[Gib_Papazian]

Barny,

Careful, I am not Ginger (or any of your other targets). If you are intent upon climbing into the ring, it would be best not to start in the throes of yet another alcoholic episode. Try reading your prosaic prose out loud before hitting the submit button. The least you can do - as an allegedly educated man-child - is expel your angry venom using correct grammar.

I'd go back and copy edit your puerile name calling, but have only a vague grasp of whatever convoluted point your coterie of schizophrenic multiple personalities are babbling.

I'm trying to remember the last time you offered anything reasonably cogent. Does not playing the clown and shock jock get a trifle repetitious?

Let's try to sober up for a change and take another crack at it, shall we? I hate to get into a bar fight with a lonely drunk who just vomited on his Ashworth shirt in the ladies room stall.         

[Sean_A]

Ben - this is a home run.  

"What it misses is the current state of our nation, where we have less people fighting our wars than in any time in our nation's history.  Ask 100 people how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have impacted their lives and around 50 will characterize it as, marginal.  Privatization within the DoD, abuse of executive power, lack of legislative oversight, use of intelligence apparati as warfighters; these have all eroded the nation's awareness of how we fight.  This is by design starting at the executive branch and moving all throughout the halls of our political system.  How can we minimize the effect of war on our people?"

Ciao

Ted

Unfortunately, I don't think the gca can go much further as a topic of importance.  The question  would ask is why would you want to see an expanded audience for gca - assuming you do?  I also wonder if this question isn't somehow related to the ever-present concept of growing the game.  Not to be selfish, just a representative of interested parties, whats in it for me?

Ciao

[Bill_McBride]

Barny,

Careful, I am not Ginger (or any of your other targets). If you are intent upon climbing into the ring, it would be best not to start in the throes of yet another alcoholic episode. Try reading your prosaic prose out loud before hitting the submit button. The least you can do - as an allegedly educated man-child - is expel your angry venom using correct grammar.

I'd go back and copy edit your puerile name calling, but have only a vague grasp of whatever convoluted point your coterie of schizophrenic multiple personalities are babbling.

I'm trying to remember the last time you offered anything reasonably cogent. Does not playing the clown and shock jock get a trifle repetitious?

Let's try to sober up for a change and take another crack at it, shall we? I hate to get into a bar fight with a lonely drunk who just vomited on his Ashworth shirt in the ladies room stall.         

A gentle reminder that it's never a good idea to go into a battle of wits half-armed. 

Or show up at a gun fight with a knife. 

[John Kavanaugh]

Gib,

I apologize for calling you a libertarian cabbage farmer. I should have known better and will hopefully learn to avoid political discussions in the future.

[Ulrich Mayring]

Say what you will about Obama style, but if all that anyone could come up with is Mitt Romney - well, then you're not hurting enough just yet

To get this back to the topic: most golfers aren't hurting enough on the average designs they play their golf on. Sure, they'll love Pacific Dunes or Sand Hills, when they get a chance to play them. But they're not translating that joy into demands made unto their home course.

Ulrich

[Brett_Morrissy]

whatever happened to "The Wandering Golfer" ?

the video of the building of Old Macdonald is the kind of quality production that could reach a wider audience - certainly not a wide audience, but delivered into the right medium, it should have some wieght?

[Joel_Stewart]

Back to the subject, I don't agree with the premise that it's a small audience.

I go to clubs all the time and meet people who love classic architecture and most have never heard of this web site.  I played with the pro at a fairly new David Kidd golf club last year.  I asked him who was joining the club?  He said it was people who really liked Scottish type golf.  He said people had quit their previous clubs because they liked the architecture.

I think Bandon and various other clubs have opened the eyes of golfers all over the world. 

[Ben Sims]

Joel,

Though you may not agree that it's a small audience, I would argue that that isn't the point.

Gib makes a pretty lucid argument that even the largest of subjects (like say a presidential election) suffer from an endemic problem of vapid analysis and barely attentive engagement from the majority.  I've heard a lot of naysayers speak ill of the type of golf courses we collectively push as ideal around here at GCA.com.  Here on this website, Ran has done a phenomenal job of cultivating a climate that primarily--though not always--relies on intellectual and academic study of golf architecture.  

I have yet to find a place where the unsophisticated and chintzy architecture we generally decry here at GCA is studied in an intellectual and academic way.  

[Gib_Papazian]

100 million Harlequin Romance "novels" are sold every year in America.

I am unaware of anyone choosing this particular literary segment for their analytical Doctoral Thesis.

Those 100 millions novels are purchased by women with the same vote as me.

People "magazine" has a circulation of roughly 46.5 million people.

These people also have the same vote as Ben Sims, who is intelligent enough to fly highly sophisticated aircraft all over the globe.

I've come to believe the pursuit of the egalitarian objective is at the root of most vapid design. Excellent Match Play courses tend to encourage risk - the overcoming of intimidating hazards that are often quirky to the extreme.

Stroke Play courses are all about the creation of an objective examination - eliminating crazy bounces, oddly placed pot bunkers and everything else remotely entertaining.

The new ethos is to reward conformity and group-think in America - in politics, in golf design, in entertainment and in education.

Most people are too stupid to figure out they are being led down the path to perdition by filthy, dishonest leaders. Any dissent is shouted down by a complicit media on both sides of the aisle.

Us v. Them.

People like me are left in the cold with no voice, strapped to the bench in the galley, whipped on an economic treadmill into eventual exhaustion.

And then upon death, the government fleeces your lifetime of work - taking it away by force from your children who worked shoulder to shoulder with you, and (after taking their cut for idiotic wars, graft and corruption) uses the rest to buy votes from the nitwits.

So, I stand by my rant.

"Yes We Can" was just a euphemism for "Bend Over."

 

[Lynn_Shackelford]

100 million Harlequin Romance "novels" are sold every year in America.

I am unaware of anyone choosing this particular literary segment for their analytical Doctoral Thesis.

Those 100 millions novels are purchased by women with the same vote as me.

People "magazine" has a circulation of roughly 46.5 million people.

These people also have the same vote as Ben Sims, who is intelligent enough to fly highly sophisticated aircraft all over the globe.

I've come to believe the pursuit of the egalitarian objective is at the root of most vapid design. Excellent Match Play courses tend to encourage risk - the overcoming of intimidating hazards that are often quirky to the extreme.

Stroke Play courses are all about the creation of an objective examination - eliminating crazy bounces, oddly placed pot bunkers and everything else remotely entertaining.

The new ethos is to reward conformity and group-think in America - in politics, in golf design, in entertainment and in education.

Most people are too stupid to figure out they are being led down the path to perdition by filthy, dishonest leaders. Any dissent is shouted down by a complicit media on both sides of the aisle.

Us v. Them.

People like me are left in the cold with no voice, strapped to the bench in the galley, whipped on an economic treadmill into eventual exhaustion.

And then upon death, the government fleeces your lifetime of work - taking it away by force from your children who worked shoulder to shoulder with you, and (after taking their cut for idiotic wars, graft and corruption) uses the rest to buy votes from the nitwits.

So, I stand by my rant.

"Yes We Can" was just a euphemism for "Bend Over."


 

A bit too negative, but understandable the way your football team performed the past two weeks.

[Mike Hendren]

So Gib, how's Lane Kiffin working out for you?

Bogey

[Sven Nilsen]

And then upon death, the government fleeces your lifetime of work - taking it away by force from your children who worked shoulder to shoulder with you, and (after taking their cut for idiotic wars, graft and corruption) uses the rest to buy votes from the nitwits.

This only applies to those who measure their "lifetime of work" in dollars and cents.

[Ted Sturges]

Wow...

I posted this prior to the weekend and hadn't been back to take a peek.  Was shocked to see over 1300 views and Gib's rant on the American political landscape, and his former love...

Gib...glad to see this topic pulled you out of the woodwork.  Gotta tell you, some of your stuff had me laughing out loud.  You need to get out more.

Thanks for all the comments on this topic. 

I tend to agree w/ T. Doak in that I think the golf media could do more to bring architecture alive...both in print and on TV.

I don't necessarily "want" this market to grow...I just wondered (here) if this is all there is, or if the topic (not necessarily this site) had room to be more widely discussed than it seemingly is.

TS

[Steve Okula]

These people also have the same vote as Ben Sims, who is intelligent enough to fly highly sophisticated aircraft all over the globe.

And yet plans to give that up to become a golf course superintedent, of all things. This proves that even very smart people can exhibit dubious judgment.

No disrespect, Ben.

[Ben Sims]

Gib,

Not trying to single you out, but more to engage further on the matter.

The only problem I see with an ideological core of belief--particularly in the two subjects we've broached here--is that a vocal and educated minority has too often resorted to erosion tactics.  Rather than foster an environment of open debate and (gasp!) compromise, the American public and its leaders feed off a culture of attack and diminish.  Look no further than the recent gross misuse of filibuster and subsequent cloture motions in the 112th Congress.  

In golf architecture, GCA.com has been pretty solid over the years in its ability to debate and explain why the minority views held about golf architecture by this website are sound.  But there has been increasing "negative for negative's sake" discussion of the vapid style of golf architecture as well.  The insurgency in golf design started two decades ago by guys known well on this website was noble.  The standard was flown over new and exciting ways to create great golf courses.  But it was also carried by those that only wanted to minimize the "majority" influence on golf design as well.

Funny thing, that "knowing."  Republicans "knew" they were the smart ones; holding true to ideological norms in their party's base and hoping that that knowledge was enough.  Instead of being effective inclusionary communicators of their beliefs, they decided to attack the validity of anyone and everyone that supported the other side.  You said it correctly, Us vs. Them.  Personally, I blame it on Newt.  He discovered in his first sixteen years in D.C. that the best way to control the congress was to destroy it.  And so has gone the minority tactic ever since.  Our government was never meant to function as hostage of the parliamentary minority.  Constitutions don't work that way.

I don't think golf architecture is completely analogous, but since you brought it up, politics will suffice as a comparison.  The best way for all the tenets of "minimalism" to be shoved off the precipice, is for it to try to marginalize and erode the validity of competing styles.  So instead of attacking everything about objective examination stroke play slogs, I would prefer to be the guy that just projects an ideal of fun, attainable, quirky, simply-built golf courses.  Hopefully enough people will like those golf courses to make them viable.  

[Sean_A]

"So instead of attacking everything about objective examination stroke play slogs, I would prefer to be the guy that just projects an ideal of fun, attainable, quirky, simply-built golf courses.  Hopefully enough people will like those golf courses to make them viable." 

Or one can choose not to distinguish the quality of a design by the method one keeps score while playing it.  I spose the same could be said about qualifiers such as the best short course or best par 3 course etc. 

Ciao

[John Kavanaugh]

How many golfers do you think have gone to both the time and expense to make a return trip to the Bandon Resort?  A recent article lays claim to 120,000 rounds per year when the resort had just three courses.  The place is to expensive, remote and wet to retain anything but the type of golfer many on this site claim a combination of Sainthood and Mensanitis for being.  99% of all golfers love great golf, the other 1% blog about it.

How many of you have ever taken a group of friends to a GCA outing?  They don't think about golf architecture any different, or more stupidly, than anyone on this board.  They simply have the good sense to observe conversations that walk a razors edge between bragging and analysis without chiming in. Discussing golf course architecture is no different than talking about any other luxury item in public, just because the majority of people see the discussion as a bore does not mean they don't own and enjoy the same brand.

[Jud_T]

John,

I imagine that the number of repeat visitors to Bandon would surprise you.  It's simply that good and there's nothing else on this side of the pond quite like it.  For anyone in the left half of the country it's a no-brainer to go to Bandon instead of G,B&I.  Yeah it's expensive, but less than Pebble, Pinehurst or Kohler with a much deeper bench than any of 'em, and if you're willing to risk sketchy weather quite reasonable in the off-season.

[John Kavanaugh]

John,

I imagine that the number of repeat visitors to Bandon would surprise you.  It's simply that good and there's nothing else on this side of the pond quite like it.  For anyone in the left half of the country it's a no-brainer to go to Bandon instead of G,B&I.  Yeah it's expensive, but less than Pebble, Pinehurst or Kohler with a much deeper bench than any of 'em, and if you're willing to risk sketchy weather quite reasonable in the off-season.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if the number of repeat visitors numbered over 100,000.  I think people return and the resort is successful because that is the kind of golf the average golfer enjoys.

[Ted Sturges]

John,

I imagine that the number of repeat visitors to Bandon would surprise you.  It's simply that good and there's nothing else on this side of the pond quite like it.  For anyone in the left half of the country it's a no-brainer to go to Bandon instead of G,B&I.  Yeah it's expensive, but less than Pebble, Pinehurst or Kohler with a much deeper bench than any of 'em, and if you're willing to risk sketchy weather quite reasonable in the off-season.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if the number of repeat visitors numbered over 100,000.  I think people return and the resort is successful because that is the kind of golf the average golfer enjoys.

Though I don't have the statistics to back it up, (maybe someone who does will chime in) but I have a hard time buying the statement that the "Bandon experience" is "the kind of golf the average golfer enjoys".  I would guess that the "average golfer" plays his golf while riding in a cart...which are hard to find at that establishment.  Many an "average Joe" have left Scotland with multiple blisters on their feet because they ain't used to walkin'...

TS

[John Kavanaugh]

I don't know what more proves the point that the average golfer loves the golf of Scotland and Bandon than the blood in their socks.

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