Links Magazine 100 Most Prestigious Golf Clubs Omissions

[J_ Crisham]

Just finished reading the very nicely written article in Links and was surprised to see a few notable clubs that I am somewhat familiar with not on the list:
                Medinah
                Inverness
                Olympia Fields
                Cherry Hills
                Interlachen
                Bel Air
                River Oaks


What clubs did you expect to see that missed the cut?

[PCCraig]

In what I thought was a great issue of the magazine, I thought this article or ranking was a little over the top and too hard of a subject to pin down.

Here's a good example in Chicago...Old Elm. ~100-150 members max. A roster that reads like a who's who of Chicago and they ask you to join. Up here in Minneapolis, Interlachen is pretty prestigious, but so is Minikahda, White Bear YC, and Somerset CC.

The problem is there are too many to count or put into order.

[Mac Plumart]

Personally, I'd go the other way, Pat.

It is kind of like these Top 100 golf course lists.  There are 20, 30, maybe 40 truly great courses worthy of being singled out.  There are another 150 or so noteworthy courses, but the distinction between, say, the 80th best and the 115th best is miniscule.

I'd say the same with this list of prestigous clubs.  You've got places like Augusta National that are truly prestigous and you've got some other super nice and fairly prestigous places, but they are not even in the same ball park as the truly elite.  I'd narrow that thing down to 20 or 40 elitely prestigous clubs.

[J_ Crisham]

In what I thought was a great issue of the magazine, I thought this article or ranking was a little over the top and too hard of a subject to pin down.

Here's a good example in Chicago...Old Elm. ~100-150 members max. A roster that reads like a who's who of Chicago and they ask you to join. Up here in Minneapolis, Interlachen is pretty prestigious, but so is Minikahda, White Bear YC, and Somerset CC.

The problem is there are too many to count or put into order.

Pat,    I agree when you think of the Chicago clubs that are very private such as Old Elm, Onwentsia, The Indian Hill Club come to mind as very quiet but seldom ever mentioned or seen in lists- maybe it is just  the way they want it!

[V. Kmetz]

At the risk of being a "hater" I find this, as most such lists, such an indecisive time-waster, contributing nothing but advertiser's coin to the concern that publishes it.  It's a space-filler.  The most junior-member of this board as well as the guys playing the Arizona muni right now could come up with a reasonable list, with their wits and one half hour of looking on the internet.

The funny part, to take it more seriously than I do, it that all roots of "prestige" and "prestigious" come from:

"Illusion, fascination, enchantment, delusion, bedazzlement" and earlier, more strident Latin forms that suggest downright intentional "trickery"

That aside, and accepting the current common usage:

"The quality of how good the reputation of something or someone is, how favorably something or someone is regarded"

...it's just such a personal thing, that the moment some writer or panel opens it mouth, it's saying "I (We) think"    And while I haven't read the piece, I take it from the responses that they are ranked - these prestigious clubs; how can you say "Merion" is #X and further down the list, we have Seminole at #Y" without sounding like a moron...and then put an asterisk by both and say in a fast facts box legend "There are 23 persons who hold memberships at both Seminole and Merion, the 6th highest degree of crossover between any two clubs on our list."

Jack is right:  Great clubs are not on the list (I assume)

because...

CC is right: there are too many clubs, with nuanced public or personal prestige to be counted

which makes me think...

"A monkey with some Google training" could make such a list.

See, I told you I was going to be a hater.

cheers

vk

[Dan Kelly]

I decided to re-subscribe to Links, after many years of ignoring it, because -- based on word of mouth here -- it appeared to have improved (and because the price was so ridiculously low). Improved, that is, from the days when it was little more than a shameless real-estate shill.

My first issue arrived yesterday, with that horrible idea on the cover: "The 100 Most Prestigious Golf Clubs in the World."

Not to get all intellectual about it, but ... GAG ME!

The world has too many Vanity Magazines already.

Golf doesn't need one more. I don't need any -- and will remain hopeful that this is an aberration, not a trend.

Dan

[David_Tepper]

Dan K. -

Per the other active thread on the current issue of LINKS, this issue could be the best the magazine have ever done from a GCA point of view.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,54843.0.html

I think the quality of LINKS has improved greatly since George Peper has gotten involved with the magazine and Tom Dunne was hired as senior writer.

DT

[Dan Kelly]

Dan K. -

Per the other active thread on the current issue of LINKS, this issue could be the best the magazine have ever done from a GCA point of view.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,54843.0.html

I think the quality of LINKS has improved greatly since George Peper has gotten involved with the magazine and Tom Dunne was hired as senior writer.

DT

David --

Thanks.

I'll look over the issue this weekend. I'm obviously not prepared to give an opinion of it, before I've read it.

All I'll add is this, as a former magazine editor: A magazine has one great and obvious chance to display its values -- and that is: What does it put on its cover?

This cover of Links touts four things -- two of which strike at least this one reader as contrary or tangential to my interests ("HOME-BUYING TIPS" and "The 100 Most Prestigious Golf Clubs in the World"), and one of which has been featured in every golf magazine in America ("NEW DRIVERS"). Only one of the four -- "UNTOUCHABLE PAR FIVES" -- seems like something I might care about.

"NEW DRIVERS" and "HOME-BUYING TIPS" are two of those advertiser-sensitive subjects that rarely yield any insights worth having -- because advertisers demand such editorial mush as a price for their advertising, and because hardly any publisher has the guts and the smarts to say: We're going to give you a great audience for your advertising, and great articles to keep those readers interested, and that should be enough for you. Don't ask us to be whores, too!

Dan

[Mac Plumart]

At the risk of being a "hater" I find this, as most such lists, such an indecisive time-waster

Time waster?  News flash, golf is a pastime.  Almost all of us play it to pleasurably pass the time.  If you don't like the article, don't read it.  But it seems as if you've read it and decided to "waste some time" posting on it online.  Is this your pastime?  That is online, ranting.

[V. Kmetz]

Mea culpa.

It just that even as fluff, it seems like a topic that goes nowhere and means nothing.  For me, media is all-too overwhelmed by meaningless lists, polls, surveys, awards, nominations and hearsay reports, reporting on what another fallible somebody or group said.

If golf is truly fluff then I shouldn't have peeped because we're then talking about fluff in every single topic here.

cheers

vk

[Mac Plumart]

VK...

I respect your intellect and would like to engage you in a brief conversation (brief 'cause I don't want to totally hi-jack this thread).

In the grand scheme of life, why would anything on a golf course architecture internet site be anything but "fluff?" 

Serious question.

[V. Kmetz]

i'll hit you up off board..OK?

[V. Kmetz]

just sent, Mac.

cheers

vk

[Mac Plumart]

I've communicated with Vinnie off line about this thread and he's said I could share some of his thoughts, which are excellent (as usual).  I think his thoughts fit in well with this thread, so here are a few of them.

So, the grand scheme of life is too big for any of us and most of us go to smaller and smaller schemes to take that grand one in littler and littler bites.  GCA being one of the tiniest. But what are we doing in those littler bites; enacting the same silly behavior we know can't get to any semblance of Truth in the big questions?

For me, no...the only way I can forget the big question and its unanswerable nature is to focus on the littler ones...with concentration, with consideration, with openess.  Just because GCA doesn't earn me money, I don't think of it as a pastime...it's what I'm doing, when I'm doing it.  I'm not looking to pass the time, as it were...this is even true for Golf itself.  I'm interested in the mysteries behind golf and GCA's meaning and peculiarities...i'm interested in its making...I'm interested in the company I keep and engage with in it and over it.  why?  Because it comprises (in this small realm) part of that "sweetness" of life, that "verification" of older truths and "examination" of newer ones, whilst I live.  This particular topic, because its of its redundancy, because of its banality and pure speculative authority it purports diminishes my verve for the things i n this field that interest me.

I thought this was brilliant, but he went on to make it better and, essentially and unintentionally, challenge me (and all of us) to pick my (our) game up  notch when he suggested that a list of this type would be better and more useful and insightful if it were more akin to "Prestige in golf: the Leading Clubs of the last 150 years; that spoke of something in depth and with labor and advanced our understanding of what connects them, why they are at the forefront, how did they get to the forefront and so forth"

Vinnie...agreed.  And thanks.


Anyone have thoughts on that list?

[Joe_Tucholski]

I've communicated with Vinnie off line about this thread and he's said I could share some of his thoughts, which are excellent (as usual).  I think his thoughts fit in well with this thread, so here are a few of them.

So, the grand scheme of life is too big for any of us and most of us go to smaller and smaller schemes to take that grand one in littler and littler bites.  GCA being one of the tiniest. But what are we doing in those littler bites; enacting the same silly behavior we know can't get to any semblance of Truth in the big questions?

For me, no...the only way I can forget the big question and its unanswerable nature is to focus on the littler ones...with concentration, with consideration, with openess.  Just because GCA doesn't earn me money, I don't think of it as a pastime...it's what I'm doing, when I'm doing it.  I'm not looking to pass the time, as it were...this is even true for Golf itself.  I'm interested in the mysteries behind golf and GCA's meaning and peculiarities...i'm interested in its making...I'm interested in the company I keep and engage with in it and over it.  why?  Because it comprises (in this small realm) part of that "sweetness" of life, that "verification" of older truths and "examination" of newer ones, whilst I live.  This particular topic, because its of its redundancy, because of its banality and pure speculative authority it purports diminishes my verve for the things i n this field that interest me.

I thought this was brilliant, but he went on to make it better and, essentially and unintentionally, challenge me (and all of us) to pick my (our) game up  notch when he suggested that a list of this type would be better and more useful and insightful if it were more akin to "Prestige in golf: the Leading Clubs of the last 150 years; that spoke of something in depth and with labor and advanced our understanding of what connects them, why they are at the forefront, how did they get to the forefront and so forth"

Vinnie...agreed.  And thanks.


Anyone have thoughts on that list?

What list are you talking about?  Are you talking about the list of clubs that "spoke of something in depth and with labor and advanced our understanding of what connects them?"

I'm not sure.  Partially because I don't really know what that means and second I assume many of these leading clubs in the US don't allow outsiders into their history or labors.

If you are talking about the list published in the LINKS magazine I see the title and assume it means courses that most won't be able to join or play because they are not of the correct social class or connection.  I have no concerns with that list.  The list is an opinion piece.  It is interesting to me how V. Kmetz has commented about this list when contrasted with my interpretation of his comments about the TEPaul interview.  

I figure the magazine publishes it because people read it.  For whatever reason people are interested in lives they percieve as "better."  There used to be the society sections in papers, and now there is reality TV following celebrity such and such.

[V. Kmetz]

JT,

Mac was referencing my suggestion that, a book or in-depth piece about such clubs would be of great interest; but another banal list of what you rightfully call an opinion...that you or I or any junior g(gcA) -man could make...is barely anything at all.

Sure people read it.  Our national attention span has decayed to the point that even in the crevices like GCA, these lists, polls, surveys and such drive substance into the ground and nearly out of existence, in praise of "eye balls"

I tell my students at their writing, that the entirety of the exercise is:

Why you think, what you think.

Otherwise, opinions are just like assholes, everyone's got one and they stink.

I don't know the portion of the thread on TEP (late april last year) you are referencing, but I know this:  My first and foremost reaction was there were something like 50 words of questions and 13,000 words of reply, barely a hint of GCA.  Other than that, I'll talk about it off-list, because I'm not re-kindling the flame.

cheers

vk

[Brett_Morrissy]

a topic worthy of its own thread - the connection(s) between the great courses of history - how, why - perhaps a little like the genius routing thread?

[Sean_A]

I agree with VK.  It would be grand if a decent mag would run a club of the month piece going into history, impact on the game, movers and shakers members and what they did.  The Legendary Golf Clubs do this in a lite manner - not quite enough depth.

Ciao

[V. Kmetz]

Sean,

Bingo. Square on the head. For instance:

a. We've heard many times that Augusta National has led Golf (specifically its american iteration) down so many wrong GCA paths (overwatering, expensive maintenance to yield perfection, tiger-proofing etc).  I'd love a book to talk about that, from architects, from extant records, from any insiders willing to speak...

b. Seminole, Shinnecock (other coastal gems of stature, regard and "prestige") - on this board, the element of "Wind" has often been bandied about...is it necessary for great golf, how did these routings, and current iterations reflect a sensitivity and comprehension of this element.  (this would allow inroads to talk about Ross' ideal of a Fan-shape and minimizing parallel holes)

c. Winged Foot, Baltusrol  - the 36 hole facility

And this is purely in the GCA avenue.  At the same time, there's really so many items of golf interest, culture interest, social interest that such a work could be marvelous...I wouldn't want it to muckrake and it would carry enormous appeal, even if it did not get every rat out of every private closet; there's such potential beyond...

"#12. Merion
#13. Chicago Golf Club
#14...etc, etc"

which just about everybody on this board could produce before coffee tomorrow morning

cheers

vk

[Sam Morrow]

Is Alotian on the list? If it's not somebody at Digest might hang themselves.

[Mark Chaplin]

Dan Moore and I had the pleasure of playing Old Elm, a few years ago now. Our host was a charming gentleman who had returned to Chicago from living and working on the East coast. I asked him (as only a Brit can) how he had joined the club. He explained they have a very small membership and it's tough to get in. However in his case when he returned to Chicago he had a call to tell him he'd been elected a member and he should visit the club to pay his dues, needless to say he hadn't even applied!