As a card-carrying member, Jaka, I also am nervous I may get my name called (let's just hope it ain't Huckaby)!

In response to your question, I would say no. The great places like Augusta, PVGC, NGLA just wouldn't be the same in my opinion if they were open to everybody.

It's why they are called "clubs." Plus, I think if you worked really hard and wanted to get access to these places you could. I'm for people working for it.

We have no worries about the Jesuit trained Mr Huckaby being elected today at The Vatican. There will be no Jesuits as Pope in our lifetimes!

On the golf side, I agree with Tony, and I think you would be surprised how little 90% of the golfers would care.

Forget the shoes - what HAT does the PoG wear whilst playing?  The normal papal hat won't exactly help with the sun.  Putting a visor on that seems tacky.  I am quite troubled by this.

I think everyone on this site who has not read it, needs to read Butch Berry's book Scotsman's Dream.  The end game of the story would fit this thread.

Certainly not until the same pope was willing to acknowledge that the spread of aids in poor Africa could be quelled with the approved use of birth control...sorry that is too political

Another more serious issue the P'o'G needs to consider is how to make women feel like they are vital to the game without screwing everything up at the same time....any ideas.  

Well, the Catholic method of keeping the females subservient to and helping the men might be worth investigating.

Shhhh!  That gets announced when the white smoke appears.

 

It would be nice to see the private establishments open to locals on a very limited basis.. Maybe a town day a year.. Vermont Golf Association has "State Days" All the privates (publics as well) allow play to members of the State Golf Association one day a year for a nominal fee.. Ekwanok is the only course missing from the list.. I've played just about every course of interest in Vermont, except Ekwanok.  I have bitter beer face!!

Letterman's Top Ten

[From January 3, 2005]

Top Ten Signs Your Neighbor Is Vying To Be The Next Pope

Often stops at Costco to buy communal wafers in bulk.

Threatens to send you to hell if your dog craps on his lawn again.

Short on money, he just made the Domino's kid a saint.

Regularly offers to baptize you with the garden hose.

His name is Kenny, but he asks you to call him John Paul.

Refers to his studio apartment as the "Little Vatican."

The son-of-a-bitch keeps hitting on your wife in Latin.

You ask how he's feeling and he replies, "Oh, quite Popey, thank you!"

He asks if you want to go giant hat shopping.

Book on his coffee table: "How to turn your Ford Focus into a popemobile."

------------------

As for the question:

I would assign one Cardinal (archbishops, especially Irish ones, need not apply) to man the gates at each of the courses that I, as Pope (in collaboration with the defrocked former Cardinal Whitten of Golf Digest -- whose guidance will be studiously ignored), have chosen to be safeguarded against the barbarians.

Anyone -- ANYONE! -- would be welcome to approach the gates, for inspection as a potential entrant to the hallowed grounds.

The Gatekeeper Cardinal's mission would be to interview all applicants for playing privileges -- seeking to determine whether their love of the game and appreciation of the course-at-hand are sufficient to merit inclusion in The Elect.

Those would be the only criteria. The Cardinal would be forbidden to make judgments based on applicants' appearance -- or to ask any questions about an applicant's income, assets, secondary or post-secondary schooling, ancestors, religion, race, color or class (if any).

(I'm still awaiting Divine Guidance on the sexual-preference thing. ... Just kiddin', boys!)

Any applicant who mentioned his Rater Card would be summarily rejected.

How would I keep my Cardinals honest? Each of my Gatekeeper Cardinals would take his post inside a small, starkly appointed but comfortable one-room, two-section structure just outside the gates, with an opaque screen separating the Cardinal from the supplicant. This structure will be known as an "Accessional."

How's that for Papal bull?

John,
....they'd meet in the Sistine Chapel of golf, where else?

As for the shoes, the PG would have to go spikeless. Imagine how funny he'd look in a kneeling position with all the nails removed from spiked shoes.

If from their inception the "great" courses in this country were more accessible I feel we would have seen a more relaxed and more knowledgeable culture of golfers.  

Wow.  I could care less about playing the tips.  My greatest fear is that the PoG will let you visit all the great venues in the world (and maybe those in the beyond....), but if you aren't confirmed in his church he won't let you play at all - you just watch from the clubhouse.

And Jim - great call re the Sistine Chapel of Golf.  Duh... that is the very obvious answer.  Yes I am very slow, very often.

 

damn that smoke is white.

Line of the year -- to date.