Jerry,
Good question. I don’t have an answer, but do have some observations.
Early on, like most who feel passionate about anything, I tended the have the zealousness of the convert when it came to GCA. I am pretty sure I put a lot of people off with my earnestness and strongly held opinions.
As a consequence, I’ve had mixed results in discussing GCA with friends, golfing buddies and strangers and so I have moderated my approach over time. More often than not, like many of you, I still get the “glazed eyeballs” reaction. But once in a while, and just recently in fact, I find someone who is actually intrigued by GCA. A young pro at my own regular club and I talked as we played round our own course. For someone who has read absolutely nothing on GCA, he had some great observations and great instincts. I found out that his grandfather took him to play golf in Scotland and Ireland when he was a young boy. He thinks that has something to with it; I agree.
Those who aren’t really interested in GCA seem to fall into one of two categories in my own experience:
1) Those who consider themselves real “players” and who are only preoccupied with scoring. They aren’t curious and their brains are already filled with enough knowledge about the game, thank-you-very-much-now-please-shut-up. Their preoccupation with scoring and lack of any GCA insight leaves them with a distinctly small vocabulary when it comes to analyses of a golf courses. They decide quickly whether a course is “fair” or not and fall back on clichés like, “l like old-fashioned golf courses,” or “I like it. It’s all there in front of you.” When asked what that means, they really cannot articulate any reasons other than, “it’s fair” or that they like the atmosphere of the club or the way a particular hole sets up for their game.
2) Those who look upon GCA as some sort of elitist bull crap. They want to go out with their buddies, get away from their wives or girlfriends and/or ogle the cart girls. Nothing wrong with that. They don’t have any curiosity about the grounds upon which the game is played. They look upon GCAers as some sort of intellectual dweebs. They tolerate GCA analysis for a very short time before they either directly tell me where I can shove my “architecture drivel” or they make it clear that if they hear one more criticism they will likely take a chunk out of my skull with their trusty sand wedge.
Over time, I have learned to discuss GCA on any regular basis only with kindred souls. With the others, I try to find out what makes them tick, and then approach the subject from that perspective. For instance, for the “players” I mention that Bobby Jones said that once he learned about GCA from Mackenzie, he said he never ever viewed a golf course the same way again and that if he had had the knowledge it would have helped him in deciding how to attack a golf course. This seems to strike a resonant chord with them.
For the “elitists” I like to take them to a good, solid strategic course with plenty of risk-reward shots and cross-bunkers, then make sure we play from an appropriate set of tees. While it may not pique their interest in GCA, they invariably have a lot of fun playing those courses. Maybe someday they will make the connection between the architectural style and their level of fun.
I don’t have an interest in being an evangelist for GCA, but if I sense an interest, like with the young pro at my club, I provide them some names of books, give them the web address of this site and see where it leads. Probably my most rewarding experience came with a good friend who is a “player” who called me up after the last Masters and said, “You know, I hate to admit it, but you are right. They have ruined Augusta and The Masters isn’t exciting to watch anymore.” This is a really good golfer who strongly resisted almost anything to do with GCA. As a consequence I have rarely discussed the subject with him for quite some time. My enjoyment didn’t come from seeing him learn to dislike his once favorite tournament, but rather that he made the connection that the change in excitement level of the Masters was directly attributable to GCA changes, an idea he scoffed at three years ago.