Making Golfclubatlas More Interesting

[Bye]

Tim,
If you can do it better, start your own website. You can also ban anonymous posters!

Speaking about not touting current work, when is Doak going to start telling us about his joint project with C&C located on the Dingle Penninsula? I hear it's progressing nicely through the planning stages.

[Steve Lang]

 

In spite of the great appeal and plans of having a round table discussion at the recent GCA Land of Enchantment Tour with our host Ran, we never got around to it.  In the end, the interaction with Baxter Spann about BM was among the highlights, but it was really the group spirit and common interests and just playing together that made that outing great and I imagine likewise for all the other GCA events that have been held.  It was so even for our small 30th Parallel outing last year in SE TX..  New friendships, new discussion and debate centered around golf and gca.

This site is nothing more than a portal into our collective psyche, the good the bad and the ugly, and the anonymous.  It ain't broke and folks get ignored everyday and superfluous items get paid undue attention as well..  just like in the real world.

One has to ask, why do certain threads get thousands of hits and responses while others few?  

I say if anything, eliminate the statistics from general view and you'll eliminate some of the popularity contests that seem to flourish.

And everybody should finish their home course review (that we've all started but never quire finished) and submit it to the site.  

[Mark_Rowlinson]

As one of the Europeans who occasionally posts on this site, I have to say that I come across very few English golfers who know who designed their home course let alone have any interest in golf architecture in general.  Funnily enough, I was playing as a guest at a local club with the captain elect and a past captain and I mentioned the name Tillinghast.  Neither had heard of him.  The name of Mackenzie is revered at certain clubs such as Alwoodley, Cavendish and Reddish Vale and there is a Mackenzie confraternity on these shores, but most golfers would associate the name with a two-tiered green with a step in it.  I very much doubt that many would associate him with Augusta.

If the contents of our home-produced golf magazines are anything to go by, interests are mostly tuition, tour golf reports and gossip, equipment reviews and a bit of travel.  Our local library stocks about 75 golf books.  Only one (World Atlas of Golf) is in any way remotely connected with architecture.  Go into any average bookshop and there will be golf biographies and tuition books, but to find a book on golf design you have to visit somewhere like Foyle's in London or order via the internet.  

Once a year Golf World publishes its Top 100 courses (GB & I one year, continental Europe the next).  You can bet that the letters pages of the following month's edition will have no more than one letter about the list.  The rest will be baying for Monty's blood or offering an opinion as to who should be Ryder Cup captain in Ireland.  

I consult GCA frequently.  It is a valuable resource - stunning photographs, excellent aerials, informed opinion, and frequently I find out something new about one of our British courses from someone who lives 5,000 miles away.  If it helps to keep an error out of something I'm working on it it has done a great service.

[Tim_Weiman]

Bye:

You might note I began this thread by stating “Golfclubatlas has reached a critical mass”. That suggests to me it is better to build on what has been accomplished here rather than splintering off to develop other sites.

Your question about Doak, C&C and the Dingle peninsula is a classic example of anonymous sniping that doesn’t add much. If you really are a professional in the golf industry and have any understanding of the complexities of permitting, then surely you know that the process can be long, have many ups and downs and is often not served by premature public discussion. There is more than one project on the drawing board in the Dingle peninsula. When either project team is ready to make an announcement, I’m sure they will. But, it could be years before that happens.

Forrest:

I've only learned enough to agree with Redanman: I know very little, nothing compared to professionals who have spent years in the business.

But, I do enjoy learning more and find it gets more interesting the more you know.

[Lou_Duran]

Making the site progressively better should always be the goal.  We can all do our part in this endeavor.  One way is to be more open-minded and receptive with other people's view of the world.  Doesn't mean you have to like Fazio's varying styles, or agree with Dr. Moriarty's politics, just don't personalize the debate si much or make aspersions on their character (actually, in the case of DM, it is ok to do so; D).

In as far as having more industry contribution to this site, that's fine as long as we don't just accept what they have to say as gospel.  I've met many architects and superintendents in my time, and for the most part I find them to be well versed in their fields of expertise, but not necessarily as aware of the golfing public as one would expect.  In business, most people are taught that the customer is always right.  I sometimes think that architects, superintendents, and club managers don't look at golf from a business perspective very well.  A common theme that I've gleaned through the years is how little regard SOME of these experts have about the customer having any perceptual capabilities with respect to golf (i.e. that the typical golfer has a problem differentiating his ass from a hole in the ground).  Ask an architect what he was thinking about when he built a back spine on a long par-3 making it nearly impossible to two putt from the back portion of the green when the pin is in the front, and see what response you get.  Or ask a superintendent sometime why the fronts of his greens are so wet as to render the ground game extinct.  It seems to me that in an industry where there are few only-one-correct answer issues, that some of the experts tend to be a little thin-skinned.  Of course, none of our resident experts are of this type!

The comments of Steve, redanman, and several others reflect my view of the site.  Perhaps the popularity and its effect should be measured in terms of viewer hours lurking and opining.  From my standpoint here lately, there seems to be a much needed improvement to the site in the form of a self-help section, call it GCA Anonymous, for those of us who should be weaned a little from it in order to fulfill our other, seemingly secondary responsibilities of trying to earn a living and being husbands, fathers, and involved members of our communities.

   

[Tim_Weiman]

Lou Duran,

Thanks for your comments. Seeing the site become progressively better has been my interest and that is the very reason I bother to initiate such threads.

You may recall a time when anonymous personal attacks were more pervasive. But, many people spoke out against that and for the most part we managed to clean up that problem.

But, there are other goals worth pursuing. Dave Moriarty, in my judgment, recently pointed to one of them: getting beyond generalizations and adding more specifics to our assessment of different architects’ work. If we can’t get more information to flow from the golf industry, maybe we can at least provide more going to it…….and kill things like over watering in front of greens.

Your GCA Anonymous idea might be a good thing, but long before GCA’s existence I fell in love with golf architecture and probably won’t be losing the bug any time soon.

[Evan Fleisher]

BV,

Amen!

[Andy Hodson]

Golf course architecture, like the game of golf itself, is a wonderful, varied, interesting and fascinating subject. Full of endless possibilities for style, form, function.

But, like the game of golf itself, GCA in a vacuum is essentially empty. If we do not have others to share it with, it becomes only an individualistic intellectual endeavor. Only when we share it with others does it become passionate.

And it is when we find the "each others" that the magic can happen. The "each others" that share our passion. But, like the game of golf, each "each other" is a wonderful, varied, interesting and fascinating subject.

And, thus, in my eyes, this site has succeeded beyond belief. Because of the get togethers like the one in N.M., or the one last winter up East, the one at Rustic Canyon, etc. Or just the satellite ones, like the one Steve mentioned here in Southeast Texas, where I have been fortunate to host and meet a few wonderful people like Steve, and Lou, and LSU Bernhardt (BTW, John, I have the hat in my closet. I am just too damn lazy to send it. Maybe after Mack exorcises his OU demons this weekend.)

I, like others, found this site googling a golf course. When I started lurking on the DG, what amazed me most was that the people on it didn't just seem to have cyber-knowledge of each other; they actually had met and played and eaten and drank together. I was stunned. That seemed amazingly different.

So, Ran, take a bow. The subject of GCA has, through GCA.com, become a portal. A portal through which the intellectual pursuit becomes passion.

Could GCA.com become more interesting? Maybe. But I think its strength is not its subject, but its people. That is true success.

Interesting, huh?

 

[Bye]

Bye:

You might note I began this thread by stating “Golfclubatlas has reached a critical mass”. That suggests to me it is better to build on what has been accomplished here rather than splintering off to develop other sites.

Your question about Doak, C&C and the Dingle peninsula is a classic example of anonymous sniping that doesn’t add much. If you really are a professional in the golf industry and have any understanding of the complexities of permitting, then surely you know that the process can be long, have many ups and downs and is often not served by premature public discussion. There is more than one project on the drawing board in the Dingle peninsula. When either project team is ready to make an announcement, I’m sure they will. But, it could be years before that happens.

That was a snipe? I want to know about the project. Since you have the inside track, why don't you fill us in on what's happening in Dingle? I only know about the Doak and C&C project.

[Tim_Weiman]

Andy:

I share your view that the people side of golf architecture can be its most enjoyable feature. That's why I travel to Ireland so often and no longer even care if I play golf. Just sitting in a pub listening to folks like Jackie Horrigan describe hiring and working with Robert Trent Jones is priceless. More than once I've been brought to tears.

People who work in the industry and/or those who sponsor projects help make the people side of golf architecture so enjoyable. Clearly, the business isn't just an engineering or artistic exercise. The people side is huge. They supply not only expertise, money or vision, but often the passion to create venues that golfers will enjoy for years.

Its often true that such people have serious confidentiality concerns and can't publicly answer inquires like that just posed by "Bye", but if we could find a way to encourage them to participate more, the enjoyment you get from the site would only increase, I believe.