Høw cän øne pläy græt gølf klubee inda Åmericä?

[PCCraig]

What changed golfclubatlas.com in the past 10 years the most??? The Blackberry, IPhone, and various other smartphones. How? They allow for people to check the website from anywhere and post their quick and marginal thoughts on every single thread on the first page. When people (new and old for that matter) post one sentence blurbs that amount to less than twitter comments they flood the website with so many useless posts that to sometimes find the good stuff that someone actually took more than 30 seconds to draft is almost impossible. Unfortunately some people think that posting quick, "witty" sentences with obvious spelling errors is cute and their inflated post total somehow gives them credibility...in fact it does anything but.

What kind of comments am I referring to??

 WE did that. You won. And now you don't return my calls.recieve the roses or even wear the hat I bought you.


  Anthony

 My apologies Carl. With all th IMs going back and forth on fish bars and black underwear its hard to determine the contamination. Again my apologies. Come golf with me and Gib in a month.

  Cheers,

  Anthony

 Carl,

  Any thoughts about Golf Course Architecture? Ideas for discussion? Any threads on your mind? Any photos of courses?

  Anthpony
[/quote]

  I think there are some spelling errors onthis thread.

  Anthiny

  One question is do "Just Golfers" belong on the site?

  Anthony

The wannabe John Kavenaugh/Twitter mentality of some, primarily of one, is the main obstacle to having a board filled with legitimate discussion.

In the grand scheme of things this is still a great website with participants that generally get it, regardless of if many of the major early players have moved on to other discussion boards and there is a good amount of "new" blood posting. I also agree with Bill_McBride above that generally meeting the members of this site in person adds greatly to the online discussion. However some (and by some I mean a very small amount) people on this site have already convinced me that I would never want to meet them in person based on their actions on this site.

[Terry Lavin]

Gib-I'm not sure how to take your last post. I actually think its funny. I have played golf twice with Ed Getka, top notch guy; hopefully he thinks I'm a decent dude as well.

However, on the topic of some of the older members, some, I truly think, do seem to look down on public golfers, and I've gone back and forth with at least one of them a few times, though not recently. I think some here tend to think the only place to find worthwhile architecture is on a high-end, untra-exclusive private golf course; its not. And I have stated that from the time I got here.

Perhaps its just all about perception...

John,

If I can intrude into this minor contretemps, I don't sense elitism hereabouts vis a vis public golfers by the members of private clubs.  On the contrary, I have seen countless examples of great camaraderie among both camps.  Plenty of us private club members have hosted public (and private member) golfers from around the world and plenty of public players have organized outings at their favored venues for others as well.  There are occasional incidents of outright abuse of people who are members at private clubs by some posters here who could accurately be labeled access whores, but I can't say whether they are "publics" or "privates".  The access whore issue is a relative constant here, but after a while, one develops the radar and they can be screened out.   

[Dale_McCallon]

I find the turn this thread has taken interesting and hear are my 2 cents.

I've been a member on this site for a long time but rarely post.  Why?  While the subject of golf course architecture interests me, I feel like a dullard compared to many of the "old-timers" on the board.  I've never done research on  who dug what bunkers, never studied aerial photos of long gone courses.  Hell, I'm so naive I always just assumed that Wilson designed Merion and am happy to keep believing it.

I've been intimidated by the knowledge of some of these people and in awe of the great courses they had played/studied.  But, you know what...of the many members I've met I realized something.  Most of them are just normal folks, with normal jobs, with normal life stories (excluding Mr. Huntley whom I'm pretty sure has a more interesting story than most, but thats a good thing) that just happen to have an abnormal interest in gca. Of the many members I've met; I can honestly say that I would play golf again with almost all of them.  And I've never felt like I was inferior to any of them, and they've never acted superior to me.

I met a few guys for dinner/drinks, met a handful at their clubs and have gone to a few GCA events and each time is a treat.  I wish I had the money/time to attend more but that's life.  Hell, I've even had a GCA celeb play at my little ratty public course. 

Are their some golf snobs among us..I sure .  Are their some "newbies" making pointless comments..sure.  But I think the great majority of us are just guys who  happen to like a really odd topic and are happy to find a few other people in the world with the same interest.

[Mark Pearce]

A good number of the more interesting and thoughtful posts come from "Newbies" (BTW, what qualifies as a Newbie?  I feel like one frequently but have been around for 3 or 4 years and have 1000+ posts.  These "good old days" of which Gib speaks must be before then, since I don't recognise the changes he describes.).  Posters like Scott Warren and Jon Lyon bring plenty to this board.  Of course it's a worse place for the absence of some (Rihc, for one is sorely missed.  Hopefully he will return one day.)  Of course there are some inane and pointless posts and some posters are responsible for more than their fair share (I find myself in agreement with Pat Craig again on this).

I'd echo Bill's thoughts and Dale's.  I have never played golf with a GCA poster I would not, happily, play with again (with perhaps one exception and of course, I would not play for money against Chappers, at least not off that handicap).  Nor have I met or played with a GCA poster who was not genuinely interested in architecture and discussing it.  Not all have the confidence (or sometimes knowledge) to discuss the weightier, more complex issues that get discussed here and not all (indeed not many) feel comfortable with the aggressive, personal nonsense that sometimes breaks out and perhaps the facetious, "wit" is an attempt at levity to avoid that but there have been ebnough great threads recently (and, indeed, currently) that I think GCA is in good health.

[John Moore II]

Gib-I'm not sure how to take your last post. I actually think its funny. I have played golf twice with Ed Getka, top notch guy; hopefully he thinks I'm a decent dude as well.

However, on the topic of some of the older members, some, I truly think, do seem to look down on public golfers, and I've gone back and forth with at least one of them a few times, though not recently. I think some here tend to think the only place to find worthwhile architecture is on a high-end, untra-exclusive private golf course; its not. And I have stated that from the time I got here.

Perhaps its just all about perception...

John,

If I can intrude into this minor contretemps, I don't sense elitism hereabouts vis a vis public golfers by the members of private clubs.  On the contrary, I have seen countless examples of great camaraderie among both camps.  Plenty of us private club members have hosted public (and private member) golfers from around the world and plenty of public players have organized outings at their favored venues for others as well.  There are occasional incidents of outright abuse of people who are members at private clubs by some posters here who could accurately be labeled access whores, but I can't say whether they are "publics" or "privates".  The access whore issue is a relative constant here, but after a while, one develops the radar and they can be screened out.   

Among the people on the site that I have met, I have never experienced any ill will, and this includes 2 of the original members of the site. They have been very cool people.

As far as access, I can honestly say that if I was to mention on this site that I was a member of a private club and someone were to have the idea to ask me if they could come play, I might not know them from anyone, but I'd pretty much be like "just say when." Some go a little too far, of course, but in general, I think some are a little too touchy on the issue. I actually had this happen with John Kavanaugh a while back. He mentioned he was a member at Victoria, so just out of the blue, on the main board, I said something to the effect of "so when are you and I going to play." He responded "I have an 8am teetime tomorrow with an opening, if you can make it, be there." What was so wrong with that?

[Mike Sweeney]

As far as access, I can honestly say that if I was to mention on this site that I was a member of a private club and someone were to have the idea to ask me if they could come play, I might not know them from anyone, but I'd pretty much be like "just say when." Some go a little too far, of course, but in general, I think some are a little too touchy on the issue. I actually had this happen with John Kavanaugh a while back. He mentioned he was a member at Victoria, so just out of the blue, on the main board, I said something to the effect of "so when are you and I going to play." He responded "I have an 8am teetime tomorrow with an opening, if you can make it, be there." What was so wrong with that?

Nothing BUT:


* Kavanaugh lives in the middle of nowhere. He gets excited to see any people, let alone new people.  
* Kavanaugh figures the more people that drive cars on his roads, the quicker they wear down and the more money he gets from Obama.  

Not exactly a fair comparison to the Long Island and Monterrey members who simply have a larger volume of visitors.

PS. Almost forgot, Victoria is a Fazio!!!

[Anthony Gray]

  I for one have played Victoria National with Mr John Kavanaugh. He could have been more accomodating with the picture taking. Alot of great photo ops that he refused. So he does not get an A+ for his hosting abilities. He also took us for raw meat the night before. Again no A+ for that. I miss him. He was much more articulate and ingenius with his insults directed at me than these present jokers. He would also enjoy golf more if he were a worse player.


  Anthony

[John Moore II]

As far as access, I can honestly say that if I was to mention on this site that I was a member of a private club and someone were to have the idea to ask me if they could come play, I might not know them from anyone, but I'd pretty much be like "just say when." Some go a little too far, of course, but in general, I think some are a little too touchy on the issue. I actually had this happen with John Kavanaugh a while back. He mentioned he was a member at Victoria, so just out of the blue, on the main board, I said something to the effect of "so when are you and I going to play." He responded "I have an 8am teetime tomorrow with an opening, if you can make it, be there." What was so wrong with that?

Nothing BUT:


* Kavanaugh lives in the middle of nowhere. He gets excited to see any people, let alone new people.  
* Kavanaugh figures the more people that drive cars on his roads, the quicker they wear down and the more money he gets from Obama.  

Not exactly a fair comparison to the Long Island and Monterrey members who simply have a larger volume of visitors.

PS. Almost forgot, Victoria is a Fazio!!!

Fair enough. However, if someone contacts another person off the board about playing a course while in the area, what is the problem? Certainly if you start calling stuff out on the main page, it might turn some people off, but to do it off the board, whats the problem? I think people themselves take the issue. Like I said, if I was a member somewhere, I'd say the same thing to someone that Kav said to me.