A centralized golf architecture archive

[TEPaul]

In an ideal world how would you like to see a centralized golf architecture archive via the Internet actually look and work?

What-all should it provide or provide access to, and in the context of priority what should it concentrate on first for your particular purposes or interest?

At the end of the day, how extensive and in-depth should it try to be?

On the matter of education should it be pro-active or passive?

If anyone who reads this website but is not registered to post and would like to ask questions or make suggestions on this initiative, please feel free to contact me at tpaul25737@aol.com

[Eric Franzen]

Imagine a searchable archive where all content (articles, pictures etc) are cathegorised with tags within a predefined structure. That would help narrow searches for specific words inside the span of content that have been cathegorised into "Ross", "MA", "1925".

Re: The matter of education. There are a lot of basic functionality like "users who have searched for xxx also found the following artciles helpful" that could be applied in a passive way.

[Mike_Sweeney]

http://research.yale.edu/wwkelly/Yale-golf/index.htm

I would start here and build from this, at least on a course by course situation. However this model could be broadened to the platform that you are talking about.

[Eric Franzen]

Re: look and feel. When it comes to search and reference information you always want the interface to be as simple as possible (think google!) with optional possibilities for more advanced functionality for the experienced power user.

[Eric Franzen]

Tom Paul,

Are we talking about a searchable database which collects all kinds of different content or should it be more like an editorial archive like Yale's site?

Mike Sweeney,

Yale has done a tremendous job with this archive. I think it is a structure that works very well for content that are centered around one specific course or architect. For an archive that covers a bigger field I would probably root for more extensive search functionality.

[TEPaul]

Eric:

I guess I'm talking about something that offers or does the most for the most people, whatever that might be. I started this thread to basically ask a question or a couple of them.

[TEPaul]

"For an archive that covers a bigger field I would probably root for more extensive search functionality."

Eric:

A bigger search functionality for what-all? How would you like to see a centralized archive that covers basically all aspects of golf architecture, from its beginnings to date?  What do you suppose those "aspects" should be?
 
 

[wsmorrison]

I think the maximum benefit of such an archive is to create a global data base for golf architecture with data mining capability that is familiar to the largest number of potential users such as mentioned by Eric:  Google.  If you imagine how you would use such an item, the formatting becomes apparent.

Clearly you would want to be able to search by course, architect, golf association, tournaments, construction team, etc.

Let's say you were researching Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.  You could type that into the search field and a menu page would pop up and you could click any of the listings for the next menu page related to that item.

Architect
Willie Davis
Willie Dunn
CB Macdonald
William Flynn

Golf Association
Metropolitan Golf Association

USGA Tournaments

Regional Tournaments

Let's say you wanted to look into William Flynn.  Click the name and you get the appropriate menu page that might look like:

William Flynn Biography including chronological course list with all the listings clickable to investigate

A search field similar to that used by the Amateur Athletic Foundation would yield books, periodicals and newspaper articles related to Flynn

Drawings
Link to site with his digitized drawings

Photographs
Hyperlinks to various collections of ground and aerial photographs of Flynn courses including Disher, Dallin, Library Co of Philadelphia, Historical Society of PA, etc.

In order to find out the scope of information available to be used (best linked so as not to duplicate efforts and maintain local control)  I would draft a letter from the USGA to:

member clubs
member associations
R&A clubs and associations
library and museum associations
collectors
etc

Ask them to list their archival materials, links to digitized materials etc.  

I would write a manual for interested members suggesting ways to organize and maintain an archive and a methodology to integrate it with the USGA effort.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

How about "bunker", "green", "fertilizer", "Irrigation", "green speed" "degree of slope", etc, whatever?

I was talking to Mark Petersen, the Executive Director of the Golf Association and the Pennsylvania Golf Association about this type of thing.

Mark is a young guy and remarkably computer savvy and computer imaginative. Basically, Mark, said; "Tommy, maybe an old guy like you can't imagine how powerful computerization can be if you just design and plug stuff into it, but I can. It might blow your mind but it doesn't blow mine."

No doubt he's right.  

[T_MacWood]

I agree with Eric. One of the first things they should do IMO is fix their current search engine...it is not very useful.

Currently you can not narrow the search by date or time frame, not can you narrow it by adding more specific info to your search either....the opposite occurs, the more information you include the more broad the search.

For example if you search for 'Flynn' you will get everything with name, however if you try to narrow it by adding 'William" you will get every that has William or Flynn...multiplying the number of returns (100s).

I'd also suggest they digitise more old magazines....British Golf Illustrated would be good one to start. Some of the most useful information is contained in those magazines and if you want to have a useful data base of information on these architects you've got allow the researchers the ability to find the information to fill up the archive.

[Dunlop_White]

tom,

I was thinking last night, look at Ran's "Architectural Timeline" on this site. It provides a good start as to structure. I'm sure you could expand on this or even narrow it down. Just an idea.

The passive stuff would certainly be the easiest to categorize as set forth below.

II. Architect
   17. Donald Ross
        I. Courses
             22. Idle Hour
                   a. aerials
                   b. routing plans
                   c. green sketches
                   d. articles
                   e. other documents
             98. Salem
                   a. aerials
                   b. routing plans
                   c. green sketches
                   d. articles
                   e. other documents
      27. A. W. Tillinghast
           I. Courses
               9. Winged Foot
                    a. aerials
                    b. routing plans
                    c. green sketches
                    d. articles
                    e. other documents

VI. Architectural Elements
      A. USGA spec. greens?
      B. Trees on golf courses?
      C. Overseeding?
      D. Green Rollers?

The pro-active stuff may be more difficult???



 

           

[Eric Franzen]

Tom,

You could create an hieraichal data base structure for all the data that is indexed. An article could then be cathegorised under "Green" - > "Green Speed" while another one could fit into "Green" -> "degree of slope" etc. As Wayne's example clearly points out it would also certainly provide an educational effect as you stumble into previously unknown content that is grouped into on of the same cathegories as the thing that you originally looked for.

[Mark_Fine]

The search engine is key.  However, the data has to be digitized to be searched.  We did a lot of research for our golf book on hazards in the rare books section and in the greens section of the USGA and there will be a tremendous amout of work to scan all that data in.  Some of those old books are pretty fragile.  

[wsmorrison]

"How about "bunker", "green", "fertilizer", "Irrigation", "green speed" "degree of slope", etc, whatever?"

Absolutely, Tom.  Mark is right, the capabilities with computers are hard for us simpletons to realize.  You ought to call up Bill Brisky--Gil's friend that played with me a few weeks ago.  He was a big shot at Microsoft and is willing to help.  I have his contact information--I'll IM it to you.

[Dunlop_White]

Absolutely! Call him! Only a computer wiz will be able to identify what we can and cannot do with this web domain.

[TEPaul]

I did call him but why don't I just call Bill Gates and ask him to contribute the whole damn computerized structure to this thing? If he says yes but it has to have a Microsoft "mark" or whatever on it, so what, the entire rest of the world seems to at this point anyway?  

If anyone who reads this website but is not registered to post and would like to ask questions or make suggestions on this initiative, please feel free to contact me at tpaul25737@aol.com

[David Stamm]

Tom, I love the concept. Just imagining going to a website and be able to access something that Behr said about the subject from Golf Illustrated with the click of the button, or click on 1 course and be able to research yourself who, what and when something was redone would be fantastic. Anything I can do to help with making something like this happen would be my pleasure.

[Bill Gayne]

Tom and Wayne:

I guess there's two types of system to be considered. The first would be a simple document storage and retreival system. The second would be along the lines of www.wikipedia.com. I think that the technology platform that Wikipedia works on is really good. It's very intuitive and quick. I typed in  Shinnecock and it immediately linked me to all kinds of stuff and then there were embedded links on key words. My guess is that you're probably working with scanned documents so that may limit you to a basic document storage and retreival system. There may be someone out there with greater technical knowledge that can expand on the options and move beyond storage and retreival. I think it would be great if an archive could be more like an encyclopedia.

Bill