NY Times on Pac Dunes/New Natural Golf Courses

[NAF]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/06/travel/06GOLF.html?pagewanted=1

[ForkaB]

Thanks for the heads up, Noel, but this piece defines the term "mailed in."  Are you sure that this wasn't written by Jason Blair, uerer a feminist pseudonym?

[Scott_Burroughs]

I'm guessing that there is little talk on this thread because many of us don't want to register with the NYT web site.  Any paper that doesn't have comics doesn't get my business.  

A cut and paste would help.

[NAF]

[NAF]

[Scott_Burroughs]

Thanks, Noel.

Where's the interview/comments from those who move lots of earth often?

Mixed emotions:  It's articles like this that make places like Bandon and Wild Horse crowded and more expensive.  But the notoriety of 'minimalistic' architecture can't hurt.

[David Kelly]

Speaking as someone who wants to see more and more naturalistic courses built I welcome any attempt to publicize Pacific Dunes, Wild Horse, Rustic Canyon and the like.

[Brad Klein]

Rich, I don't think you know how hard the writer worked on this, how many hours she spent on site, following up with all of her interviews, and fact-checking the whole thing. She spent two days on site with our Golfweek raters group and then did extensive interviews with many people, including Doak, Whitten, Mike Keiser, etc. I assume you had your tongue in cheek when you made that comment - unless you are just a really bad media critic.

[Dan Kelly]

Wouldn't you know it?

The week when the nation's (the world's?) most influential newspaper does a friendly story about minimalist, relatively affordable, environmentally conscious golf courses ... the sort of courses many of us here wish there were more of ... is the very week when the credibility of the nation's (the world's?) most influential newspaper has never been lower.

Bad timing!

Oh, well, it still can't hurt. Can it?

[Michael Moore]

. . . only to have it illegally copied by NAF.

I promise to stop the clowning until I post my write-up with photos of Kebo Valley in Bar Harbor by Herbert Leeds.

That will be at the end of the month. Our long winter is over.

[ForkaB]

Brad

By "mailed it in" I meant to say that the piece seemed to be based mostly on second hand observations and opinions, rather than the writer's own experiences.  She obviously talked to many knowledgeable and important people, but I didn't get a sense that she had played any of the courses she wrote of, or that she even played golf.  Perhaps I am wrong.

[Brad Klein]

Rich, sorry but you are wrong. She spent two days at Bandon Dunes, walked 18 holes with Doak, I spent time with her there, too, and she talked for hours with everyone. So she doesn't play golf. You don't need to to write about nature, certainly not when you judge by what she wrote.

[Andy_Lipschultz]

She is writing for a general circulation newspaper. Quite frankly, if the article is of keen interest to this DG, she would not have done her job correctly. She was addressing the NYT audience, the majority of which, do not golf.

I had great quotes from Brad Klein for a L.A. Mag piece a couple years back and the editor trimmed them for being "too inside."

[Brad Klein]

Andy, you've hit the nail on the head. By publishing this article in a non-sports, non-golf venue, the NYT editors have reached more people and influenced more imporant forms of public opinion on policy than any golf article in any golf magazine. Only 10 percent of people play golf, less than five percent of them are serious about it. That leaves the overwhelming majority of readers on the outside looking in. The text was more about ecology, gardening and landscaping than about golf course strategy, which is what makes it so important.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

There's a saying here in L.A. and it goes something like, "Not everything can be about news, weather & sports" and that saying here is so true.

Yes, I make too much of the strategy all of the time on Rustic Canyon...most of the time, but I think the one thing that attracts me the most about the place is the pristine and natural beauty of the canyon.

Like David Kelly, I can only hope for more courses just like it that mix both nature and golf. As I have said before on GCA, the most obscure rested the most obscure 9-hole par 3 course, on one of the busiest intersections in Southern California, known simply as "the Big Tee".
                  
The Big Tee is where I first put a club in my hand to play the game of Golf, and I was amazed how this busy intersection just was defined by the solitary beauty of that obscure little nine-hole course and driving range. It was like a whole crazy world was going on outside the fences, and yet, Nature was somehow surviving at the corner of Beach & La Mirada.

That was until two weeks ago when the facility, after a long battle between the City of Buena Park and the heirs of the man who owned the property and who also loved the course, closed it down for good, and razed it for more condos in the vast urban sprawl of Southern California.

[ForkaB]

Brad

I was very much aware that the author had spent 2 days at Pacific Dunes (you told me in a previous post, and I can and do read!).  I was just questioning whether or not she was a golfer, and thanks for confirming she is not.  I think it is a puff-piece (i.e. 2nd hand-reporting, with no critical analysis) that will probably have very little impact on the issues that you, I and others hold dear, but that's just my humble opinion.  

[Tim_Weiman]

Rich Goodale:

I also agree with Andy that this article was written for the general audience of the NY Times and not directed at a limited group, i.e., those who play golf.

I saw it as a follow up to a story they did a few years back that talked about how the golf industry has built too many golf courses that are too hard and too expensive to play.

[TEPaul]

"......and I can and do read!)."

Rich:

Are you completely certain of that?    

[Brad Klein]

Tim, one thing I can assure you. The editors of the NYT Escapes section have no institutional memory or regard for any stories written years ago or even months ago and published in another section of the same paper. That would presume far more competence, planning and brain power than any newspaper could muster. Each of these sections exists within its own world. In this case, the writer, a freelancer, suggested the idea and her proposal was accepted, so they went with it - to their credit.

[Norbert P]

 A nice and positive story.  The writer's awareness of appreciation and sharing with those not exposed to even the concepts of natural nature in golf is important.  The article is more directed to the reaching branches than to the hungry roots but in a periodical of wide-ranging interests, it should be so.