The Judge's Tag Line -- Is it True

[Peter Pallotta]

I've wanted to ask this for a long time -- especially of this group here at gca.com
Judge Lavin has long featured in every one of his posts that famous line from HL Mencken:
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people"
When it comes to golf courses & golf course architecture, is that true?

[Mike_Young]

Very much so when it comes to private clubs and boards especially.  I think it was a thread last week that mentioned that alterations to golf courses were not necessarily improvements.  The average board member has an attention span of about 1 hour when it comes to listening to someone talk architecture on their course...

[Tim Martin]

George Carlin was quoted “You can take and nail two sticks together like they’ve never been nailed together before and some fool will buy it.” This certainly could apply to golf course architecture like other goods and services.

[jeffwarne]

Very much so when it comes to private clubs and boards especially.  I think it was a thread last week that mentioned that alterations to golf courses were not necessarily improvements.  The average board member has an attention span of about 1 hour when it comes to listening to someone talk architecture on their course...

Very true in every era, and it continues.
Doesn't help in Mike's neighborhood that every shiny new board member grew up with a ProV1, a waffle iron, and an L wedge and watched Tom Fazio beautify,decrease strategy, add expense and dumb down our nearby local treasure.


The previous generation had the curse of the USGA annointing another assassin as the go to guy at moneyed clubs to keep up with the _ _ _ _ _es, which created another entire cottage industry to fix those changes under the guise of "restoring".


Now get off my lawn!

[John Kavanaugh]

The first step down the road of misery is questioning why you are happy.

[Terry Lavin]

Uninformed and overly opinionated is a common condition at most private clubs. Trying to build an informed consensus is difficult enough when dealing with a Board of Governors but persuading a majority of members is a Herculean task.


I readily acknowledge that most dissenters (tree huggers, penal conditions addicts etc.) usually wind up admitting that they were wrong to object. I had one guy who wanted to knock me out in the bar after another tree got cut down a few weeks before the US Open at Olympia. By the end of the summer he told me I was “right”. 


I quickly replied that all I did was to get educated by reading a lot of stuff and by listening to experts in the field, just like I did when I was handling complex litigation.

[Jeff_Brauer]

It's all a matter of perspective and marketing, I gather.


Club boards have always followed someone or something in making their decisions.  Typically, it was the PGA Tour, Augusta, or the USGA that set the tone.  Or, Golf Digest top 100 lists.  Or, hiring signature architects and telling them to copy the style of their most successful courses.  A few times, it's way overspending to satisfy your ego.  (The signature thing has never changed, and I can't tell if overspending is increasing, or we are just looking at the inflation dollars)


Now, it's a new breed of gca's trying just as hard to schlepp restoration as the 1950's guys trying to sell modernization.  You have to discredit all that went before to make a point of doing your style, no?



And, BTW, the opinions expressed in the OP (and on most of this board) relate mostly to the top 1-2% of courses.  I can assure you that public courses and mid level country clubs are still in the strict mode of "spending less nearly always beats spending more."  And, it does seem as if businessmen don't manage the money at their clubs like they did to become successful business people, but that is anecdotal.


Lastly, while there is some truth to the OP, one truth is also that the attitude expressed, in either original quote or gca enthusiasts, is terribly arrogant, and part of human nature, to want to feel superior to others, sometimes resorting to name calling.  It may be true that a small portion of the gca community is trying to be tastemakers (or changers) and that has always happened.  It's just that you shouldn't necessarily belittle all the folks who don't happen to agree.  And, I agree that my generalizations above do NOT apply universally, either.

[Thomas Dai]

Very much so when it comes to private clubs and boards especially.  I think it was a thread last week that mentioned that alterations to golf courses were not necessarily improvements.  The average board member has an attention span of about 1 hour when it comes to listening to someone talk architecture on their course...

Isn’t there a supposed response of “Improvements? I think you mean changes!” by Alister MacKenzie in response to the question “What do you think of the improvements to the course?” I’m sure someone will advise if I’m incorrect with some detail of this question and response.
There’s also “Golf Clubs aren’t run by their committees. They are run despite their committees!” My lips are sealed as to the originator of this line. What the alternative, best alternative or least-worst alternative is however, is likely somewhat debatable.
Atb

[Terry Lavin]

It's all a matter of perspective and marketing, I gather.


Club boards have always followed someone or something in making their decisions.  Typically, it was the PGA Tour, Augusta, or the USGA that set the tone.  Or, Golf Digest top 100 lists.  Or, hiring signature architects and telling them to copy the style of their most successful courses.  A few times, it's way overspending to satisfy your ego.  (The signature thing has never changed, and I can't tell if overspending is increasing, or we are just looking at the inflation dollars)


Now, it's a new breed of gca's trying just as hard to schlepp restoration as the 1950's guys trying to sell modernization.  You have to discredit all that went before to make a point of doing your style, no?



And, BTW, the opinions expressed in the OP (and on most of this board) relate mostly to the top 1-2% of courses.  I can assure you that public courses and mid level country clubs are still in the strict mode of "spending less nearly always beats spending more."  And, it does seem as if businessmen don't manage the money at their clubs like they did to become successful business people, but that is anecdotal.


Lastly, while there is some truth to the OP, one truth is also that the attitude expressed, in either original quote or gca enthusiasts, is terribly arrogant, and part of human nature, to want to feel superior to others, sometimes resorting to name calling.  It may be true that a small portion of the gca community is trying to be tastemakers (or changers) and that has always happened.  It's just that you shouldn't necessarily belittle all the folks who don't happen to agree.  And, I agree that my generalizations above do NOT apply universally, either.

Well stated.

[David Ober]

It's all a matter of perspective and marketing, I gather.


Club boards have always followed someone or something in making their decisions.  Typically, it was the PGA Tour, Augusta, or the USGA that set the tone.  Or, Golf Digest top 100 lists.  Or, hiring signature architects and telling them to copy the style of their most successful courses.  A few times, it's way overspending to satisfy your ego.  (The signature thing has never changed, and I can't tell if overspending is increasing, or we are just looking at the inflation dollars)


Now, it's a new breed of gca's trying just as hard to schlepp restoration as the 1950's guys trying to sell modernization.  You have to discredit all that went before to make a point of doing your style, no?



And, BTW, the opinions expressed in the OP (and on most of this board) relate mostly to the top 1-2% of courses.  I can assure you that public courses and mid level country clubs are still in the strict mode of "spending less nearly always beats spending more."  And, it does seem as if businessmen don't manage the money at their clubs like they did to become successful business people, but that is anecdotal.


Lastly, while there is some truth to the OP, one truth is also that the attitude expressed, in either original quote or gca enthusiasts, is terribly arrogant, and part of human nature, to want to feel superior to others, sometimes resorting to name calling.  It may be true that a small portion of the gca community is trying to be tastemakers (or changers) and that has always happened.  It's just that you shouldn't necessarily belittle all the folks who don't happen to agree.  And, I agree that my generalizations above do NOT apply universally, either.

Great post.


Belittling is easy, emotional, and virtually never helpful except to feed one's own negative emotions.


Educating others is difficult in that it takes, not just patience on the part of the educator, but also an understanding of just what type of person/group you are trying to educate. That's not an easy combo to nail.

[Peter Pallotta]

In the '90s and early 2000s, I remember so often stepping out of a (mandatory) cart onto yet another elevated tee, looking way down at a wide flat fairway featuring one very large and very shallow bunker at one of the many then-new country clubs for a day that had sprung up north of the city, and that -- for a few years at least -- were ranked quite high on Canada's Top 100 lists.

I don't see (or read about, or play) many elevated tees these days, and I can't remember the last time I had to take a cart. But those CCFAD 'fooled' the experts -- and my friends and I -- long enough to charge some serious greens fees and makes some serious cash for a quite a while. They were the talk of the town, until they weren't.

Did those developers-architects-courses avoid going broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people -- or instead, are cart-ball routings designed to provide the maximum number of elevated tees (and dramatic vistas and ego-gratifying distance) simply one of the many forms that quality golf course architecture can take, then and now?

You'll all have your own examples/equivalents to my 'elevated tees', from the past and/or from this very day, and the same basic question applies -- I think. And that's why I wanted to ask this group of experienced-insightful-well travelled golfers, i.e. because your examples will be more subtle and interesting than mine.

PS
- Posters have mentioned the 'education' process, which presupposes a truth/fact/value that some understand and others don't. That's interesting in and of itself, because it doesn't seem to me as clear-cut a process or presupposition as it appears to others.
- Very nice line, JK: you could've been a kinder, gentler Mencken.
 

[JMEvensky]

I readily acknowledge that most dissenters (tree huggers, penal conditions addicts etc.) usually wind up admitting that they were wrong to object.

I agree 100% with everything you said--except that. In my experience, tree huggers are, and forever will be, tree huggers. There's a subset for whom the trees are more important than the golf course--and they will proudly/ignorantly die on that hill.

[Tim Martin]

I readily acknowledge that most dissenters (tree huggers, penal conditions addicts etc.) usually wind up admitting that they were wrong to object.

I agree 100% with everything you said--except that. In my experience, tree huggers are, and forever will be, tree huggers. There's a subset for whom the trees are more important than the golf course--and they will proudly/ignorantly die on that hill.

Most especially when the trees are memorials.

[David Ober]

In the '90s and early 2000s, I remember so often stepping out of a (mandatory) cart onto yet another elevated tee, looking way down at a wide flat fairway featuring one very large and very shallow bunker at one of the many then-new country clubs for a day that had sprung up north of the city, and that -- for a few years at least -- were ranked quite high on Canada's Top 100 lists.

I don't see (or read about, or play) many elevated tees these days, and I can't remember the last time I had to take a cart. But those CCFAD 'fooled' the experts -- and my friends and I -- long enough to charge some serious greens fees and makes some serious cash for a quite a while. They were the talk of the town, until they weren't.

Did those developers-architects-courses avoid going broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people -- or instead, are cart-ball routings designed to provide the maximum number of elevated tees (and dramatic vistas and ego-gratifying distance) simply one of the many forms that quality golf course architecture can take, then and now?

You'll all have your own examples/equivalents to my 'elevated tees', from the past and/or from this very day, and the same basic question applies -- I think. And that's why I wanted to ask this group of experienced-insightful-well travelled golfers, i.e. because your examples will be more subtle and interesting than mine.

PS
- Posters have mentioned the 'education' process, which presupposes a truth/fact/value that some understand and others don't. That's interesting in and of itself, because it doesn't seem to me as clear-cut a process or presupposition as it appears to others.
- Very nice line, JK: you could've been a kinder, gentler Mencken.

Any "education" regarding GCA/philosophy/politics, etc. should be merely an education of the merits of the concept(s), not of the primacy of such.