to bring up a touchy one (and honestly I don't remember all the details) but the question is why would you do it or even want to, it's like faking history or history sketches etc etc., or claiming to be a historian and authenticating them....


I mean no one would do that....right?

[John Kavanaugh]

Buying this for $12 couldn't hurt: http://tinyurl.com/hktpygp

[Joe Hancock]

Absolutely you could, Peter. I'm not even sure you're a real person. Has more than one person here actually ever seen him?

I spent a couple days golfing, dining, and being entertained by a person who introduced himself as Peter Pallotta, but maybe I was deceived! I mean, at dinnertime, he would politely(so far, so good) excuse himself from the table to go have a smoke...and a person who looked just like him, dressed very similarly, would return to the table shortly thereafter. It only happened a couple times during dinner, and it's certainly feasible that two or three Peter Pallotta look-a-likes exist in Grand Rapids. The reason I believe in Peter Pallotta is the golf game of this fellow was as polite as the online persona! He would apologize after each shot, to both me and to the ball! And encouraging? I've never met anyone (who claimed to be Peter Pallotta, or not) who would utter such polite, encouraging words after each and every shot! I had shanked my fourth putt on the 18th green, the ball went into the road and struck a car which then veered into a jogger, and Peter quietly leaned towards me and said, "Joe, I think if you get a good drop in the ditch(meaning, not having the ball come to rest against the injured jogger), you could get up and down for a nine". And he said it with a straight face.

[Mark Bourgeois]

The detail you supply certainly sounds realistic, Joe. It's also a known fact that conspiracies are easy to maintain with only two people in the loop, which is why I asked if more than one can bear witness.

I'm not saying you're in on it. But I'm not saying you're out on it, either.

[Peter Pallotta]

Besides never apparently playing a course when it's raining or wet (and thus never noting how well a course drains) and besides never critiquing a specific hole location/pin placement in the context of differing wind conditions, the fraudulent claimant (I would guess) would never reference or mention ever playing anything but members' tee or the back tees, and also would not (since he could not) make statements/observations about how a playing partner -- ie a lower/higher handicapper  -- fared compared to him.
I think astute observers -- or the ultra suspicious -- would notice this lapses? Why? Because, of course,  how a course drains and how it plays in the wind and its  flaws and how well a high handicap
playing partner can handle it are amongst the actual criteria golfers use to identify quality.

[paul cowley]

Absolutely you could, Peter. I'm not even sure you're a real person. Has more than one person here actually ever seen him?

I spent a couple days golfing, dining, and being entertained by a person who introduced himself as Peter Pallotta, but maybe I was deceived! I mean, at dinnertime, he would politely(so far, so good) excuse himself from the table to go have a smoke...and a person who looked just like him, dressed very similarly, would return to the table shortly thereafter. It only happened a couple times during dinner, and it's certainly feasible that two or three Peter Pallotta look-a-likes exist in Grand Rapids. The reason I believe in Peter Pallotta is the golf game of this fellow was as polite as the online persona! He would apologize after each shot, to both me and to the ball! And encouraging? I've never met anyone (who claimed to be Peter Pallotta, or not) who would utter such polite, encouraging words after each and every shot! I had shanked my fourth putt on the 18th green, the ball went into the road and struck a car which then veered into a jogger, and Peter quietly leaned towards me and said, "Joe, I think if you get a good drop in the ditch(meaning, not having the ball come to rest against the injured jogger), you could get up and down for a nine". And he said it with a straight face.

Like...lol...whatever, but good post Joe!


...

[paul cowley]

PS Joe...did you get my PM about Cabo?

[Joe Hancock]

PS (Joe...did you get my PM about Cabo?)

PSS: Yep, I'll email you soon.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Peter,

I think it would depend upon how detailed or "in depth" the discussions were..

At a distance, you could fool the world, but if the discussion drilled down to holes and specific features, those intimately familiar with those holes/features would probably discover your secret and attribute your lack of knowledge to the fact that you didn't sleep in a Holiday Inn Express the night before😜

I think I have enough golf course architecture books and articles (from this site and elsewhere) to be able to cobble together several paragraphs worth of 'insights' and 'impressions' for every course on most top 100 lists.

In other words, amongst some audiences at least I think I could convincingly pretend to have played that world's Top 100 courses (especially if I also fostered a mysterious air surrounding my livelihood and sources of income). 

So imagine if years ago I had joined this site and started slowly but surely making it be known that I'd played all the great courses, and then over time, in post after post and year after year, I shared with you my thoughts and insights and likes/dislikes about The Old Course and Sandhills and Seminole and Garden City and Pine Valley etc.

Would you be able at some point to tell or at least suspect that I was lying, and that I hadn't actually set foot on/played any of those courses?

If so, what do you think would be the tell/giveaway?

[Peter Pallotta]

 
Patrick - I came to the same conclusion as I tossed out ideas on this thread. Specifically, I imagine a few strong signals that I didn't "stay at a Holiday Inn" the night before would be that I never mention playing a course when it's raining or soon after it's rained, and so don't comment on how the course drains; and I never critique a specific pin placement/hole location given a certain weather/wind condition; and I never mention how the course plays for different levels of golfers or from anything other than the members' tees. 

From now on, I'm going to be watching for those references in other people's posts! 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Peter,
 
I've always been fascinated by the influence of wind on the design of a hole and the routing of a course.
 
Those that have played a course that's subject to wind on a regular basis have far more insight into it's influence on play, and that might be your undoing.
 
Seminole is a great study in terms of the wind's influence on play.
When the wind comes from varying directions at different velocity the individual holes can play radically different, but, the overall tactical challenge remains balanced.
 
I don't know that there's a particular direction and velocity that favors the golfer.
 
 
 
 

[Peter Pallotta]

Patrick - those are the kind of points/insights I was hoping to get when I started this thread.


We sometimes tend to talk about great courses and quality architecture in the abstract, and as fixed and unchanging entities. (I know that I for one tend to do that a lot.) I suppose that's not all bad -- but it misses the fact that a golfer, any golfer, plays a course on a specific day, and under specific conditions, and that in practical terms it is only THAT architecture that can be judged.
Peter

[Tom_Doak]

Patrick - those are the kind of points/insights I was hoping to get when I started this thread.


We sometimes tend to talk about great courses and quality architecture in the abstract, and as fixed and unchanging entities. (I know that I for one tend to do that a lot.) I suppose that's not all bad -- but it misses the fact that a golfer, any golfer, plays a course on a specific day, and under specific conditions, and that in practical terms it is only THAT architecture that can be judged.
Peter

I had that experience this past summer, at a Tom Fazio design called Shooting Star, in Jackson, Wyoming.  I played with the head professional in a big storm that was brewing up over the mountain -- he said it was the strongest wind he had ever played in.  I had to hit driver on a 170-yard par-3, and also saw a couple of chip shots where there was no way to stop the ball on the green, downwind.  We quit after 13 holes before the lightning came, but it was a blast, and I appreciated that the course gave us just enough room to play in those conditions.


Had I seen the same course on a calm day, I'm sure I would have found it less interesting, perhaps even dull.

[Ed Oden]

Keyser Soze

[Don Mahaffey]

don't be a dumb azz#

like inferring seeing a lot of courses = knowing something about architecture?

[John Kavanaugh]

don't be a dumb azz#

like inferring seeing a lot of courses = knowing something about architecture?

Are you saying that I don't know a lot about alcohol?

[Don Mahaffey]

I think you know enough to be happy with your choices, but that aint the same as ranking the top 100 single malts for Liquorweek.

[jeffwarne]

don't be a dumb azz#

like inferring seeing a lot of courses = knowing something about architecture?

[size=78%]l[/size]

Are you saying that I don't know a lot about alcohol?

No doubt John's forgotten more about alcohol than anyone on this board will ever know

[John Kavanaugh]

I think there is an amazing correlation here. My massive consumption of all the finest booze in the world does not make me an expert on what is the best choice for someone else. As a matter of fact, my tastes have become so eclectic that my fellow alcoholics rarely enjoy the same things as me. Just because I would as soon suck kerosene through a log straw I have zero right to preach to others how they should enjoy a fine libation. These guys who travel the world to play other peoples lists are no different. Its the same ole story in every addictive behavior.  The addict pushes the envelope until even FedEx can't get him back home in a day.


As I have said before, you are better served trusting the opinion of someone who indulges in moderation.

[John Kavanaugh]

Here is a perfect example of a course that could only be considered great by someone with an addiction to consume all the courses in the world: http://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/new-zealand/cape-kidnappers/ Everything about it screams intervention. It's straight lining heroin to Rustic Canyon's gateway drug. Rustic Canyon is a 1000 courses ahead of Cape Kidnappers, but that's not what the addicts tell us because after seeing it all Rustic doesn't provide the rush.

[Peter Pallotta]

Excellent.

And so: if I were simply pretending to have consumed as much (and as many different kinds of) alcohol as JK, I could probably fake a few seemingly insightful lines about the best bourbons and scotches and craft beers and Pinot Noirs and vodkas; but I could never, for example, share the story of the time I followed two bottles of wine with an endless mix of cocktails and woke up at 12 noon the next day with my face in an over-flowing ashtray at the counter of a run-down diner 20 miles out in the desert of Las Vegas, wearing my wife's dress and singing "La Bamba" in Cantonese.  Which are the kind of things that actually happen if you drink as much as JK, but that can't be faked; you have to live it to be able to tell it.

[John Kavanaugh]

Excellent.

And so: if I were simply pretending to have consumed as much (and as many different kinds of) alcohol as JK, I could probably fake a few seemingly insightful lines about the best bourbons and scotches and craft beers and Pinot Noirs and vodkas; but I could never, for example, share the story of the time I followed two bottles of wine with an endless mix of cocktails and woke up at 12 noon the next day with my face in an over-flowing ashtray at the counter of a run-down diner 20 miles out in the desert of Las Vegas, wearing my wife's dress and singing "La Bamba" in Cantonese.  Which are the kind of things that actually happen if you drink as much as JK, but that can't be faked; you have to live it to be able to tell it.

Yea, and nobody goes into journalism for the money.

[Ron Csigo]

What holes at Durban have security guarding golfers from the busy adjacent urban street?

Bill,


What's the story here?  Why the need for security?