[Jim Thompson]

Please help me understand what your dream monthly golf magazine would be.  Content, scope and style.

Thanks!

JT

[Sean_A]

Jim

I don't dream about a monthly golf magazine.  If I were to dream of one, it would be along the lines of Neil's.

Ciao

Sean

[RJ_Daley]

Jim, I was going to try and give a direct answer and describe an ideal magazine.  But, then I thought that in truth, GCA.com and the occasional links our contributors post to other interesting articles on the web, with a smattering of occasional drop-ins to Shack's blog, is about all I can handle.  

[Paul Payne]

Probably not a commercially viable one.

First, I'd like to see lots of articles about courses and course design. I'd like those articles to be accompanied by photographs illustrating the many points they discuss. I'd like them to illustrate both the good and the bad in these discussions.

They could also write about the state of the game, course building and the industry in general but NO HOT LISTS.

I also do not want to be sold anything within the content of an article. they can run ad's but articles should be sacred.

I also don't want to see a mountain of swing tip, especailly those grinding " place your left wrist just so.." kind of lessons. Instead, I'd like to see them discuss course management strategies and shotmaking tips to work as companions to their great articles on courses in general.

They could also run articles and book excerpts by great authors who have written golf related works, (sort of New Yorker hits the turf).

They could even hire the oldest member as editor in chief.

I think it will be a dry winter in Ireland before I get my wish.

[Rick Shefchik]

Just a personal preference, but I almost always read interviews with notable golf figures -- players, architects, caddies, executives, innovators, etc. I don't read the feature stories as often. Not sure why -- maybe I find the Q&A format more digestible.

[Norbert P]

  It would be a blend of National Geographic, Links, Outdoor,  Turf, and Life magazines.  With a NatGeo editor in charge.

[George Pazin]

The yearly journal of the Society of Australian Golf Course Architects (or whatever their exact name is), published monthly.

Check out their work, it is awesome.

http://www.sagca.org.au/

If I ever go missing, look for me in Australia.

[Lloyd_Cole]

It would be very expensive because it wouldn't host advertisements for the stuff it reviews - clubs and courses. Golf Consumer Reports. I'd buy that for a dollar, or twenty.

[Jim Thompson]

Hey guys,

This is the big chance.  I've been asked to be on the advisory board for a golf publication that wants to change its format.  So dream big and share your ideas.  This isn't just a little "fun thread".

Thanks!

JT

[Lloyd_Cole]

The publication would also want to seek out viewpoints seldom found in the golfing 'mainstream' such as old  musicians who fancy themselves as golf writers.

[Adam_F_Collins]

Articles on architecture
• what's new and notable (and why it's notable)
• short pieces on how things work (how a green is constructed, etc)
• Bit's on ways developers are overcoming special challenges or doing new things
• Examinations of strategies on single holes. With good photos and diagrams
• Articles which show some of the real storys of how places are created
• Clubhouse and other golf course building features that are especially well-designed
• Short pieces which educate golfers on the jobs of supers what they're up against.

Articles on playing
• Tips on playing for different levels of player
• Mental Game articles - ways of playing the head game
• in-depth  examination of player strategy

Contributions from Readers
• Photos of people at various courses
• Stories from real people about golf adventures
• Art (photos, paintings, drawings or inventions of golf stuff)
• Monthly Golf Designs - submitted by armchair architects - with an analysis by a professional architect on the merits and weaknesses

The Pros
• In-depth one-on-ones
• Personal angles on practice, play and strategy

Equipment

• Real, careful, scientific and un-biased reviews of equipment in every issue. Ball comparisons, Club tests, clothing, etc. Not this overblown marketing ploy you get in the big mags.
• New stuff - what's out there...

[T_MacWood]

Country Life in its heyday...where golf (and golf architecture) is sandwiched in with other interesing and diverse subjects. Great writing. Wonderful photographs.

[ForkaB]

As one who first read Country Life in 1966, whilst living in England, I must say that if your tastes run to ads of country estates and furniture, a fully dressed "Page 3" girl called Tabitha Chormondley-Biggleswaite, lots of pages on how to decorate maid's quarters and a page or two on golf, cricket, bridge and polo, this is you thang!

If we want to get back into the real world, well, GCA.com, as it is and how it may evolve is so much better than Country Life or Golf Digest, or even Neal Crafter's or Paul Daley's great yet lesser stuff, well if you don't see this, then you see GCA through a glass darkly, and that is not a good thing....

[T_MacWood]

Rich
1966 was not exactly Country Life's heyday...despite that its nice to have someone on GCA who goes back that far. Thank you for sharing.

Architecture, wine, antiques, gardening, interior design, history, natural science, and art plus great writers, great photographers...yes those are my thang. Unfortunately (for you) there was nothing on folk singing....but you shouldn't hold that against it.

[ForkaB]

Go back to bed, Tom.  You are (yet again) hallucinating....

[T_MacWood]

That wouldn't be the first time...but thats beside the point.

A few other subjects I forgot, angling, hunting, literature, theater, sport (tennis, cricket etc), world travel. It was part National Geographic, part New Yorker, part Life, part Anitique, part SI, part Martha Stewart Living....plus Darwin (and Hutchinson).

In how many magazines will you find an article written by MacKenzie on trench warfare, Darwin on Dickens, Hutchinson on The New Forest or billiards, Fowler on gardening, Colt on architecture, Newt Wethered on art history and Simpson on petit point...I know, I know, where is the folk music?

[Tony_Muldoon]

ah Tom I wonder if there isn't a little bit of "the other mans grass is always firmer and faster" at play here.

In my youth 'County Life' provided an ironic title for a Roxy Music album but generally represented what came later to be known as 'Sloans'.  It's best days were long gone and forgotten.

The magazine I could never get my hands on often enough was the New Yorker. Who wouldn't want to read Herbert Warren Wind on Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, or even some golf course no one will ever visit up in the frozen north!  Updike used to write about things other than golf.  However even in the '70s it's glory was it's past, and the writers from the Algonquin circle writing about the great white way while lunching with Cole Porter and Moss Hart.

Will there ever be such a magazine again? Not for me alas.
 

[Andy Doyle]

Ideas I would echo:

Articles on architecture
• short pieces on how things work (how a green is constructed, etc)

>>>YES!


• Examinations of strategies on single holes. With good photos and diagrams

>>> YES!

Like the great thread on Riviera #10:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=16619

I think this would make a great monthly feature.  Classic holes, great photography and good explanations and examples of strategic options & potential consequences.

Contributions from Readers
• Stories from real people about golf adventures

>>> YES!

I much prefer reading about golf trips that I can relate to, rather than some puff piece by some writer comped at a resort I'll never be able to afford.

Also:

- Before & after examples/comparisons of renovations - e.g. the Pasatiempo website.
- Regular feature on architects - interview, examples of courses, explanation of characteristic "style" or lack thereof.
- Regular feature/column promoting the "values" of the game - e.g. sportsmanship, virtue of walking, etc.

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