Just how "important" is GCA.com?

[Robert Thompson]

Seems to me that if you have to ask this question, then you already know the answer.
And gosh, Mr. Kavanaugh, please write in complete sentences and drop the ellipse. It is making me dizzy....

Robert

[Adam_F_Collins]

Seems to me that if you have to ask this question, then you already know the answer.

I'm not sure what do you mean, Robert. I put forth my opinion in the first post. But 'the answer' is in the opinion of each person who cares to respond. I know whether or not it's important - to me. The question is, is it important to you?

[Robert Thompson]

Adam,

With all due respect, if you have to ask this question, then the answer is not very. If it were "important," that would probably be self-evident.
However, I guess the question is "important to whom?" I think it is an important place to potentially exchange valuable ideas, but all too often is simply a place for a few individuals to beat their chests and say, "I know better than you."
If you are asking in an industry context, there are clearly some architects on here and the church of the cult of Tom Doak rests within these Internet pages. But that doesn't really make the opinions of Monday morning wannabe golf architects any more valuable.
As I said, there is some great history and discussion on this site. There is also a lot of worthless chest thumping.

Robert

[Adam_F_Collins]

Adam,

With all due respect, if you have to ask this question, then the answer is not very. If it were "important," that would probably be self-evident.

Not necessarily. There are many perspectives represented here, so the answer really lies in the total (if that makes any sense). The importance of this site - or lack of it - comes from why people come here and what they take away from the exchange. For some it may be quite superficial, for others it may be very meaningful and have an effect beyond the site itself. People have made friendships here. That is important, but not unique to this site.

I wasn't hoping to get into a discussion of the meaning of the word 'important', or to find out how many 'important' people visit the site. I guess I was just looking to get a sense of wether people felt like the exchange here was an important piece of golf history - or just purely a way to pass time and enjoy themselves which has no real importance beyond these pages.

Of course, it's difficult to KNOW. But that's why I'm asking for opinions - what do people guess?

[JakaB]

If you think it was important to not have Bandon Trails emulate the Sand Belt bunkering style...then GCA is important..

If you think it is important that the 8th at Sebonack is not a 12th hole tribute to ANGC...then GCA is important..

If you think it is important that Jeff Brauer didn't place the second foot of his giant step...then GCA is important...

If you think Tom Doak invented the marketability of minimalism...then GCA is important...

[paul cowley]

  on a personal level, prior to coming to this site two years ago i had no typing or computer skills, but i wanted to communicate after observing another person in my office visit here.....i bought a computer and after someone showed me how to turn it on and double click i was here and charitably i guess i've advanced  from pure primative to maybe the fourth grade level [or so my 6th grader tells me].

  my ability to communicate is a different matter altogether  .......but i can assure you that if not for the high level of discourse found here , i never would have tried.

....one small step for me ,one giant leap of who gives a .... for mankind.

[TEPaul]

PaulC:

Do you realize the terrible, detrimental things that would happen to the future of golf architecture if Bill Coore ever learned how to turn on a computer?

[paul cowley]

   you know TP, prior to joining this site i learned and expressed myself about GCA in a self taught design vacuum ,teaching myself what i felt i needed to know to reach a desired goal of designing and building golf courses ...using the same format i had used previously to achieve a multiple of not nessessarly related goals.

  this site has definately broadened my outlook and approach to GCA.

  maybe its like the philly school of the internet age , a concept i would welcome and incourage ......but pondering that, i just had this image of you in a white robe , morphed into a combination of gandolf , crump and behr....and i'm running to a bottle   ..........................

[cary lichtenstein]

Paul:

To get to the 5th grade, I would capitalize I, not lower case i

[Jeff_Brauer]

For the most part, its a pleasant diversion.

Like Paul, for me, it is one avenue of really thinking about what I want to do in design, along with studying other courses and gca types etc.  The course profiles exposed me to some courses I haven't seen in person.

One reason I came here and posted in the discussion group originally was my fathers advice that (with apologies in advance to TePaul....."If you can't state an idea clearly in a few short sentences, it probably isn't a good idea."  So, I figured, if I can't write down what I am really trying to do, I really don't have much of an idea......

So, it has helped a bit in refining my design philosphy.  And, to the degree that one (or a few) gca puts that into effect, I guess it has some importance in shaping the world of golf.

[TEPaul]

PaulC:

I love that post #59. I have real high expectations for you both now and well into the future. Sometimes you seem half crazed to me and I think that's the ideal state to be in to be ready to create instantly memorable architecture that has the potential to really endure. Sometimes that delicate balance of feeling half outside the box and half inside the flask is the  place to be in a conceptual sense, and even more than that---like the place to be to actually create. The next morning if people are surprised that's the time to be haughtilly indignant at which point your reputation as an adventurous architectural genius should be pretty much insured.

[TEPaul]

"One reason I came here and posted in the discussion group originally was my fathers advice that (with apologies in advance to TePaul....."If you can't state an idea clearly in a few short sentences, it probably isn't a good idea."  

JeffB:

With the appropriate respect to your father I think he may have been speaking of trying to express an idea clearly. Didn't you know the job of a really great architect is to confuse--to create problems in such a way that it appears to us golfers our old primal nemesis Mother Nature did it? Forget about this modern sappy notion of solutions! That's for the golfer to figure out for himself or to feel like he is! The very last thing a golf architect needs to do is to have any golfer feel the solutions are the golf architect's.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

To be fair, he was a businessman, and he gave me the third degree about starting my own business in golf design, from the business side, not the design side, of which he knew little.

He asked me to state my business plan in three sentences or less, including why I thought there would be a market for my services, how I would be unique, etc.  I really didn't have an answer, but think I was able to BS the old man enough to get by - and of course, that is the first requirement for being a golf course architect, no?

Even so, I still believe if someone asks, I should be able to say something like "That toe of slope is at about double the natural slope to tie in to the natural contours" or the like.  There has to be some reason we do what we do, and it should be easy enough to articulate.

I do agree with your notion of letting the golfer figure it out.  Now, I'm not saying that golfers act like children (although some do) but child phycology has its place - golfers/children react MUCH better if you give them a choice between X and Y, rather than if you say "NO" or simply dictate option Z, and let them decide (or feel as if they decided  ) whether to eat hamburger or PBJ, and/or play the hole.

[Brian Phillips]

How important is GCA...

Well, I would not be an architect if it wasn't for GCA. I met Jeff Brauer and Tom Doak on here who both invited me to Archipalooza at Sand Hills.

I was still just dabbling in design and mostly in golf course construction at the time.  Now, at the age of 35 I own my own golf design business toegther with a partner whom I trust and believe in and we are doing pretty good.  Business is slow, the wife doesn't get to buy much these days but life is good. The mortgage on the house is high (and would have been paid off by now if I hadn't gotten into design!!).

Jeff has inspired, coached and advised me for a number of years now and if not for GCA I would never have met him.  Lester George who I don't have any contact with anymore also encoraged me at Archipalooza.  He said to me while sitting on Ben's porch (he will not remember it though) -

'Brian you will make it in this business because you are doing it for all the right reasons and you also believe in what you are doing.'

TEPaul is another that helped inspire me by getting me on certain courses in his area, he also encouraged me to speak my mind and believe in what I was preaching.

George Pazin is another that I met on here.  I received t-shirts from him one day while I was studying in Scotland and there is a card that he put in with the t's and that is still used to inspire or keep me going when times are tough.

GCA may not be important in the big world but is is definately important in 'Brian's World'

Thanks.

Brian

[paul cowley]

.....thanks cary ,but that damn CAP key really slows me down....i'd prefer to work on my speed before i promote myself to the next grade.

  its funny though , the way the words and sentences look on the page is important to me and i remember admiring a 'modern' poet from the fifties or earlier whose short compositions reflected this...can't remember his name though ,maybe you can...........i was in mrs warners 8th grade english class in 1965 if thats a clue.....and i think he used two first initials and a short last name.

[Tom_Doak]

that was e e cummings

[Sean_A]

Paul

Tom is spot on.  E.E. Cummings is your man.

Ciao

Sean

[Dan Kelly]

My favorite e.e. cummings poem (with, oddly enough, not a single mention of golf!):


in Just-
spring       when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far       and       wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

 from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
     the

             goat-footed

balloonMan       whistles
far
and
wee

[Sean_A]

Mr. Kelly

Where have you been hiding?  Fancy citing Chansons Innocentes.  I have always been fond of XXI from Portraits.

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
          who used to
          ride a watersmooth-silver
                                             stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                                    Jesus
he was a handsome man
                                 and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death?


Ciao

Sean

[Tim_Weiman]

I don't know how "important" GCA is.

That said, anecdotal evidence suggests it gets a lot of attention. For instance, a while back a prominent person on GCA wrote some comments very critical of work being done by a  prominent architect at a very famous American golf course.

Soon thereafter I spoke to someone close to the club and architectural firm involved. He mentioned he had just been to an industry conference where "all anyone was talking about was GCA".

How influential? No clue.

Good news: GCA has achieved a critical mass; it is the place to go if candid views on golf architecture matters is what you are looking for.

Bad news: Still not enough European participation.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Tim Weiman?  I vaguely remember that name.....  Been awhile, sir....oil in Nashville keeping you busy?

That said, anecdotal evidence suggests it gets a lot of attention. For instance, a while back a prominent person on GCA wrote some comments very critical of work being done by a  prominent architect at a very famous American golf course.

Hmmm...I wonder who that might be?    At least the guy who said it has no biases whatsoever!

Bad news: Still not enough European participation.

Yes, but the UK/Ireland contingent has grown a decent amount, to perhaps 10-15 regulars and 5-10 more semi-regulars now.

[JSlonis]

Did you ever notice how the countries that don't play golf (and by extension, have no courses of real quality) are most often the one's who are fighting, bickering, and killing each other?
Spread the gospel, I say..  

Mike,

A good friend of mine swears by this theory.  He concludes that most of the problems in the Middle East could be solved by building some courses and getting these folks interested in golf.  His story usually goes something like this:

"I'm sorry Ali Haj Al Sheik...but I'm gonna' have to pass on the the suicide car bombing this week...I just got invited to the Fallujah Member Guest!!!"

We can make a difference.  Forget "Nation Building", lets get these folks some darn GOLF COURSES.  

[Zack Kelly]

I would have to disagree about this site being important to golf history, but I would have to say that this site adds to my golf knowledge and helps to determine places that I will play next and add to places that I want to play.  The GCA is a great place to find information and pass it on to others that allows people to express their views that others can agree with or not.

[Lou_Duran]

In terms of golf history, I would argue that it is very important.  It is a shame that something like this wasn't up and running 50 years ago.  Great source of archived informtion.

[Mike_Cirba]

Jamie;

I believe if we build them golf courses and strip clubs that there would be a peaceful revolution in those countries in 6 months.  I mean, can you imagine the VOLCANIC level of frustration that exists over there when women are beaten for showing an ankle and nobody can play golf?!?!?!?  No wonder a quick trip to the afterlife sounds like a good proposition!  

It would put the "Grand Strand" to shame.