Did Social Media kill GCA.com?

[Ben Sims]

Did Ran win? Is the word finally out? Did the collective espousing of this site from olden days take root, grow, get broadcast on various platforms and become prevalent enough that the didactic purpose of this site is now, gulp, moot?


I think there’s an element of it. What say you?

[Matthew Mollica]

I have been pondering this topic broadly in recent months. Obviously the digital landscape has changed substantially since the early days of GCA.com. The rise of Facebook, advent of Twitter, emergence of Instagram and other platforms has definitely reduced the traffic on traditional message boards and forums. Blogs have largely died too. So many other social media platforms on which to interact (albeit differently to those interations we cherish here). Social media hasn't killed GCA.com but it's effect has been substantial IMO.

[Cal Seifert]

Instagram doesn’t lead to many great conversations, but it has solidified itself as the best way to share course photos to a wide audience.

[David_Tepper]

The proliferation of bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, etc. (Fried Egg, No Laying Up, Cookie Jar, Fire Pit*, et al) over the past 15-20 years has certainly been profound. That is in addition to the media content that so many golf clubs & courses produce themselves to promote their enterprises. The traditional golf media (Golf Digest, Golf and LINKS magazine) has also responded by using email and social media to generate clicks and views. I must get 4-6 emails daily from various golf media sources.
 
As the saying goes, "it is like trying to drink from a fire hose." No doubt all these sources compete for our attention. What sets gca.com apart for me is the chance to get to know and interact with the other members on this site. That is something all the other outlets do not provide.   


* The competition among all the social media players has been so great that the Fire Pit Collective shut down earlier this year.

[Wayne_Kozun]

GolfClubAtlas is a form of social media.  The first GCA forum that I remember was Golfweb back in the mid-late 90s.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I’m reading Ben’s opening post in a slightly different way to the title question.


Yes - I think that Ran, GCA.com, Tom have shaped both the enthusiasm in architecture and more critically the flavour / type / style of architecture to such an extent that the younger generation - the ones who now run the Social Media content - are spouting the message everywhere, resulting in the purpose of this website being far less needed.


The Millennials and older Gen-Z’s care about design and architecture - or at least one type of it - way more than Gen-X and Boomers. The previous generations may have loved golf courses but they weren’t exposed to so much social media on course design. They loved courses at a much more visceral level.

[Thomas Dai]

GCA has been and is still a wonderful place to communicate with others, learn and be able to read the thoughts of those ‘in the business’. The latter has always been important.
It’s also a valuable historical resource even though some photos etc have unfortunately disappeared. This historical resource base is something social media ‘post and run’ sites don’t offer.
We’d be worse off without GCA.
Atb

[Mark Pearce]

No.  The big social media platforms don't lend themselves to any detailed discussion, which is what this site does best, when it does it.  The danger is not losing posters to social media but posters behaving on here as if they were on X, and posting shorter, less well thought through, less reasoned material.

[Nick Schreiber]

Ben, when you ask if Ran "won", are you saying that golf course architecture, as a topic, is like a favorite local bar band that is now playing in arenas and stadiums around the world? If that's a fair assessment of your post, I don't think that necessarily makes GCA.com "moot." If you'll indulge me as I take the music metaphor to the next level, the old quote about the Velvet Underground seems appropriate: "The Velvet Underground didn't sell many records, but everyone who bought one formed their own band."


Just like a VU record, one of the beautiful things about GCA.com is that its past, present, and future exist in one place. Like an ever expanding box set, you can "listen" or access GCA.com in its entirety right here. I didn't become a lurker on this community until 2015... I was drawn here by clicking on a course review, and have since spent countless hours diving into old threads, reading interviews, and returning to those course reviews time and time again. Social media seems more fleeting, though I'm not active on any platform so perhaps I'm wrong.


Ben, you know as well as anyone that a great question on this forum can still lead to a great conversation. Though there may not be any new ideas, there remain countless ways to interpret them or discuss them in the context of new courses, architects, media coverage, etc. Just because the light shines brighter on Instagram or Twitter or Youtube doesn't mean that GCA.com is no longer a major source of information from the primary players behind the scenes.

All media evolve as the consumption landscape around us constantly shifts. GCA.com is not the same as it was in its "heyday", but for someone like me who came to the party late, I still find it to be my favorite place online.

[BHoover]

From my perspective, it is not social media that has killed GCA. It’s posters like Erik Barzeski who have killed any interest I once had in participating on this site.

I probably will not be purchasing a copy of “Lowest Score Wins” any time soon.

[MCirba]

Yet we're all here responding.   


Truthfully, I think we've reached critical mass in terms of topics to discuss.   Having been here over two decades there isn't a lot left to discuss that isn't a rehash of prior threads, but little gems still pop up and every now and then a religious war so I still pop in daily.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Ahh.....because you can't stand to hear a valid opinion that is different from yours?  That seems harsh, given we can disagree on almost anything about gca.


BTW, I agree with Mr. Cirba.  As a long time participant, my posting is way down from years ago.  We are rehashing a lot of old topics here, but mostly, I realize that my taking this few minutes to type out a response really isn't going to change anyone's opinions, lol.


That might be an interesting exercise.  Who can recall one post from any poster that really, truly, and permanently changed your mind about something gca related.  I won't wait for anyone to chime in with my name, lol.


Back on topic, I dare say this site has changed architecture, which I think the Fried Egg and others are reporting on but didn't do themselves. So, the legend of this site will probably outlive the actual existence of this place.

[Marty Bonnar]

No, and contrary to another popular misconception, Video didn’t kill the Radio star, either.
I kind of see GCA as the wise old grandpappy in his rocking chair on the porch, babysitting the young architecture whippersnappers at play in the garden (or, maybe better, the sandbox!)
The place does creak around the edges sometimes and the software is shambolic, but it’s home.
F.

[Mike Worth]

I would say the primary benefit is as a repository of information.


I travel quite a bit in retirement. I’ve used this site to research various courses – – there’s nearly 25 years worth of information here so not only can you read about a course you can see what others thought of it.  One of the strongest features is you can research a golf course in every country where one might travel - That’s the benefit of having members from around the world




i’ll give a brief recent example, I drive between my homes in Palm Beach County Florida and suburban Philadelphia – – two weeks ago I made the drive from FL back to the NE.  I noted a thread in which the Donald Ross course in Palatka FL was mentioned. I observed that it wasn’t too far from I-95 so my interest was piqued. I researched the course and found several pages of threads which I eagerly read. I decided to play the course because the general consensus was it was pretty good. Better yet, I didn’t find any comment that said or suggested “stay away.” I don’t think any other site does that.


I like the threads with pictures although yes, you can get that from other sources. I like threads where people ask travel advice because you do get different opinions and approaches.  It’s also a great way to learn about courses that fly under the radar – – and yes, there are a few courses that remain under the radar and/or are hidden gems





And I do read with interest what the architects and supers and others in the profession say about something.

[Ben Sims]

Ben, when you ask if Ran "won", are you saying that golf course architecture, as a topic, is like a favorite local bar band that is now playing in arenas and stadiums around the world? If that's a fair assessment of your post, I don't think that necessarily makes GCA.com "moot." If you'll indulge me as I take the music metaphor to the next level, the old quote about the Velvet Underground seems appropriate: "The Velvet Underground didn't sell many records, but everyone who bought one formed their own band."


Just like a VU record, one of the beautiful things about GCA.com is that its past, present, and future exist in one place. Like an ever expanding box set, you can "listen" or access GCA.com in its entirety right here. I didn't become a lurker on this community until 2015... I was drawn here by clicking on a course review, and have since spent countless hours diving into old threads, reading interviews, and returning to those course reviews time and time again. Social media seems more fleeting, though I'm not active on any platform so perhaps I'm wrong.


Ben, you know as well as anyone that a great question on this forum can still lead to a great conversation. Though there may not be any new ideas, there remain countless ways to interpret them or discuss them in the context of new courses, architects, media coverage, etc. Just because the light shines brighter on Instagram or Twitter or Youtube doesn't mean that GCA.com is no longer a major source of information from the primary players behind the scenes.

All media evolve as the consumption landscape around us constantly shifts. GCA.com is not the same as it was in its "heyday", but for someone like me who came to the party late, I still find it to be my favorite place online.

You and Ally nailed what I was trying to say. A combination of “did the revolution happen and this is what the postscript looks like?” and “everyone formed their own band that needed to.”

Many people here spent time and effort learning, discussing, ultimately getting involved, and trying to carry the torch in a small way. People like yourself took an interest in golf architecture to the stratosphere and built something extraordinary from scratch.

GCA.com isn’t dead. I think its purpose started as being a sort of arbiter of things lost to time in golf architecture and trying like hell to bring it back. Perhaps the site now exists more to re-investigate the harder questions we asked long ago. To ask, chiefly, were we right?

I do understand that this website and its participants aren’t monolithic. There has always been debates and questions about what—if anything—the collective believes in when it comes to architecture on GCA. But I do think there is a core groupthink here about what constitutes quality golf architecture. Those collective beliefs absolutely influenced and gave rise to the many flavors of media we see covering golf courses.

[Charlie Goerges]

Did Ran win?

(The following is just about Ran and not all those others who've done a lot to spread the message about great architecture, they all deserve acknowledgement and kudos)


I'm paraphrasing multiple others here, but I think the answer is "Yes" he won (with a caveat). First, he's now in charge of the most mainstream of golf media pertaining to architecture (the Golf Magazine lists). Second, there probably isn't a working architect now who doesn't espouse some version/portion of what Ran advocates for (whether they all follow through on it is another matter). Now the caveat. A fairly low percentage of courses that exist have been built according to the tenets he espouses (certainly less than 50%, maybe much lower) so a lot of work is still to be done.




Now for the title question "Did Social Media kill GCA.com?" I wouldn't say "kill", but it has certainly disrupted it. People younger than you Ben are much more likely to end up on Insta and listening to podcasts. My kids in their late teens think Insta and TikTok are a normal level of information and think that jumping to Reddit is getting in-depth, and lots of their peers feel the same way. The normal next-generation changing of the guard hasn't happened here on GCA because of that.


I go batty with the shallowness of what's in all of those other channels. I often ask questions in the comments and rarely get an answer, and when I do, it's exceedingly short. It's just not a level of depth I can accept about something I care about and enjoy.


What can we do about it? Probably not much, but I think it's worth it to stick around here and be a lifeboat for the younger folks (and late-bloomers) who also want more depth and camaraderie than instagram, reddit, youtube, and podcasts can give.

[Kalen Braley]

Charlie,

Your last post really resonates with you, 100% agreed!

As for the primary question is GCA.dead?  Its an easy no for me, however....

Given this forum has basically unchanged in the last 20-25 years its certainly not helped and this is not a knock on Ran.  This main discussion area is beyond obsolete and not very user friendly compared to new platforms which are stupid simple to use. Between formatting, posting pics, quoting, etc. the struggle is still real for many here.  And the content could certainly be organized better to make it easier to find past convos/threads which contain a wealth of information.

But then again perhaps this is working as designed to keep the youngsters and/or casual users away.. 

[Joe Hancock]

But then again perhaps this is working as designed to keep the youngsters and/or casual users away.. 

I think it’s still in place that you only participate here if you’re given privileges to do so. If we can make it better for those of us fortunate to have been allowed, why shouldn’t we?


EDIT: that would be like being members of an ODG private club, and wanting it to stay in disrepair to keep the non-members out.

[Michael Chadwick]

My first hunch was that this membership might be stalling out, but then I just checked and nearly 50 new people have been added in the past two years. If new voices contribute, we all stand to benefit from fresh questions and perspectives.


There've still been some good threads in the past year or so. Old Barnwell coming to mind. Yet I'll be the first to admit this most recent season has been the longest stretch of time I haven't felt compelled to comment or post anything.


Detailed discussions of new courses can still serve this board well, because--as others have mentioned--no other platform provides the structure to generate longer form ideas and exchange. Has there been one on Cabot Florida? Who has been to Brambles yet? High Pointe?


There might be some dormancy also because many designs opening nowadays tick the architectural boxes espoused on this site. But I foresee in the coming era a critical usefulness of this site and its community, as newer architects break from the Doak/Hanse/Coore&Crenshaw tree, and also certain business ironies that might need to be addressed (Cabot brand bringing back residential community golf? 8am owning GOLF mag and Bounty Club?).

[PCCraig]

I think what makes GCA great in today's world of golf's social media boom is that it's HARD to share pictures...

[Ira Fishman]

To some extent, gca.com undermined the vitality of gca.com. What I mean is that the other sections of the site—Courses by Country, Featured Interview, In My Opinion, and 147 Custodians—fed into and prompted good threads on the Discussion Board. Those other sections have less frequent new content. Ran properly is busy doing other things in golf architecture, and there are less of us (myself included) who make the effort to contribute to In My Opinion. It would be great to see newer courses covered in Courses by Country or interviews with up and coming architects, and I am sure that they would provoke good discussion. It is this void (perhaps too strong a term) that the Fried Egg in particular has done a good job filling.


Ira

[Matt Schoolfield]

Did Ran win? Is the word finally out? Did the collective espousing of this site from olden days take root, grow, get broadcast on various platforms and become prevalent enough that the didactic purpose of this site is now, gulp, moot?

Social media is to niche interests as the printing press was to education. It facilitates the transmission of information, and connects like minded individuals. I think there is significant variance on what social media is when we talk about it here. In very real sense, as Wayne points out, GCA.com very much fits into the category of social media. On the contrary, outlets like Fried Egg Golf are much closer to media outlets than social media, even if they do leverage social media in their products.

Do I think Ran has won? It's hard to say. Golf architecture is still an incredibly niche subject even in golf culture (there isn't really even much discussion of it on the golf subreddits). That said, I think the site has certainly influenced the types of architecture and courses that are preferred. Still, it's such a broad category, that I don't know whether the kids taking their instagram photos is an appreciation of architecture, or an appreciation of agronomy. They're certainly not discussing angles or kickers on any of my social media feeds.

[Bernie Bell]

"certain business ironies that might need to be addressed"                                                             

That's a fertile field yet to be plowed here.  To paraphrase John Kerry, were "we" against  developer/operators of global brands of luxury residential, golf and “boutique resort lifestyle” destinations, [ii] moving 6 million cubic yards of dirt, and/or [iii] seven-figure joining fees, and are "we" for them now?  

[Kalen Braley]

But then again perhaps this is working as designed to keep the youngsters and/or casual users away.. 

I think it’s still in place that you only participate here if you’re given privileges to do so. If we can make it better for those of us fortunate to have been allowed, why shouldn’t we?

EDIT: that would be like being members of an ODG private club, and wanting it to stay in disrepair to keep the non-members out.

I'm with you Joe.

I've certainly voiced my support for upgrades to the site, better structure, hosting photos, etc in addition to posted how-to instructions for editing posts and adding images going back several years now.  While I still hold out hope that updates will come, just like the Dude in Big Lebowski, I abide.

[David Kelly]

Did Ran win? Is the word finally out? Did the collective espousing of this site from olden days take root, grow, get broadcast on various platforms and become prevalent enough that the didactic purpose of this site is now, gulp, moot?


I think there’s an element of it. What say you?

I think that happened 15+ years ago in the golf industry and a little more recently on social media, and while there were many other factors besides the existence of gca.com (Doak, C&C, Keiser, etc.), Golf Club Atlas was certainly prominent.