Confidential Guide, Volume 3, Arrived Today

[Garland Bayley]

Have to wonder if Tom has more authors for this series than he is telling us about. It seems Amazon has exposed his co-author for Anatomy of a Golf Course that he has not been telling us about.

[Tim Martin]

Its clear that putting these volumes together was quite an undertaking. I own and enjoy the books. That said I don't really see the value of a dated review that does not take into consideration major restoration work that was done subsequent to the original version of the Confidential Guide. I would think this would be a semi-requirement just based on the amount of restoration work that has taken place over the last twenty years and subsequent to the original CG. The idea that "we couldn't get to it" is not a sufficient reason to go with a dated review. My understanding is that the new volumes are supposed to be an updated version of the original to cover courses not yet built, not yet reviewed and/or restored with the viewpoint of the new contributors included.

Tom has explained very patiently and repeatedly his purposes.  You want a better guide, buy Wexler's black books or go the mag lists.  Whining that the CG is inadequate for your expectations just doesn't seem reasonable.  It is one man's take of golf design, now with some help from friends.  Do you have any idea what it would cost to revisit every course that made some changes (over 30+ years of golf travel), not to mention the time away from their day jobs?

You can have the 20 year old rating. Courses that have been changed/renovated/restored deserve another look. Just my opinion.

[William_G]

I have all of the CG books and enjoy them, but I'd love to see this project go live on the web so that updates could be made on an ongoing basis.

It could be offered on a subscription, if necessary, to cover overhead and generate operating capital. The biggest expense would be the time necessary to post the current material onto the site, but after that has been done the overhead would be minimal. If Tom is interested I'm sure we could get plenty of volunteers who would love to help set up such a website.

eRenaissance.com

Tom could delegate out regional coverage, there could be a bulletin board for GCA type banter, new courses and new restorative/renovation work could be highlighted, Tom could still have a hand in reviewing the one's he likes....this type  of move would be a healthy step away from the current textbook style and diminish any hint of the shameless self promotion aspect of the books as alluded to by all the "work" (Valley Club/Rock Creek) he does...annual subscription $100 US

[Sean_A]

I think charging $100 only works if one thinks that the ones who don't own the books might stump up.  I find it hard to believe that enough guys that paid for the books are going to be concerned enough about additional work to courses to justify the cost of getting access to a line or two blurb when this kind of info is readily available online.  The concept needs to be built into a larger marketing strategy. For instance, if Tom thought a course on hard times he really wants to help out could use additional funding, he could use a website fee as type of charity to help fund this concept.  Folks may be more willing to give for the cause of "golf" than to just simply have access to bits and pieces of info. 


Ciao