"And Jeff proved he can read"
(yes, I went to school long enough ago that they still taught reading comprehension......
Pete,
Thanks. In the article, I was wearing my newly issued Wild Wing Avocet shirt, my first course to get a place (squeeked in at 10) on the GD Best New Lists, so I think your theory was correct at least in part. Not sure what the others were working on. Perhaps the most interesting is Keith Foster, who morphed from a new course guy to more of a restoration specialist, hence rebooting his career at least once.
On the other hand, if your "talent is not enough" theory was correct, you would think one or more of us would have fallen completely off the face of the earth by chance, no? I would have to noodle on that one.
For that matter, life just isn't fair. John was in as good a shape as any of us and has the heart attack? By all rights, that should not have been him, and (knock on wood) it might be that I was the most likely candidate for such a demise......
JC,
Would be interested, perhaps in another thread, about the new directions you think golf architecture is taking right now and in the near future. I think about those things, in terms of "form follows function" and designing for the retail customer, and the only trends I could see from carrying those items out to their logical conclusion is that future design would not hold much interest to this group!