Confessions of a recovering golf snob

[jim_lewis]

Peter...I never thought about it, but I suppose I have gone full cycle on a lot of things. There was a time when I collected logos, the more prestigious, the better. I had a different top 100 bag towel on my bag every week. Now I wear no logos except those from my home club. Now I look down my nose at those who need to impress by wearing logos from the most famous club they have ever played, maybe. I guess I have just swapped one snobbery for another! Actually my sons taught me, I am most impressed by those who seem to feel no need to impress.

[Peter Pallotta]

Jim - I think that's a good place to be, or at the very least a *natural* place for this stage in your journey. Besides, I'm inclined to believe that we can't see in another what we don't first see (consciously or not) in ourselves. In other words, if you see "no need to impress" in others, its probably means that you don't have that need either. I was joking about being a meta-snob: I'm not sure where I am on that particular cycle (which is probably not a good thing); it's just that I don't pay it much attention as most of my attention is on such cycles in *other* areas of my life!

Peter

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Interesting topic and posts.
Has me wondering as to what constitutes a snob, certainly different strokes for different folks.
For intance I am a very avid practicer, I love to practice, will galdly spend 5 hours a day doing that on fridays to sundays.
I love the challenge of the mechanics and that search for what I want from the golf shot using all my senses.
Because of that, I will not just tee it to play a mediocre golf course, for the me that is non productive for what I want from the game.

I confess that the socail aspect of the game has never really meant that much to me...kind of dont play well with others principle...not that I would avoid playing with people, but playing a poor course just to interact would not be my cup of tee.

If I am going to play, it is going to be somehwere that I can justify four hours or so away from he range and short game area, a  course that is going to make me appreciate the art of architecture and how it blends into the natural landform.
I dont enjoy fabricated water hazards or gholf courses that are made difficult by their placement, as such this weeks tour event or alst weeks do nothing for me at all.
How is that good architecture, aming a course hard with man made hazards, that is too easy and show no imagination.
I would rather be on the range..
So am I a golfing snob?
Am I just anti social along with my OCD tendencies?

Perhaps, but I am looking forward to playing LOTS of golf next month on my trip to Australia and relishing the rounds with the people who until now I have only known through this site.

[Ryan Hillenbrand]

Reminds me of the line from The Aviator - when Howard Hughes was visiting Kate Hepburns family:

Mrs. Hepburn: We don't care about money here.

Howard Hughes: That's because you have it.

[Josh Stevens]

Yes you are a snob, but you seem to be suggesting that may be a bad thing? 

Im not sure, I think perhaps I am up to maybe 80-90, its a bit of a fog.  I travel less now that I have youngins, and because I managed to scam my way into a good club with a course of some merit, I find I am happier to just hang out there.  But once a fortnight I play with some old colleagues at 6am on a Friday at a public course that present all of the horrors that comes that.  An abomination of a course populated by people who don't tuck their shirts in.  I find this is necessary to regularly refresh my belief that snobbery is in fact a virtue

[SL_Solow]

I have a slightly different take. If our objective is to discuss golf course architecture and evaluate the exercise (or art form), either for fun or in a probably misguided effort to improve the caliber of golf courses, then where else to start then with the very best examples?  One learns best from trying to understand why and how the best got that way and, conversely, determining why less well received courses fail to inspire.  Even if we decide that the average course cannot replicate the best, whether it be because of lack of resources, less inspiring ground etc., we can try to apply strategic and aesthetic lessons in an effort to get the most out of each project.  Moreover, if we prefer to play courses that reflect these preferred practices, are we being snobs or are we exercising good judgment in playing venues that are by definition more enjoyable?  That doesn't mean we should only play the top ranked courses.  I have found many interesting features and holes on little known courses which on the whole are mediocre at best and I enjoy playing on "lesser" courses.  But I find it a little perverse to be critical of those who seek out superior architecture when we all seem to believe that good architecture makes for a better game.  Moreover, there is nothing wrong with applying critical analysis in evaluating the golfing experience.

Perhaps many golfers don't care although that statement, in  my view, is more elitist than seeking out, playing and discussing great courses.  It suggests that only a select few can really understand the importance of architecture.  I concede that we are a minority in our dedication to and study of the art form.  But I also suggest that many golfers get a great deal of pleasure out of playing a well designed course even if they don't go through the intellectual gymnastics that many of us enjoy.  Thus all other factors being relatively equal (cost, proximity, access) good architecture will win out.  Often, all things aren't close to equal so architecture is overwhelmed.  All the more reason to try to understand what works and to try to encourage new courses and renovations that reflect best practices.

[Josh Stevens]

My club was renovated by MAC about 7 years ago.  It has gone up in the rankings and most outside comment with an interest in the art suggest it was work well done.

The membership however remain divided into various factions:
* those who hate it because they have never been able to overcome the fact they lost the vote all  those years back and had to suffer two years of inconvenience while the work was done - 10%
* those who hate it because they think golf should be painful and wide forgiving fairways are an abomination before God - 15%
* Those that don't give a shit and just play golf, drink beer and while they enjoy the course more they don't know why and put it down to drinking more beer - 50%
*Those who get what has happened and can see the added interest created by wider corridors and more interesting green complexes, but still just want to play golf and drink beer - 20%
*Those who get it and have been inspired by the changes to take an interest in the subject to learn more and have become snobs - 5%


Nothing wrong with being in the 5% but it is a lonely place

[Patrick_Mucci]

I am still trying to get off Long Island (does Shelter Island count?, or Fisher's?)


Chuck,

You're getting closer to graduating from MIT status.

I hope to see you this Spring.

Stay well.

[Adam Lawrence]

If you talk about great food, the mundane diners and fast food restaurants might never enter the equation. Yet your experiences there give you an appreciation of really good stuff. so your experiences at nine hoters, muinis and world class clubs all mold your ideas about GCA and the golf experience

I am not sure this analogy holds water. I think I have only ever come across two foodies (for want of a better word, though I don't like it) who really only ever wanted to talk about high end dining. Most people who really love food are just as keen to talk about the best barbecue, or taco shop, or pork pie as they are about their recent visit to Alain Ducasse. They are different experiences, but most food lovers I know are pretty closely focused on the pleasure of eating. And they know that can come from high and low places.

[Kirk Gill]

Being a connoisseur (sounds better than snob!) of something can lead you down a lot of different roads. I mean, the over-the-top lover of coffee might just seek out and find an estate roast from Costa Rica that has the perfect balance, the perfect taste........that hardly anyone else has ever tried! Or, they might just drink coffee made from beans that a cat crapped out.......and go out on an internet site and tell everyone how great it tastes.

Or, you can look at it a different way. One thing my wife used to say about movie critics is that she didn't trust their opinions because "they see too many movies." In her mind, they weren't going to say anything good about the mainstream movies that she likes because their experience and sophistication wouldn't allow them to praise something they see as so mundane. They were only going to be excited about the arty movie, the movie that appealed to their knowledge of movies and their intellectual bent.

I don't know that there's a golf course that is the functional equivalent of cat-crap coffee. For one thing, the cost of building and maintaining a golf course and the traditional expectations of the golf snob make it unlikely that anything THAT out there is likely to be built. But is there an art-house movie golf course?

[Peter Pallotta]

Kirk's post and SL's got me thinking along another line. I have a friend (we share a love of movies) who kids me because my tastes and viewing habits have become so narrow, and chides me for not going out to see many new releases. He suggests that if you love movies you should/could be able to find something of value or interest in all but the worst of them. I counter by saying this: watching movies should be a pleasure. I seek to maximize that pleasure. I have found that there are about 20 movies from decades past that I think are truly great, i.e. that I enjoy at very rich and deep levels. I'm not saying (or asking, or demanding) that others should enjoy them as much as I do. I'm not arguing that there are not better films out there. I'm not convinced that there are not films being produced today that one day may become as important for me as my current crop of favourites. But what I know is that *I don't care* about any of that. I have no obligation (I don't believe) to be a *lover of the form*; I have no interest in *broadening my horizons*; I no longer feel any need to *promote or defend* my favourites; I am not inclined to *take a flyer* on something that may waste 2 hours of my time in a darkened room; I am not paid to *share* my views or insights on movies with anyone, nor to *rate* these cultural commodities for the sake of discussion. I have made and stick by a simple *calculation*, i.e.  I get more enjoyment from watching these same 20 films (and listening to the same 10 musicians, and reading the same 20 books, and drinking the same 1 drink, and dressing in the same 2 jackets) than from *sampling* and *discovering* hundreds of new/other manifestations. And if the so-called *price* of that calculation is that I can be accused of being a luddite and narrow minded and a stick in the mud; and if in that decision I might miss out on wonderful new material/experiences, it is a price I am willing to pay. I'm convinced that I don't *need* any wonderful *new* experiences -- since I have (in my own little world and psyche) more than enough *old* wonderful experiences. Maybe the old, very long-time member of a private club with a classic course who is happy to play his golf only *there*, all the time,  and cares not a whit about what anyone else thinks of his course or about *missing out* on whatever else (new and exciting and in the news) might be out there is what I'm describing. And I certainly don't think that oldtimer is in any way a *snob*.  My guess is that he's probably a member of Pine Valley.

Peter

[Brent Hutto]

Peter,

My own problem isn't that anyone is going to call me a stick-in-the-mud or whatever because of my undiscriminating taste in golf courses. My dilemma is whether participating in this particular forum makes sense now that I've realized it's basically all about the playing.

At some point a few years back perhaps I entertained the thought of whether I'm a "lover of the art form" when it comes to GCA. But that avocation never really took hold. I've got a pretty good idea what I'm looking for in a golf course and it does not include the finer distinctions among which "Redan" is truer to the template or whether a certain fairway is truly wide enough to fully access the "strategy" implied by the green contours.

All that beard-pulling stuff has just lost its charm for me, not that there's anything wrong with that. But it does leave precious little to "contribute" to the type of discussion Ran wants to see here.

[Peter Pallotta]

Brent - that's a good post, and I think I understand what you are saying. (The tag-line you had for a while reflected my feelings as well, but for better or worse I shook off that feeling just by typing more words!) Such a thought was at the back of my mind when I started the "interesting" thread -- which was in part an admission that I'd come as far (and learned as much) as I can imagine caming/learning in the world of gca, and that all I now know is that I'd prefer to *play golf* on an interesting course rather than on one that wasn't.  Discussions about all the rest of it - e.g. are templates as good as originals, are courses too long or too short, how to grow the game, does Pete Dye build strategic courses, should real-estate factor into new construction -- now seem either too complicated for me to understand, too conventional for me to care, or 'unanswerable' except in terms of very specific cases. So I guess this post here formalizes that feeling, i.e. I'd be happy to find one good course that I can deeply enjoy, and just *play it*.

Peter

[archie_struthers]

Brent  doesn't the architecture have to,take the playing of,the game into account?  I'm puzzled as to "the discussion that Ran wants "here on the site .  Please help,us understand your dilemma?

[Mike_Young]

Brent - that's a good post, and I think I understand what you are saying. (The tag-line you had for a while reflected my feelings as well, but for better or worse I shook off that feeling just by typing more words!) Such a thought was at the back of my mind when I started the "interesting" thread -- which was in part an admission that I'd come as far (and learned as much) as I can imagine caming/learning in the world of gca, and that all I now know is that I'd prefer to *play golf* on an interesting course rather than on one that wasn't.  Discussions about all the rest of it - e.g. are templates as good as originals, are courses too long or too short, how to grow the game, does Pete Dye build strategic courses, should real-estate factor into new construction -- now seem either too complicated for me to understand, too conventional for me to care, or 'unanswerable' except in terms of very specific cases. So I guess this post here formalizes that feeling, i.e. I'd be happy to find one good course that I can deeply enjoy, and just *play it*.

Peter

agree

[Brent Hutto]

Brent  doesn't the architecture have to,take the playing of,the game into account?  I'm puzzled as to "the discussion that Ran wants "here on the site .  Please help,us understand your dilemma?

I'd really rather not sidetrack this into parsing Ran's recent requests for different discussion practices, in part because I have a feeling I am missing out on just what it is he wants to see done differently.

All I meant was beyond a few obvious precepts that (mostly) we all agree on the things this forum is intended to discuss either don't pertain to me, don't interest me or I don't understand what people are talking about in the first place.

1) I'm all for firm conditions bringing almost any course to life with soft conditions, overwatering, an emphasis on wall-to-wall green and so forth generally being wasteful and counterproductive.

2) I am generally opposed to narrowing playing corridors by the use of long rough in an effort to toughen up a course, as opposed to letting the more interesting features of the course provide interest and challenge.

3) I totally agree that many older courses were laid out in a way intended to maximize enjoyment for the type of game I play. Compact routings, easily walkable, a sense of laying softly across the landscape. And I agree that the vast majority of courses built in the past 20-30 years have jettisoned those attributes and offer little in return.

4) And I certainly agree that not every golf course has to be designed with "shot values" or "resistance to scoring" as prime directives, as measured against the games of elite player.

So when any of these truisms are discussed, my eyes rather glaze over. Is it possible for anyone NOT to have either bought into or rejected these commonplaces by this point in time?

Then there's the stuff that is total outside my interest, experience or reckoning. I won't do a numbered list but disputes over what dead architect actually did or didn't visit what course on what date, parsing the template-ness or not of a given hole relative to CB MacDonald's work and basically anything having to do with (no offense) life in rich-guy clubs with caddies and initiation fees higher than the value of my house.

There is a certain amount of stuff discussed here falling in between those extremes. Which is why I am still a participant. But in all honesty my interests here nowadays fall perilously close to two areas which seem to be considered beneath the dignity of the forum. I am, in fact, guilty of using Golf Club Atlas as my own personal golf-travel planning guide, And I do admit to enjoying a certain amount of off-topic banter with people I've met and played golf with via connections made here (as well as some I've yet to meet and play with but hope to one day soon).

So I'll try to chime in where I can contribute. And to your point, I think one way of doing that is comments that try to "take the playing of,the game into account" from the perspective of an avid weekend golfer with a certain appreciation for the kind of courses that are mainstream here on GCA, if not necessarily elsewhere. Ultimately that's what keeps me around. I'll be darned if I can think of anywhere else in the world with a critical mass of participants who think (at least mostly) the same way I do about golf courses.

[archie_struthers]

 


brent that's an answer , rave on !

[Jud_T]

Brent,

It's an interesting dilemma.  I'd guess I'm in a somewhat similar situation.  I've seen that the emperor of Top 100 lists has no clothes.  I've settled into post-golf-snob-snobbery (i.e. I'm willing to drive an hour or two to play an under-the radar gem, which may in fact be a cheap public track, but it has to be the "right" gem).  I now know what I like and why I like it and what I don't and why I don't.  I've met a number of interesting people here, including a couple of pretty good friends, some of whom I play with on a semi-regular basis.  I love that guys like Sven, David, Joe et. al. obsess over uncovering historical GCA minutia, but unless I have a personal connection to the course or the area, my eyes tend to glaze over after a few pages.  I still enjoy hearing new revelations from those in the biz or about interesting new courses or restorations, but they are unfortunately few and far between.  I think the site provides a ton of interesting information and a needed refreshing perspective to the new lurker, but the next half dozen "why can't I use a push-cart on a classic era gem that still supports a half-used pool and winter dinner service and forces me to take a caddie when they could be appealing to a younger generation by going semi-private" threads may force me to drop the occasional boutique craft beer in favor of harder substances, and while I agree that I'm not sure exactly what "it" is that Ran is going for, I'm pretty sure that ain't it.  Sigh....

[Peter Pallotta]

Brent, Jud -- it's easy I think. Just imagine yourselves being Ran, i.e. living where he lives, knowing who he knows, playing golf where he plays, writing about golf courses the way he does, and being as deeply interested/engaged in gca as he's been these many years.  Then imagine what he'd like/expect his website to be.

Yeah, I know -- we're *not* what he has in mind....

[Kirk Gill]

I love to play golf, and if I ever find it necessary to go through a list of the greatest regrets of my life, somewhere in there will be the fact that I've not played as much as I wanted. I've not played as many different places as I could have. I see photo tours like the recent Myopia and Fishers Island or Eastward Ho threads, and mixed in with my excitement and interest in getting a peek at those courses is a palpable sense that I will never actually play them myself. And sure, I'd like to !

I may know what I like, and I may like what I know, but I'd sure like to know more, and I find it difficult to make a value judgement on something that I've not yet experienced (even as I realize that hitting a local muni for the first time is unlikely to provide any moments of enlightenment). The little bit of knowledge that I do have directs me to crave experiences that I know will be elevating, or simply exhilarating. I'm willing to risk being disappointed. Ultimately, though, I'm probably better suited to be a member at club I love, exploring it over and over, rather than being a belt-notcher.

If thinking that way makes me a snob, or a beard-puller, then guilty as charged. I do hope Ran is okay with this kind of idle philosophizing.

[Joe Hancock]

Yeah, I know -- we're *not* what he has in mind....

What if we're the best of the best? Heaven help us....

Joe

[Colin Macqueen]

Gentlemen,

I get chided, and called a golf-snob in a warm-hearted manner by golfing friends, when I wrinkle my nose up at their suggestions as to where we may play our next game of golf when I visit Melbourne from Brisbane. Given that the sandbelt beckons I argue that there is limited time before we "shuffle off this mortal coil" so let us get cracking and play those more finely regarded courses. I particularly like the turf underfoot. So yes I am a snob in this regard. Credit to my buddies though as on the odd occasion when I am browbeaten and play the alternative course the golf is still terrific fun …. so what do I really know!

As to participating here I feel I just don't have the expertise or experience to comment in a meaningful way …. hence my love of the philosophical bent (nice pun Colin!) on this forum.

So in regards to Peter and Joe's words

Yeah, I know -- we're *not* what he has in mind....

What if we're the best of the best? Heaven help us....

Joe

I did, once upon a time, offer my resignation to Ran but never heard back!  Ran has made his bed and now has to sleep in it!!!

Cheers Colin

[Adam Warren]

I used to think I was a golf snob....then I joined GCA.  Does that mean I am recovering?

[David Davis]

This is a funny thread in a way. I'd almost like to see ages being stated. I'm guessing the older wise crowd might reflect on their many years of searching for GCA enlightenment or bliss and while having seen and experienced moments of this are realizing that taking it too seriously can perhaps only lead to disappointment when the simple act of holding a club in their hands and hitting balls off the turf is such a simple joy that can easily be taken for granted in the search for the perfect course.

For me you'd really have to define golf snob much more specifically. Is that the guy that refuses to walk across the street to play for free because the course is a Doak 5 or worse? Or perhaps simply the guy that would be willing to pay a little more or drive a littler further because they appreciate the challenge, fun, conditioning or even GCA of that other course.

It's all relative, everyone on this site is a golf snob to the right person and there are likely those on the site that are golf snobs to the rest of us.

Personally, I can stand all day long on a rinky-dink little driving range with nice turf and chase my own balls without an issue and have a wonderful day. (at least when my back, hands and hips would hold up). I can also play any rink-dink course and shut off the architectural connoisseur in myself to have a great time with friends, clients or my kids. Hell, I can even stand in my living room with a club in hand and make swings on and off all night simply imagining that I'm playing and actually quite enjoy myself. While that might be strange and a bit excessive it stems from an utter love of the sport, nothing else.

In the end I really like what Colin wrote in that we have but one go around and all things being equal if you can play great courses from well known, up and coming or famous architects as easily as playing lesser courses, can learn from these courses and enjoy the other aspects of utilizing your precious time to travel to these courses then I'm not sure if that makes you a snob, maybe just someone who is passionate about your hobby.

[jeffwarne]

 I can even stand in my living room with a club in hand and make swings on and off all night simply imagining that I'm playing and actually quite enjoy myself.

I find this image a bit troubling...........