John,
i do try hard not to get offended otherwise life would be more difficult. The only offense I take from your one comment is that you think so little of my grasp on reality you felt it necessary to tell me publically I am an architect of less renown than Jim Engh. However, having said that I do ask that when I am an architect of greater renown than Jim Engh please let me know so that I price myself accordingly, and make time to read about myself. I would hate to miss that!!
There might be a problem John if I sought you out because you are a rater to play my course. That's my own problem, but yes there might be an ethical problem. Having said that i know of some instances when Matt Ward contacted me about one of my courses and he played some holes, not all, but I doubt I asked them to comp him, and I put him in contact with a new course about to open so he could sell them ad space in his magazine since the course is in his market, but he never got back with me to arrange a visit. But, I must admit this site makes me much more uncomfortable because of the preceived ethical issues that can come up. I am not trying to be high and mighty which somebody here accused me of one time, but in my opinion your reputation is everything, the way you conduct your affairs and the people you associate with are important, and no matter how carefully you watch that you will always put yourself in a position that may appear compromising. I think purposely contacting known raters to get them on your course to benefit your career is unethical. However, John, and this is a hard distinction to make, I think if a client asked me to help them get more recognition then that might have to be one of the options considered. In any case if it works and the course gets a lot of coverage then it goes so will the architect. And really I think the rankings should be much more meaningful to the club, because it may help them sell more green fees or memberships. A good ranking could mean a lot to the success for their business and that is where an architect best serves their client after the work is done. People don't hire me for my name, as you so astutely pointed out, I have no name, no standing in the raters world, so my client's have to rely much more on their judgement of the market beforehand, and on the final product to help them make the course a success. One component of that marketing campaign that could help them would be to get a best of or an actual ranking. I wish I could help them do that after the course opens, I do everything I can in the design/constrcution to deliver something that might catch some media attention, but in the long run it will come from the quality of the course. A Fazio is a guarenteeed media success, no doubt, but will it sustain over 10 years, and is it worth the heavy up front investment. Obviously a lot of clients think so. It is a little like the movie industry. Heavy upfront marketing and fees to generate the buzz before the premier, and it works for the first couple of years, but can the quality of the course sustain those accolades over a ten year period. How many of those up front heavy promoted courses fade off the radar screen after 5 years, and is the client or the next owner left holding the bag. It is all a very interesting game. It has serious consequences for all of us but we are big boys and do the best we can, nothing less.
But, having said that if anyone I know or are aquainted with called to see if they could play one of my courses I would seek to oblige their request. And they might be a rater. But I think it would be in poor taste, let's drop the unethical part because I think most of us try to do good and do not deserve that harsh a judgement, but it might be in bad taste for me to seek out raters, say use this site to target raters and then pursue a relationship with them in hopes of getting them on my courses to give me a good rating. I think that is an abuse of this site. And i would hope raters wouldn't seek out architects for that purpose. i know Mark Fine played one of my courses, and I had no idea until afterword, and I know he is a rater, maybe that is why he went, but i think that it was proper that he did not seek me out or ask me to accompany him. He went on his own, did not seek me out. You guys should be smart enough to understand a golf course without the architect being there.
And you know John the rating game may not be in my future any way because one well placed source has emailed me since I have been engaged in some of these rating threads and said I have probably made the black ball list with raters. Now why would that be? The rating business is totally unbiased, highly ethical, totally objective, so it is not possible that any architect could fear a black ball list, no?