Tom MacWood,

You can't say that you abhor barroom fights and then call someone the village idiot, it's a personal attack, hypocritical and inflammatory.

If you want to attack his opinions, do so to your hearts content, but don't attack JakaB personally, it serves no interest.

Gookin says "I am a new participant looking to gain access to a wide range of ideas to help make better decisions as a green committee chairman."

Gookin, as evidenced by this statement and your discussion on another thread with TPaul, your club is lucky to have you as the chairman.

I have learned an awful lot on this site about architecture.  My selfish goal is to get a few people at MY CLUB interested and educated so we can become better decision makers.  Many of the bad decisions made by clubs are truly from lack of knowledge.  

The key is to get the information to the decision makers.  I have tried books, do they ever get read?  This site is a excellent and accessible resource for all.  It would be even more valuable if the information could be presented in a alternate fashion without all the bickering and posturing.  Sadly, one never knows on what post a nugget of good architecture information will come from, i am sure there was some good stuff on even the Bridge thread.  Who would torture themselves by ever reading that again?

All the other areas of the website serve their function well.  The discussion group certainly does not present all the knowledge and information in a form that serves to benefit golf and architecture.  Maybe two different discussion groups would work better?

John, Now you are full of shite.

You say what you just said, but yet, saying what you said to me on IM about a certain book and how it was crap when that book is out to do one thing--make the game better. I don't think you car about anyone or anything on this site. Its just your personal play thing to help destroy anything that is trying to be credible, beause you are simply envious of people trying to be.

John,
Whether I like the book or not is not the point, as well as if I have ever said anything to you about liking the book. Since you have made so many things personal about me in these discussions, why then can't I make them personal about you?

I don't like the bickering or the lawyering or you dictating to others about my one opportunity to be part of some change on a golf course that has more or less eroded into wall of turf--you attack Forrest Richardson, who I value as a great friend, and who has given me the once in a lifetime chance--as an enthusiast, to help out. Then you want to play yourself here as the victim when I come back at you.

I asked in the name of compassion for those who lost their homes and lives in the terrible fires of SoCal last year, that pictures be omitted from the site--you attacked that saying I wasn't campassionate about people in the mid-west who experience the same thing with flooding--as if that had actually was happening at that very moment, when it wasn't. Here I was being accused for something that didn't even happen!

Totally amazing!

Or better, where do you get the nerve?

John, if right this minute all were to wipe the slate clean, forget all of it--all of the insults--everything, stop the attacks, stop the policing of people who you don't agree with, and add some actual architectural merit to your obviously talented writing style--would you, could you do it?

If so, please let me know, let us all know. Let this be the time that Golf Club rejumped the Shark for the better, not the worse.

YOU are the one that started all of this--you should be the one that ends it! I think you should make amends to all who you have felt anomosity too by either apologizing or changing your tone from borderline nuisance to positive contributor to this site, or both. Until that tme, people are going to react harshly to you because you bring nothing to the table other then your own personal agenda, which has nothing to do with Golf Architecture one bit. If it is your aim to destory this site, you are doing it, but I have news for you, it will survive because people like takling about golf courses and golf design, and this is the best forum for which they can do that. they and the subject are much bigger then your crusade.

Tommy,

I was out of line for challenging the media coverage of the California fires...I took a self imposed 60 ban from this site because of my poor taste on a non-architectural thread...Thank god I didn't go off on the supposedly 36,000 people who died from the flu this year...note: I didn't get a flu shot out of spite and got sick myself...stupid me....I practice hyperbole but I can't condone it.

I deleted this portion of my post because I think Tommy had time to read it and if he wants to reply it is his option.  I did not invent the art of architiect bashing but I might be a pioneer of bashing the bashers...if that costs me friends and access I guess I will just have to do with my status quo.

Now that I have thought about it, I am convinced that Augusta National jumped the Shark twice on Sunday of the Masters in 1996 and 1987.


Jeff F.

 

corey miller

Member education is the key.  We are working hard at that.  This fall we had George Bahto address a group of members.  This spring we plan to have Brad Klein.  It is amazing how clear membership can be about the architecture of the club buildings, but ask them about what is right on a Raynor course they don't have a clue.  Heck we spent 30 years planting trees where the fairways should be.  I am lucky to have a club president with equal zeal.  We have built a powerpoint presentation that tells the history of Raynor, explains why he is signifigant, shows our course five years after it was built and compares it to how it is today.  We are taking it out to the members whenever we can.  Town hall meetings, board presentations, golf committee presentation, heck in a couple of weeks I will be making our pitch to the women's golf committee (all 30 of them).  The nice thing is it seems to be working.  Last week I had a question from a staunch tree hugger about whether we had considered removing a certain tree.  It is a lot of work, but it certainly beats having members not speaking to each other about trees.

Slag,

I'm not impressed with her grip.

Tom Macwood,

Should wild statements and opinions go unchallenged, or should the author be accountable and able to withstand scrutiny and challenge in the form of questions ?

You may recall that many who had never set foot on, or seen a particular golf course, were critical of the design work, features and the architect.  Wouldn't honest disclosure require that the poster admit, at the begining of their post, that they had never seen the golf course, rather then mislead, posturing as if they had ??

There's nothing wrong with questioning statements or opinions, if a poster is willing to make them publicly that poster should be able to support them with facts and logic and withstand questioning and counter points.

You call it courtroom tactics and I call it a search for the truth.

Pat -
wild statements and "opinions" are often terms for points with which you disagree. You often read a whole subtect

If a person makes a comment about a course, like a juror, you (and anyone else), should feel free to make your own judgments about the person and the legitimacy of their opinions (ideally this process take place in your own mind, and not across these web pages).

Not a single person is damaged by an observation somebody makes about a course they saw on TV, but have never been to. Nor does the comment, in the usual case, amount to,  "posturing" as if they had been there.

I agree with you a lot of the times on your views about the infectious conventional wisdom that this website fosters. But the conspiracy is not as broad or pervasive as you perceive it. Most of the time it is somebody making an observation or asking a question, not an affirmative statement.

SPDB,

You may have been late to the dance.
Quite often, statements and opinions were rendered about a golf course, features and the architects involved, without the poster ever having seen the golf course.

My objection wasn't directed at their opinion, but, at the point that their opinion wasn't based on facts, rather, hearsay.

When an anonymous poster stated that Rees Jones's courses don't make you think, and noone objected to the absurdity of that statement, letting it stand unchallenged, it indicated to me, a general, silent acquiescence.

When individual after individual bashed Fazio for the bunkers at Merion, and they had never seen the bunkers pre and post project work, I felt that those opinions weren't grounded in facts, and were just part of the feeding frenzies that used to take place on this site.

When someone posted, don't go to Hollywood, Rees Jones ruined it, but that person had never seen Hollywood prior to the work, and he criticized Rees for all the mounds, I objected, especially since the mounds they mentioned, on holes # 4, # 7 and other holes had been there for 30 years before Rees got there.

I consider those types of posts, especially by anonymous posters, as wild, unfounded, objectionable and without merit.
And those posters should have their feet held to the fire.

I quoted CBMacDonald's position on evaluating a hole and a golf course and shortly thereafter Tom Doak posted that opinions and evaluations made by individuals who have never set foot on the golf course are inherently flawed at the very least.

I can't read anybody's mind, but I can read what they write, and that's all I have to go on when they make a post.  
If their post infers a conclusion about the golf course or features when they have never seen those features or that golf course in person, I'm going to challenge their conclusion, and question the intent of the poster

wild statements and "opinions" are often terms for points with which you disagree. You often read a whole subtect

Statements and opinions absent the underlying facts should be exposed.  It's up to you to draw your own conclusions.

If a person makes a comment about a course, like a juror, you (and anyone else), should feel free to make your own judgments about the person and the legitimacy of their opinions (ideally this process take place in your own mind, and not across these web pages).

When someone renders an opinion about a golf course, or features that they have never seen, they have an obligation to disclose that material oversight, up front, and not have the reader believe that the poster has personally evaluated the golf course and/or features and are rendering an opinion based on their personal experiences.

Not a single person is damaged by an observation somebody makes about a course they saw on TV, but have never been to.

Baloney, when the poster infers a derogatory conclusion, when they've never seen the features in person, it's damaging.  It's damaging to the architect and it's damaging to the posters credibility.

Nor does the comment, in the usual case, amount to,  "posturing" as if they had been there.

It sure does.
Infering a derogatory conclusion, without ever having seen the golf course in person is posturing.
In addition, the infered conclusion was based on very limited information.   Incomplete information that the producers chose to televise, ie. 10 greens out of 36.

I agree with you a lot of the times on your views about the infectious conventional wisdom that this website fosters. But the conspiracy is not as broad or pervasive as you perceive it. Most of the time it is somebody making an observation or asking a question, not an affirmative statement.

So you feel that the statements, "Don't go to Hollywood, Rees Jones ruined it" and "I don't like Rees Jones courses, they don't make you think" aren't statements ?
Well, I think they are.
Opinions rendered absent material facts, but, if you want to agree with them, go ahead, that's your opinion.

Why don't you look at the "Courses by Country" section and read Ran's evaluation of Hollywood to see what he thinks ?

Lastly, we disagree on the innocence of an infered conclusion.

I went through tonight and read all 11 pages and on the positive side, it's good to see that people still retain their passion for the subject, and certainly for their individual, if differing opinions.  That's all good stuff and one would hope that never changes.

However, I was left to wonder why I started this thread in the first place.  So, I'll try to answer;

First of all, the "jump the shark" analogy which has been questioned here is generally a term that has evolved over time to mean something that was really good and unique and somewhat pure at one time and which has since morphed into something different and with some loss of quality.  In the case of GCA, I used the analogy to refer to the Happy Days show, where it became obvious that the show's writers were rapidly running out of creative, new, original ideas.  I think GCA is suffering from a similar malady, and I think much of the personal sniping is due to the fact that some of the actual architectural content has become stale.  Blame the long winter, blame the fact that however interesting the topic, 5 gazillioin words later much of can be said already has, or blame the growth in the site, but the undeniable fact is that much of what we have been talking about in recent months is rehash....how many times can we decry technology and what it's doing to modern courses, for instance?

Still, I am left to wonder if we've exhausted this topic or if we just aren't open enough to new ideas, new courses, new concepts.  I mean, have we really considered that there are wonderful new courses being designed by people who aren't household names, or are we all just so locked into our own preconceived notions of greatness that people are afraid that they'll look foolish if they start talking about that enjoyable new course by "Gary Panks" (insert 100 other names here) that their thoughts will be castigated, or worse, ignored?

But, the real reason I think I started this thread is that I know many of you, personally.  And, I have to say that it PAINS me to see guys I know would really enjoy each other personally spending their energies in the type of acrimonious backbiting and personally vindictive crap that I see way too much of in recent months.  How about we each start treating each other in the way we would if we were sharing a bench talking while waiting for a par three green to clear?  

I also thought that this group needed some shaking up and self-reflection and had hoped that this thread might provide some impetus for us doing so, individually and collectively.  I admit that is sort of assumptive and pretentious of me, but I've had private conversations with any number of individuals that I respect who have shared similar impressions.  I thought that perhaps if I struck a chord, individuals might think about putting aside petty differences and personal grievances and really THINK about what they were writing to each other a little more before hitting that "Submit" button.  I had hoped that we might start to consider that in many ways we are all brethren sharing not only a passionate interest, but also a bit of our best selves as we put a public face on our private thoughts.

Reading many of the posts on this thread have showed me that I was pretty naive in my effort.

If this site is ever going to have any kind of positive and influencial impact on the world of golf, and you guys are fooling yourselves if you think it can't (because I KNOW how widely read it is), then we should be generating a hell of a lot more light and a lot less heat than we're doing now.

I'm really glad and thankful that we have such genuine passion here.  I just hope we can start using our heads as well as we use our hearts.

Sincerely,
Mike