Joe - I think you're right: the changing of the guard isn't a Greek tragedy, it is simply in the natural order of things. But for my tastes and temperament, what I do find sad is that several smart, thoughtful people I know (including one who sometimes posts here) who are involved in media all spout the same now-conventional wisdom, i.e. that their internet metrics prove how little time most people spend reading any given on-line article, and how few words they read before clicking off to some other article/site, and that this is the reason why editors want not 3000 word articles or even 1500 words or even 750 words, but more like 500 and 250 words (in keeping with what their metrics tell them). It seems not to occur to a single one of them -- though it must be obvious, because it's obvious to even someone like me -- that maybe the *reason* people are clicking away so quickly is because the article is *garbage* - i.e. because once you limit most writers to 250 words, they will be almost automatically unable and/or unwilling to conceive of and write anything more than a thoughtless made-up piece of fluff that reads more like an ad than an article, i.e. usually a flimsy conceit followed by a bit of third hand background information, followed by a re-cap of the original conceit with an equally flimsy "twist". I'm almost certain that most of us stopping in at GD or GM or GW etc can tell by the time we finished the first sentence the mindless drivel that is about to come, and so we click away (with a few exceptions - Jaime Diaz still engages). *That's* why we click off, not because 'the modern world moves too fast'. Not to criticize modern writers per se: under those circumstances even Wind might've struggled to engage his readers. I have really started to take an intense (and unhealthy, and uncharitable) dislike of whoever it is edits GD -- i.e. the baldfaced gall (or stunning lack of self awareness) it takes for an editor to commission and/or headline an article "where have all the golf writers gone" when it is the *editors themselves* who have almost singlehandedly ensured that there isn't any golf writing worth a damn to be found anywhere.
Peter