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George Pazin

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Just Not A Club Kinda Guy
« Reply #125 on: June 14, 2019, 03:24:54 PM »
I'm envious - in a good way, not the current, en vogue angry way - of JK, AG, Archie, Duncan, etc, that they can be members of a club. I sure hope to, someday.


I will say, heading out to my local muni every Saturday morning 20+ years ago felt like a private club. And to me, that's the real essence of the game.
Big drivers and hot balls are the product of golf course design that rewards the hit one far then hit one high strategy.  Shinny showed everyone how to take care of this whole technology dilemma. - Pat Brockwell, 6/24/04

Daryl David

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Just Not A Club Kinda Guy
« Reply #126 on: June 14, 2019, 05:11:53 PM »
I joined my first private golf club at 23 years of age.  It was a 9 hole course in a rural town in the South. I played after work when I could and on weekends with a great group of guys from every walk of life.  I was the "Kid" and they were happy to welcome me into their world. I learned a lot about life and how to navigate it.  It was not just a place to play golf.  These are experiences you don't get by clicking GolfNow and changing your shoes in parking lot of the public course that is currently discounted.


It was tough financially in those early years, but I soon began to consider the cost of private golf to be a life necessity and not a luxury.  I have never calculated what I was paying vs. rounds played or totaled up the lost equity and initiation fees. That is just dumb as golf was not all I was purchasing. When I hear that talk, I think about the saying that describes knowing the cost of everything and value of nothing.
Fourteen private clubs later, I am no longer the "Kid".  Some of those clubs were great, some were not.  If I could go back in time, I would change nothing. 

When I hear someone say all they want is pure golf, golf at it's least expensive price point, nothing included that they don't like,,,,,,,,, I feel sorry for them.

Mike Sweeney

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Just Not A Club Kinda Guy
« Reply #127 on: June 15, 2019, 07:17:56 PM »
It was not just a place to play golf.  These are experiences you don't get by clicking GolfNow and changing your shoes in parking lot of the public course that is currently discounted.


Daryl,


I thought yours was a great post in the defense of private golf, but this is GCA.com and I am calling you out on it!! :)


I have changed my shoes in the parking lots of some really awesome golf courses, both public and private - Yale, Cape Arundel, Kittansett, Bethpage, National Golf Links of America (clubhouse was closed), Sankaty Head, Merion East (snuck on, got caught!!), Merion West (no clubhouse), Prouts Neck.... Funny thing is, I would never change my shoes in the parking lot of a Overseas Club, which are mostly open to public tee times.


My favorite club is Pine Valley Golf Club. Sure, it is complicated to get inside the gates, and there are thousands of lawyers that will define its "private status", but when you do get inside the place, it was the MOST public course that I have every played. By that I mean the caddies, the bartenders, the staff, and the guest were all treated the same way by our host. At least that was my experience on two occasions. Archie can school me now, because with close to a thousand members, there will be "stories".

I loved George Pazin's explanation of "his club". I guess I am a "club kind of guy", but I want my club to be defined by the golfers, and not the lawyers.


First Tee at Goat Hill Golf Club: Oceanside, California, July 2018


« Last Edit: June 15, 2019, 07:22:13 PM by Mike Sweeney »
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us."

Dr. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark