Mike:
That was quite the post you wrote there! It must have taken you quite a time to arrange.
But the following is most certainly worth commenting on and discussing on here in a cool and deliberate way because there is so much validity to it for what this particular website is and is supposed to be and perhaps NOT supposed to be (by the way, I had an excellent conversation earlier today with the inimitable Ran Morrissett about just these things and other things of importance on here);
(By the way, I told Ran, as I generally do when he calls that his lead-in on his telephone calls is definitely worth recording and perhaps highlighting for all time to come in some important repository and in an audio manner. In this day and age of things like "Call Identification" you can see it's him but invariably when you pick up the phone and say "Hello", there is this dramatic silence for 2-5 seconds and then comes the usual and stentorian and dramatically paced; "RAN.......MORRISSETT!" There is no preceding lead-in like, "Hi, how are you, this is Ran Morrissett"..... to it; it is always that dramatic pause and then the stentorian... "RAN....MORRISSETT!" What the FLUB is his actual first name anyway? Is It Randolph or Ranulph or is it actually just RAN?
What in the hell kind of name is RAN anyway? To me it sounds sort of like the PAST TENSE of somethng but if you know him that isn't indicative of who he is or the way he thinks. In the course of that conversation today we got into the subject of "original thought"....particularly original thought in GCA...the kind of thing that most can tell somebody didn't just borrow or glean from someone else but probably thought of all by themselves in and for some unknown or even ineffable reasons. We talked about the people who seem to have that, and have it where and how it actually makes sense to a lot of people somehow....people like Doak, or George Thomas, or a Mackenzie or a Geoff Shackelford. I suspect ....RAN....MORRISSETT
might have it too judging from some of the things he said today as well as in the past). (Actually, my good buddy, Pat Mucci, also has some "original thought" too but unfortunately it doesn't make a lot of sense to 98% of the human population even though the precentage may be a tad less in the Italian "neighborhoods" of Nort Jusee and Nu Yawk).
"There are no "facts" here.
There was no Golf Digest "Greatest 100 You Can Play" in 1930, and even if there were, it would be simply opinion.
Hell, 99% of what is on this website is opinion. Could it be any other way? Isn't that what a discussion group is about?
In "Frank discussion of golf courses", what else could it be? Are we to somehow prove our beliefs beyond some court-standard burden of proof, or then be subject to public insults, continued harassment, and constant name-calling by a trained lawyer? Is that what we want this forum to be??
Don't even get me started on the continued personal insults and attacks, all under the guise and supposed search for truth, openness, and the American Way regarding architectural history. What a crock.
I'd ask any of the antagonists here to name a truly public course that opened before 1930 that was better architecturally, and/or had greater respect among those who played public courses than Cobbs Creek."
Tomorrow, Big Fella; for as the eternally wise Scarlett O'Hara said; "For TOMORROW is ANOTHER day."