Does Anyone Love the 80s?

[jeffwarne]

From the 2015 Golfweek Mosern Golf Course listing:  (only those courses opened in the '80's)

Shadow Creek Golf Club
Muirfield Village
Wade Hampton
TPC Sawgrass
Honors Course
Castle Pines Golf Club
Blackwolf Run
John’s Island Club
Forest Highlands
Long Cove

Ken

Muirfield Village was early-mid 70's vintage
Still remember Maltbie hitting the stake in the playoff and beating Irwin (couldn't happen to a nicer guy)

[Phil McDade]

Blackwolf Run.  As a teenager, it was the first destination golf course I played.  I still love it.

Re-affirms Jason's original argument that little of merit was built in the 1980s in terms of golf courses.

[Sean_A]

Being a child of both the 70s and 80s...I gotta say music from the 80's generally wasn't my bag. That said, I still listen to at least 10 albums from the 80s quite a bit (highlighted by Rain Dogs, Violent Femmes, The Specials, Psychedelic Furs and Jumpin' Jive).  I can't even say I am terribly fussed about playing 10 courses from the 80s.


Ciao

[Ken Fry]

Muirfield Village was early-mid 70's vintage
Still remember Maltbie hitting the stake in the playoff and beating Irwin (couldn't happen to a nicer guy)

You are correct.  All my texting today was on my iPhone trying to kill time between gymnastic events and volleyball games!!  That print can get pretty small!

Muirfield Village - 1974

Ken

[Ken Fry]

The difference between music and golf is that if you live through any decade you hear great music and crappy music. When that decade is far enough past that it is on a 'classic/oldies' station the music sounds better than it was because everything that everyone agrees is crap is gone, so less crap being played makes it seem like the music was better than it really was.

Golf courses might be the same way in one respect, with some great and some not so great courses designed during that time, the problem is that almost all of them endure - and which ones go NLE has much more to do with location (i.e. land becomes more valuable for another use) than it does whether the course is great or awful. So looking back at golf courses from the 80s or 60s doesn't give you the same rosy picture caused by throwing out the worst ones.

If you go far enough back, like courses designed in the 10s and 20s, I wonder if there is an effect where a lot of the worst ones are gone? Maybe the golden age is only golden because most of the crappy courses from that era failed in the 30s and 40s...

Doug,

Excellent points/questions.  We all know too many solid courses that have disappeared for whatever reason but some courses with very little to offer still hang on.

Although life would be nice if I didn't have to suffer through any more Wham! from the '80's.

Ken

[Scott Weersing]

If was not for the 80s, then we would not have the gradually change to the courses of the 90s that we now love. Would there be Sand Hills(or name another course) unless there were lots of real estate courses with lakes in the 80s? Perhaps, but I think the 80s set up a great two decades of gca.


Just think, what would have the links at Spanish Bay been like if was built in 1995 or 2005?

[Ryan Hillenbrand]

Love the line from the The Wrestler, as they listen to Pour Some Sugar on Me. (I'm paraphrasing)


"Man the 80s rocked"
"Yeah, what's so wrong about having a good time"?
"Then that p***y Kurt Cobain had to come along and f**k it all up"


In the 80s I was happily playing RTJ sr courses, enjoying the collapse of the Soviet Union, and thinking all was right with the world.

[Sean_A]

I didn't give a shit about the Soviet Union, but I sure enjoyed the 80s.  Strangely though, golf figured very little in those good times...my last game of the decade was the summer of 1982...thats when I fugured out the 80s were too short to waste another minute on golf     I only discovered the disaster that was 80s gca in later decades  . 


Ciao

[Mark Pritchett]

In the 80's we did not have to travel 5 hours to play a "good" course and "get away from it all".

[Peter Pallotta]

In the 80's we did not have to travel 5 hours to play a "good" course and "get away from it all".

That reminds me of an 80s thing.
You had this telephone, see, and it was connected to your house.
If someone rang you and no one picked up, it meant you were not at home. Maybe you were out golfing.
Then if they left a message, when you got home you could call them back.
You'd say something like: "You want to grab a couple of drinks tonight? Okay, meet you at Jimmy's at 10. If I'm not there I'll be at the other place".  And then at 10 or thereabouts you'd meet and have some drinks.
Or you might say: "You want to play Lakeside tomorrow, 11 am? Anyone else you thinking? No - okay, I'll book us in".  And then, with nary another telephone call or a message, you'd meet your friend on the tee at 11 and play golf. Or, if for some reason he didn't show, you wouldn't.

And because we don't have home telephones anymore, that is the reason we have Bandon, and Dismal.  I think golfing wise the trade off is probably worth it. Lifestyle wise, not so much.

Peter 

[Rick Emerson]

Being a child of both the 70s and 80s...I gotta say music from the 80's generally wasn't my bag. That said, I still listen to at least 10 albums from the 80s quite a bit (highlighted by Rain Dogs, Violent Femmes, The Specials, Psychedelic Furs and Jumpin' Jive).  I can't even say I am terribly fussed about playing 10 courses from the 80s.


Ciao

Wow Sean A, your music taste is impeccable. When I get over to the UK eventually we are going to have to hang out because you seem like my kind of guy. We can play golf or listen to music. I don't care.

[Sean_A]

Being a child of both the 70s and 80s...I gotta say music from the 80's generally wasn't my bag. That said, I still listen to at least 10 albums from the 80s quite a bit (highlighted by Rain Dogs, Violent Femmes, The Specials, Psychedelic Furs and Jumpin' Jive).  I can't even say I am terribly fussed about playing 10 courses from the 80s.


Ciao

Wow Sean A, your music taste is impeccable. When I get over to the UK eventually we are going to have to hang out because you seem like my kind of guy. We can play golf or listen to music. I don't care.

You may not think so when you see these albums 

Solitude Standing

Trinity Sessions

Shoot Out The Lights

Pretenders

War

Murmur & Reckoning

Combat Rock - hated by nearly all hard core Clash fans I knew...but when a band can go from White Riot to Straight to Hell in less than five years something is up 

Swordfishtrombones

Night and Day - I am going to see JJ at the London Palladium next month 

Pietro   

I perused my Happy 100...not a single course from the 80s 

Ciao

[Ed Tilley]

The 80s was a musical wasteland, particularly British music. Considering that I grew up in the 80s - I was born in 1972 - the lack of 80s albums in my personal list of favourites is shocking. If you took out R.E.M there are only three 80s albums that would get in a top 20. One of these (The Stone Roses) is considered a 90s album by most even though it was released in 89. The other 2 are The Violent Femmes and The Queen is Dead by The Smiths. The only thing that saves the 80s is I'd then have possibly 3 or 4 REM albums in (Murmur, Reckoning, Lifes Rich Pageant, Green).

[Ken Fry]

The 80s was a musical wasteland, particularly British music. Considering that I grew up in the 80s - I was born in 1972 - the lack of 80s albums in my personal list of favourites is shocking. If you took out R.E.M there are only three 80s albums that would get in a top 20. One of these (The Stone Roses) is considered a 90s album by most even though it was released in 89. The other 2 are The Violent Femmes and The Queen is Dead by The Smiths. The only thing that saves the 80s is I'd then have possibly 3 or 4 REM albums in (Murmur, Reckoning, Lifes Rich Pageant, Green).

Ed,


Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" album was pretty strong.


Ken

[BHoover]

The 80s was a musical wasteland, particularly British music. Considering that I grew up in the 80s - I was born in 1972 - the lack of 80s albums in my personal list of favourites is shocking. If you took out R.E.M there are only three 80s albums that would get in a top 20. One of these (The Stone Roses) is considered a 90s album by most even though it was released in 89. The other 2 are The Violent Femmes and The Queen is Dead by The Smiths. The only thing that saves the 80s is I'd then have possibly 3 or 4 REM albums in (Murmur, Reckoning, Lifes Rich Pageant, Green).

Finally someone mentions REM and The Smiths. Good man.

[Mike_Trenham]

The 80s was when the fairway triplex mower came about and it was a turning point in fairway conditions.

[Dave Doxey]

In the 80's, I played through Axl Rose & some band members on the Saratoga Spa golf course, next to the venue where they had a concert that weekend.  They were waiting for the marshal to return, after sending him to buy beer

[John McCarthy]

Popular music in the 80s was mostly dreck (I will leave Prince out of that).  There was great music but it really was not played on the radio.  X, The Replacements and the ilk had a hard time getting attention.  In the early 90s Nirvana changed the arc of music.  Also, early in the 90s, Sand Hills was built and opened, and we all know what happened after that. 

[Jason Thurman]

Popular music in the 80s was mostly dreck (I will leave Prince out of that).  There was great music but it really was not played on the radio.  X, The Replacements and the ilk had a hard time getting attention.

That's really it. A lot of the best music made in the '80s doesn't feel like "80s music" in retrospect. Sean mentioned "Rain Dogs" earlier, which was made in the '80s but really sounds more like every decade of music from 1840-2190 all mixed together. I always assumed "Alex Chilton" was a song from around 1992 or '93 that I was too busy being a 3rd grader to notice when it was released. The Stone Roses are less of an '80s band than the band that started the '90s British rock scene that I fell in love with as a teenager.


There's obviously a lot more breadth in music, film, and art than there is in golf course architecture, and there's always interesting stuff happening in those fields if you know where to look. But the cultural legacy of art in the '80s feels mostly vapid outside the occasional Prince, Thriller, or album that only Matt Pinfield listened to at the time. The golf courses of the era don't seem to offer many exceptions.


Is this the first time that Pete Dye has been compared to Prince?

[Ryan Hillenbrand]

80s music was influenced by MTV, where your song writing ability and instrument playing was replaced by how good you looked, how you could dance, or give off that "rock star" vibe. We lost a lot of talented musicians at that point, and IMO its only gotten worse. Can you imagine Barbara Streisand getting a shot today? Though I did love me some Pat Benatar. She, Princess Leia and Elizabeth Shue were my 80s dream women.

What is the GCA equivalent- glitz, glam, but doesn't hold up now?

[Peter Pallotta]

The 80s were high concept just when I started to need and love low concept - it gave me more room to breath. And once you've known what it's like to breath, you can never go back.

[archie_struthers]

 




Sixers -Lakers




Doc , Moses and company .....woo, woo!

[BCowan]

Popular music in the 80s was mostly dreck (I will leave Prince out of that).  There was great music but it really was not played on the radio.  X, The Replacements and the ilk had a hard time getting attention.  In the early 90s Nirvana changed the arc of music.  Also, early in the 90s, Sand Hills was built and opened, and we all know what happened after that.

The Talking Heads, Zappa, Hornsby, Gabriel, The Dead did a music video which enabled Stadium tours, and Phish with Junta, all were putting out great stuff.  The Pixies started in 86', they were the real deal that Nirvana cheapened.  My buddy wrote a Song called Goodbye Seattle ''The epitome of trendiness has finally been revealed'' regarding the 90's NW era.  80's Main stream music was fine, MTV did interviews with Zappa bringing a genius into the mainstream.  There were hair bands and Phil Collins non stop, but the 80's had good mainstream your overlooking.  Thriller....

[Sean_A]

Ben

The Pixies are quite interesting in that they strike me as a band that was almost awesome.  I can't put my finger on why I was never completely sold on them despite a ton of good songs. Like some courses, perhaps Surfer Rosa & Doolittle should have been 9 holers    I always thought the Breeders were a better band...though a 90s band...I listen to Pod a ton.

Ciao

[Adam Lawrence]

Ben

The Pixies are quite interesting in that they strike me as a band that was almost awesome.  I can't put my finger on why I was never completely sold on them despite a ton of good songs. Like some courses, perhaps Surfer Rosa & Doolittle should have been 9 holers    I always thought the Breeders were a better band...though a 90s band...I listen to Pod a ton.

Ciao

Breeders very good Sean, but the Pixies are one of the greatest bands in the history of popular music, I strongly suggest you i. give them another go and ii. recant your heresy before Mr Pearce arrives and rips you a new one