[Patrick_Mucci]

Don't the rankings encourage clubs to improve their golf courses ?

[Jason Mandel]

Yes they do Pat, but who's to say what their really doing is really improving their course.  i.e. all the work Aronimink did over the years until Prichard got there?  

Jason

[Mike Nuzzo]

Pat -
I infer the following from your comment:
An awareness of the collective body of current good work inspires others - architects, players and owners.
The popularity of ratings, increased visibility - internet and other media - of good courses allow others to learn -- if they are listening.
It fits for me.
When the ratings elevate the wrong ideals, it can taint the good that ratings can do - what Jason said.

[wsmorrison]

It encourages them to change if they've fallen in ratings/rankings or are missing in action altogether.  Whether these changes result in improvements is another story.  

I think the ingredients for improved restorations are starting to come together.  It must start from a solid design and the ability to gather the necessary archival materials to create an accurate plan as well as a membership or management team that cares about restoration and a group that can accurately put the plan into effect.  I would not be surprised if this process becomes well-established in the next few years.

Redesigns and loose interpretations can happen, especially with a weak architectural underpinning.  This can result in, and perhaps is more likely to result in something better.  White Manor is a fine example.  

Or it can happen where the architecture is strong but the decision-making is bad, such as the pre-Prichard work at Aronimink.

Good and bad do happen.  I think as we are better educated and the processes become refined there will be a higher percentage of positive results, lower negative results and less random ones.

 

[SPDB]

Pat -
I'm not so sure. Although I have no evidence, I suspect that a club that sets out to improve its course as a direct result of rankings is probably going to screw something up, or will end up hurting the course (assuming the course was architecturally sound in the first place).

I also think it depends what rankings you are paying attention to.  

[JakaB]

Pat,

In five years you will have to drag Tommy humping and screaming to play Rustic Canyon....the boys got what they asked for and now they can live with it..

[Kyle Harris]

Pat,

Ideally yes, but then it becomes playing a game of what raters want as opposed to what is good for the golf course. I feel it is dangerous to use rankings as motivation to improve a course when ranking requirements are A: Fickle B: Not terribly objective and C: Subject to trend and human error.

I'd rather ask the question: "What changes constitute a better golf experience?" than "What changes get us in the Top 100?"

[Tyler Kearns]

Pat,

Looking at the rankings, some clubs which have recently undergone restoration work have faired well in the rankings, and this, under proper guidance could lead to a positive trend. Change for the sake of change would not be a good end result, but change to restore the strategic integrity of many older courses would be a benfit to golf architecture.

Valley Club of Montecito  49 to 45
Pasatiempo  53 to 50
Mountain Lake  79 to 69
Minikahda  81 to 78

TK

[ed_getka]

I think it depends on what a club thinks are driving the ratings. If you go chasing the latest "fashion" you will be out of date at some point. I don't follow rating stuff closely enough to know if this is the case though.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Pat,

In five years you will have to drag Tommy humping and screaming to play Rustic Canyon....the boys got what they asked for and now they can live with it..

Boy what I would give to have read this post before you edited it!

Personally, I'm thrilled for Gil, Geoff & Jim. They deserve a lot more credit then they get from some of you. They are out there taking chances everyday, creating stuff they believe in--on the ground and in the earth. To think of great golf in SoCal, well, it gets exciting for me. To think I can drive an hour and ten minutes each way and look forward to the drive each and every time, well, its pretty awesome.

John, I would assume you feel the same way when driving a similar distance to Vic Nat.

When Rustic Canyon first opened, I remember telling Mike Cirba, that I thought it was pretty cool that I had a course of Inniscrone's quality out here. Looking back now, I must have had a grin from ear to ear!

When I'm out there at playing late in the day, and the sky is perfect and the wind is perfect and everything is just perfect--I'm in my element. Its my space and I don't mind if all of you wanted to invade that space so you can enjoy it with me.

You see, that to me is what  the "A Walk In The Park" category of Golfweek's critieria is all about. Much more then just a green with a $2 Million waterfall running behind it and infested with pine trees a some added weeping willows and fake rocks for dramatics. What's next, fake trees?  (I can see the Fazio people scrambling right now to find someone who can manufacturer them, so they can "spec" them. Why didn't they ever think of that?)



And if you like your experience of walking in the park to repeat itself several times during the round.....

Repetition: The act or process or an instance of repeating or being repeated.





I wish I could put #1 in here, but they don't show a picture of it anywhere on the net. I wonder why?

[Kyle Harris]

Tommy,

Maybe I've been listening to too much Abacab, but what's wrong with a LITTLE repetition on a golf course? Especially if they are on opposing nines? (Not sure about Rustic Canyon in that regard, but it's sometimes nice to get a second crack at a similar hole in a round...)

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Kyle,
Variety is the Spice of Life--C.B. MacDonald

One of the things that ruined Genesis was repetition (IMHO) Gone were the excellent rhythm, cord, time and even key changes. Peppy, cheap and peppy pop tunes were now the norm--whatever was going to be making them money.  They simply sold out.

Don't get me wrong, certain features or strategies are worth repeating, just not four or five times a round. Even worse, when the same strategy is used throughout the round. One of the main problems with The Falls in Henderson, Nevada. (***!HIT IT HERE!***)

[Kyle Harris]

Tommy,

Completely agree with you on both the architecture and Genesis. At least their poppy stuff was tolerable pop. How often does it happen at Rustic Canyon?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Well as far as looks, its all about the eye. Some can look at Rustic Canyon and just sy to themselves that its nothing more then a vacant lot. They just don't understand the classic Southern California landscap. In truth, I didn't either until this really fun and interesting golf course showed it to me.

Its subtleties, when played over and over expand like the universe to me.  When looking at those images of Shadow Creek, I'm more inclined to think of it as nothing more then a hotel in Vegas. All glitz and glamor--but its really not New York, Venice, or Paris. Its all dressed-up in a really gaudy Seersucker suit!

[THuckaby2]

Kyle:

Don't be too tempted to take Tommy's words too far here.  Think of it this way:  what was Genesis' best-selling album?  It sure as hell wasn't the 1973 Genesis Live... which a damn lot of Genesis aficionados would consider their best album.

The world loves pop, that's why it's called pop, that's why pop is ok.  That's also why Abacab was their best-selling album (wasn't it?).

Similarly, the world loves Shadow Creek and I'm here to tell you 99.9% of the world's golfers would choose it in a heartbeat over Rustic Canyon if they had one and only one round only to play.

The problem is the other 0.1% are the regular posters here, led by Tommy.

So please don't ever think Shadow Creek is a bad golf course - it isn't.  It is a hell of a lot of fun to play, and beautiful in its own manufactured, over-the-top Vegas way just as are the showgirls who work in that town.  

So yeah, you don't marry Shadow Creek, you marry a girl/course like Rustic Canyon.

But that's not to say it ain't a hell of a lot of fun to fool around with a showgirl like Shadow Creek.

TH

[Kyle Harris]

Huck,

I'm working on marrying my own Rustic Canyon right now... cept to me she looks like Shadow Creek too...  

[THuckaby2]

Huck,

I'm working on marrying my own Rustic Canyon right now... cept to me she looks like Shadow Creek too...  

Then you have hit on a keeper, though I don't need to tell you that.

The cool thing is that if it's right, well... all of our Rustic Canyons look like Shadow Creeks, in our own eyes.  I know mine does.

 

[Kyle Harris]

Tom,

This is the girl who saw me posting on my thread about Bernard Darwin a few weeks ago, asked me who he was, then "accidentally" found "BD: On Golf" in B&N and bought it for me....

 

[THuckaby2]

Holey moley.... and she looks like a showgirl?  I was gonna say marry her even beyond the looks.  My advice is now changed to marry her NOW.

 

[Kyle Harris]

Haha, the only show she can give is to a one man audience....

And no Rich, not you  

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Kyle,
Just remember, your listening to a guy (Huckaby) that likes Air Supply and cries everytime he sees Sleepless in Seattle.

Huck, Show me where I say Shadow Creek is a bad course. Good course, yes. Great course, NO.

I think its a completely over-rated one that is both repetiticious and   contains some of the least interesting greens on a Top 10 rated course that I know of.

Redanman, That 17th is sort of bouge'wah (sp) isn't it? Your giving me far too much credit on the photoshop thing. That's directly from the Shadow Creek web site!  

[THuckaby2]

Tommy:

Show me where I made any mention of how you felt about the course.  I just cautioned young Kyle here not to take your words too far.

And why?

Because it does remain true that 99.9 percent of the world's golfers will choose Shadow Creek over Rustic Canyon.  Your take in the past has been to say that they are wrong... my take remains there is no right or wrong in any of this.

As for your disparaging words, well... I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you....

(isn't that Air Supply?)

 

[Andy Hughes]

Tom
I know you were right believing for so long in Shadow Creek
 

[Patrick_Mucci]

HOW do the rankings encourage clubs to improve their golf courses ?

[SPDB]

Pat - I got a couple of questions for you.

Do you think that rankings encourage clubs to improve their course? If yes, how do the rankings encourage clubs to improve their course?

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