I didn’t want to hijack JC’s thread so moved over here to ramble. It has been a bizarre week. I have lived through tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes. I had heard the term derecho before, but they happened to other people. People in the Serengeti, Gobi and Scottsdale.
JC’s thread got me thinking about ratings and restorations as well as the restorative powers of a great GCA effort, new and used.
Unless you have lived the nightmare, it is a reach to say a course can’t make a massive Doak Scale jump. Before we started our Cedar Rapids restoration, we were a Doak 3, at best. That was at high noon on a sunny day where you could see a green or two through the trees. Fairways had fungus, tree roots were popping in greens, and we had every bunker style from around the world. If we could grow cactus in Iowa, we would have planted a Saguaro in a flashed up revetted lions mouth pot bunker. (Horrible image isn’t it. It’s my job. I’m sure to get a PM from Adam Lawrence about it.)
The Prichard restoration delivered a new course from that sh-t show.
Did we want the world to see it? Hell yes because we wanted new members, and events, and people to enjoy it. The folks on this very board came and celebrated the work and even helped other area courses receive worthy recognition. This very Mashie crew and Rater/Panel affiliated friends are the flashpoint that ignited the Davenport CC recognition. DCC is far from cynical. They are profoundly grateful, respectfully proud, and remind me and every GCA visitor every visit. The Ross Society recently visited that non-Ross Colt and Alison gem deftly resurrected by Forse and Nagle.
Do I feel bad if a drone made CRCC look pretty? Please. You would be a fool to ask me that question. If you don’t agree celebration of great golf architecture is a good thing, you are in the wrong room here.
We loved the shot values and strategies master planned and unearthed by Prichard and Rae.
Full tee sheets, guest requests and laughter all over the course.
I have zero guilt trying to get GCA friends and top drone jockeys to come by. None. Yes we love the lists. Absolutely. It was like being the only male invited to the hot girl’s Victoria’s Secret house party.
But by far, the absolute best part was hosting GCA literate pals and gals and playing the course with them as we celebrated our shiny new house.
Augusta, Shinny, or CPC may not care but it made us smile. We fully appreciated the ability to share our great restoration and fantastic golf fortunes.
And to that end, I can’t wait to make Andrew Lewis sneak me around the Beverly COVID protection cone. (And I need a place to play lol)
That brings me to this. Sadly and ironically, thanks to a hurricane strength derecho, we are about to have to do it all over again. We lost much of that work and strategy in that storm. It is mind numbing, but we are already getting busy because this time, we know what we lost and is well worth an aggressive effort to resto-reclaim it. Beyond a doubt.
You can bet your trackpad I’m going to invite every GCA friend that cares when it’s done. And I will have zero shame inviting friends with drone skills and wordsmith talents to come play and actively re-celebrate great golf architecture.
If you step back and look beyond the cynicism, in some places, great GCA can change lives like it has at East Lake. Sand Valley, a place that was previously the second poorest county in the state of Wisconsin, now hums with jobs and tourism. A NLU AirBnb house at Sweetens Cove? ridiculous... and sold out. In the last ten years, Whistling/Kohler , Erin Hills, SandValley, Sentry World and Lawsonia have made Wisconsin worthy of an annual week of public golf, or more. People making special trips to Soule Park, Lawsonia, Goat Hill and Winter Park. That is emotional and economic development based on better golf architecture.
Being cynical is fun but so are sold out tee times during a pandemic. Perspective. Plus if hyped places really sucked, the hype ultimately drowns the victim. If you don’t celebrate good work don’t be surprised by the solitude.
I respect that some are irked by course campaigns. Hype can be unseemly.
But don’t get confused. The evangelism of great golf architecture is why this group exists.
We are that very collection of folks many fear getting stuck sitting next to at the 19th hole bar.
“Vaughn, For f—s sake, we get it, we still have too many trees.”
That was until last week. Now we have almost none.