Does having access to too much money make golf worse?

[Thomas Dai]

Does having access to too much money make golf worse?
Thoughts.
atb

[Jeff Schley]

In development or renovations/restorations you mean?  I'm sure you don't mean maintenance as much, but perhaps you do for it means ANGC looks which takes a ton of cash for maintenance.

[Thomas Dai]

In development or renovations/restorations you mean?  I'm sure you don't mean maintenance as much, but perhaps you do for it means ANGC looks which takes a ton of cash for maintenance.

Wide subject. Any aspect of golf.
atb

[Mark_Fine]

Someone once told me, “Money doesn’t guarantee happiness, but not having money can sure make you unhappy”    In some sense, this applies to golf as well.  Having money can definitely help make golf and a golf course better, but that is not guaranteed.  Not having money, however, can make things much more challenging.  I work with a lot of clubs/courses where money is a big concern.  If money were not an issue, there would be a lot more we could do when it comes to restoration/renovation work and also how much work can actually be done at any given time.  I have three active projects under construction as we speak and on none of them do we have the luxury of doing everything we want to do all due to lack of money.  We do the best we can with what we have in a fiscally responsible way and prioritize what is most important.  Will the end product be as good as that of a top tier club where cost is hardly an issue - probably not, but everything is relative  

[Jason Thurman]

Yep that's why Cypress is so shitty.

[Thomas Dai]

Devils Advocate time.
Unless you’re ‘in the business’ in some way or another or wish to one day get into ‘the business’ one day then golf is essentially a hobby, a pastime, a leisure/fitness/social activity, something that you’re doing for enjoyment, something that you’re doing for fun.
Do you really need the latest generation 14 clubs in a big bag to have fun?
Do you really need to play on immaculately groomed courses with zippy fast greens to have fun?
Do you really need palatial clubhouses, flower beds and fountains to have fun?
Would you still travel to St Andrews to play TOC if the fairways were grazed by sheep?
Does golf, essentially a simple stick-and-ball-and-hole game, need so many expensive trimmings to still be an enjoyable hobby, an enjoyable pastime, an enjoyable leisure/fitness/social activity, to be fun?
As mentioned above, Devils advocate time.
Atb

[Sean_A]

ATB

Aren't there plenty of cheap courses to play?

Happy Hockey

[John Emerson]

Devils Advocate time.
Unless you’re ‘in the business’ in some way or another or wish to one day get into ‘the business’ one day then golf is essentially a hobby, a pastime, a leisure/fitness/social activity, something that you’re doing for enjoyment, something that you’re doing for fun.
Do you really need the latest generation 14 clubs in a big bag to have fun?
Do you really need to play on immaculately groomed courses with zippy fast greens to have fun?
Do you really need palatial clubhouses, flower beds and fountains to have fun?
Would you still travel to St Andrews to play TOC if the fairways were grazed by sheep?
Does golf, essentially a simple stick-and-ball-and-hole game, need so many expensive trimmings to still be an enjoyable hobby, an enjoyable pastime, an enjoyable leisure/fitness/social activity, to be fun?
As mentioned above, Devils advocate time.
Atb

American greed and excess...I’m trying to think of a way that it has been a long term positive for golf.  I’m really struggling to think of an answer

[Craig Sweet]

2019..#100 money earner made over $1 million dollars...

[John Kavanaugh]

I don’t know if it took money but those new grass types that have allowed Florida greens to be smooth and fast are pretty sweet. I’ll put that right behind air conditioning as a luxury I can’t live without.

[Adam Clayman]

It's the pampered sensibilities of the people with access to too much money, that has made Golf worse.


Case in point, the above post.


Rather than accepting Golf as a sport, with random vagaries, the pampered  require fairness and/or pristine conditions to facilitate the stroking of their egos.

[John Kavanaugh]

It’s nice to still stroke something as your sporting life winds down. I play with some dudes in their 80’s whose ground games are enhanced by pristine conditions.

[jeffwarne]

Rather than accepting Golf as a sport, with random vagaries, the pampered  require fairness and/or pristine conditions to facilitate the stroking of their egos.

this

[Peter Pallotta]

Speculation:
I think 'old money' is good, 'new money' maybe not so much.
Old money doesn't try to impress, new money is all about making the so-called right impression.
For one: a small clapboard sided clubhouse with spike-scarred old floorboards, and a rarely/barely touched 6500 yard course from the golden age. And mostly older laid-back members who look like they couldn't break 90 but consistently shoot in the high 70s, and who couldn't give a hoot (and would be embarrassed to hear you talk about) your recent windfall from that bit of venture capital in a Silicon Valley start-up. 
For the other: ceramic tiles from Italy, massive event centres clad in marble from Spain and supported by solid wood beams from old growth forests in Oregon, and a golf course that was 6500 yards long and then 6900 and now 7400 yards but that hasn't gotten any better since it was first built in the late 80s. As intended, it draws a lot of younger, hopped-up members who consider themselves players and dress the part, but for one reason or another, playing from the tips, rarely ever get out of the 80s and are often enraged by their 92s.
Yeah: I think I'd settle in much more happily with that first group, the old money. They have so much of it that they wouldn't give a second thought to my relative poverty. They'd just like me for my understated good will and charming demeanour   
Old money measures success much differently than new money does.
Of course, that's all just speculation from someone who is neither old money nor new!

[Kalen Braley]

In development or renovations/restorations you mean?  I'm sure you don't mean maintenance as much, but perhaps you do for it means ANGC looks which takes a ton of cash for maintenance.

Wide subject. Any aspect of golf.
atb

Thomas, this is indeed a very very wide subject.

The only thing I can add here is I don't think the aggregate amount of money in all of golf is bad per se, its just in how its so disproportionately allocated between everyone who either provides for or plays the game. It creates a lot of inefficiencies at both end of the spectrum.

[Tom_Doak]

Yep that's why Cypress is so shitty.

One of the things I used to admire about Cypress Point was how ratty they would let the grass get between tee and fairway - like most "old money" clubs they spent the money on greens and fairways and not much else.


Nowadays that just won't do - it has to be perfect from wall to wall to live up to its top ten status (sigh).  They are probably dumping glyphosate in the dunes so nobody has to see a weed.

[Tim Martin]

Speculation:
I think 'old money' is good, 'new money' maybe not so much.
Old money doesn't try to impress, new money is all about making the so-called right impression.
For one: a small clapboard sided clubhouse with spike-scarred old floorboards, and a rarely/barely touched 6500 yard course from the golden age. And mostly older laid-back members who look like they couldn't break 90 but consistently shoot in the high 70s, and who couldn't give a hoot (and would be embarrassed to hear you talk about) your recent windfall from that bit of venture capital in a Silicon Valley start-up. 
For the other: ceramic tiles from Italy, massive event centres clad in marble from Spain and supported by solid wood beams from old growth forests in Oregon, and a golf course that was 6500 yards long and then 6900 and now 7400 yards but that hasn't gotten any better since it was first built in the late 80s. As intended, it draws a lot of younger, hopped-up members who consider themselves players and dress the part, but for one reason or another, playing from the tips, rarely ever get out of the 80s and are often enraged by their 92s.
Yeah: I think I'd settle in much more happily with that first group, the old money. They have so much of it that they wouldn't give a second thought to my relative poverty. They'd just like me for my understated good will and charming demeanour   
Old money measures success much differently than new money does.
Of course, that's all just speculation from someone who is neither old money nor new!

Peter-It’s interesting that you romanticize everything old and denigrate everything new as it relates to this issue.

[Peter Pallotta]

Oh, not so interesting, Tim, nor so surprising: the past/old, which doesn't impinge/reflect unfavourably on me, is easily romanticized and can be enjoyed much more readily than can the present/new, what with the latter's pressing realities and metrics I fail to meet.
That said: I have played two courses recently, both from the golden age -- one seems content to stay fairly old and under the radar while the other has modernized and up-scaled in every possible way. I did feel more comfortable and enjoyed myself more at the former.
P   

[Tim Martin]

Oh, not so interesting, Tim, nor so surprising: the past/old, which doesn't impinge/reflect unfavourably on me, is easily romanticized and can be enjoyed much more readily than can the present/new, what with the latter's pressing realities and metrics I fail to meet.
That said: I have played two courses recently, both from the golden age -- one seems content to stay fairly old and under the radar while the other has modernized and up-scaled in every possible way. I did feel more comfortable and enjoyed myself more at the former.
P

What was the effect of modernization on the course itself?

[Peter Pallotta]

Tim:
Oh, nothing that would surprise, or that surprised me, even though I'd never played that course before (ie before modernization):
the bunkers were larger and more uniform (than at the other course, and that seemed natural/original/necessary), and with the kind of sand that clearly wasn't from the site itself or from nearby - so different was it in texture and colour from the sand at any other course I play in the area
two bits of awkward routing, that, not surprisingly as I say, I was told were engendered by the creation of two new holes (to replace shorter, narrower ones), one a dog-leg Par 5 with the new retention pond on the left that reminded me of a finishing hole at Bay Hill
fairways that were greener, rough that was more lush
a set of new tee boxes further back (which didn't impinge, actually, since the course was clearly one intended to play from the tees we were playing from, and routed accordingly - so the green to tee walks were good)
I think the cart paths throughout must be new -- they certainly looked new, and I noticed them every hole (unlike the other course where, I'm sure paths were there too, throughout, but I can hardly remember them)
And that said, the overall experience was different too -- the difference on the one hand between parking in the lot and walking with my clubs over my shoulder to the one floor pro-shop-club-house and cafeteria, where I easily found my way beforehand and grabbed an inexpensive burger afterwards, and on the other hand a club drop off area with a young person to take my clubs and a guide needed to navigate the various entrances over two floors and extra money for a nice but very sleek restaurant.
As I say, I do romanticize the past and certainly am mostly having some fun (at my expense too) with the old money-new money cliche; but I do feel more comfortable, when it comes to golf, with simpler things. The fancy things make me feel nervous, and out of place. 
At any rate, hope that gives you a picture/background to my thinking.
I have a rare Saturday work day, so am off now.
P

[Tim Martin]

Tim:
Oh, nothing that would surprise, or that surprised me, even though I'd never played that course before (ie before modernization):
the bunkers were larger and more uniform (than at the other course, and that seemed natural/original/necessary), and with the kind of sand that clearly wasn't from the site itself or from nearby - so different was it in texture and colour from the sand at any other course I play in the area
two bits of awkward routing, that, not surprisingly as I say, I was told were engendered by the creation of two new holes (to replace shorter, narrower ones), one a dog-leg Par 5 with the new retention pond on the left that reminded me of a finishing hole at Bay Hill
fairways that were greener, rough that was more lush
a set of new tee boxes further back (which didn't impinge, actually, since the course was clearly one intended to play from the tees we were playing from, and routed accordingly - so the green to tee walks were good)
I think the cart paths throughout must be new -- they certainly looked new, and I noticed them every hole (unlike the other course where, I'm sure paths were there too, throughout, but I can hardly remember them)
And that said, the overall experience was different too -- the difference on the one hand between parking in the lot and walking with my clubs over my shoulder to the one floor pro-shop-club-house and cafeteria, where I easily found my way beforehand and grabbed an inexpensive burger afterwards, and on the other hand a club drop off area with a young person to take my clubs and a guide needed to navigate the various entrances over two floors and extra money for a nice but very sleek restaurant.
As I say, I do romanticize the past and certainly am mostly having some fun (at my expense too) with the old money-new money cliche; but I do feel more comfortable, when it comes to golf, with simpler things. The fancy things make me feel nervous, and out of place. 
At any rate, hope that gives you a picture/background to my thinking.
I have a rare Saturday work day, so am off now.
P

Peter-Thanks for the thoughtful response. An interesting observation on the origin of sand and that it’s color and consistency is different from other area courses.

[Bernie Bell]

Adam, if I tweak your words a bit, do you still agree?  "Rather than accepting Golf as a sport, with random vagaries, the pampered require fairness and/or pristine conditions "worthy" golf architecture to facilitate the stroking of their egos.

[SL_Solow]

Peter,  In reading your paean to old money, I am reminded of the famous exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemmingway;


Fitzgerald,  "you know the rich are different than we are"


Hemmingway, "yes Scott, they have more money".


Generalizations about "good taste" are only that, mere generalizations.  Perhaps my bankruptcy practice and relatively humble beginnings have rendered me cynical, but I have seen plenty of good and bad examples at all levels of wealth regardless of when the wealth was obtained or lost.  I suspect much of the good taste found in older clubs relates to the nature of the facility as much as to when it was built.  Moreover, we have all commented on any number of golden age courses that were butchered by later generations, even those that remained dominated by "old" money.

[Peter Pallotta]

Yes, you make a valid point Shel.
And you use a perfect example to make it, especially effective for the likes of me.
The reason why Hemingway was a better writer than Fitzgerald was likely because the former kept it simple and concrete while the latter enjoyed too much the airy turn of phrase. 
You know me: I'm no Hemingway!

[Sean_A]

Yep that's why Cypress is so shitty.

One of the things I used to admire about Cypress Point was how ratty they would let the grass get between tee and fairway - like most "old money" clubs they spent the money on greens and fairways and not much else.


Nowadays that just won't do - it has to be perfect from wall to wall to live up to its top ten status (sigh).  They are probably dumping glyphosate in the dunes so nobody has to see a weed.

Yes, I know what you mean. One of the things which impressed me about Yeamans Hall was the hit and miss rough. I enjoy the uncertainty of the lie when far enough from the fairway, but usually keeping it on the side of tempting the player. However, sometimes, and between tees and fairways is a case in point, playability should take precedence if we are hoping to bring more women and into the game and retain the older generations.

Happy Hockey