Saturday, November 6, 2010
18 Holes, Par 71, 850 Miles: The World's Longest Golf Course
18 Holes, Par 71, 850 Miles: The World's Longest Golf Course: "Pack your sticks, sleeping bag and snake traps. Nullarbor links isn't just crazy long -- it's routed through a fearsome and forsaken swatch of the Australian outback."
Best New Courses of 2010
Best New Courses of 2010: "Ron Whitten, Golf Digest architecture editor and course-design critic, discovers the spectacular and the unusual (including the golf hole of the year)."
What Changes Should Course Designers Make for the 21st Century?
What Changes Should Course Designers Make for the 21st Century?: "
Driving in the the office today, I caught a bit of Matt Adam's "Fairways of Life" program, and on it, he talked about how golf course designers are going to have to do more than make new courses longer and longer to accomodate evolving golf equipment. In other words, courses need more features that challenge a player than a requirement to sling three hundred yard arrows into a given fairway in order to have a good chance to score.
Good point. In my opinion, the best courses have challenges for players of all levels - scratch, low, mid, even high handicappers are confronted with tasks that are suitable for their ability - and have varied and interesting holes. It could be a requirement to shape a shot a certain way, for example, something a scratch player can usually do with ease, while a mid-handicapper might find that task quite challenging. A scratch player might be confronted with a need for precision approach shots over hazards to get into an optimal place to putt, for another. In short, there's a myriad of ways to make a golf courses challenging and fun for everyone...and that's what the great designers do.
Clearly, there's a need for change, but thoughtful and good change.
Writer and course designer Geoff Shackelford also took up the same subject recently on his site. Geoff has some provocative opinions about course design, and he's more than willing to share them. When he says
[G]olf architects have shown almost no daring or creativity since the Golden Age of the 1920's.
he has a point. A lot of courses built since the 1920's or 1930's tend to be cookie-cutter and ultimately very similar.
At the same time, I am not sure that I agree completely with that statement, after all, I live a mere fifteen miles from the Mike Strantz monster known as Tobacco Road. Opened in 1998, "The Road" (as we call it here in central NC) is a unique, challenging, confounding and damnable course that truly requires every club in the bag, plenty of local knowledge and lots of derring-do -- if you want to achieve whatever your normal score is. It's not your run-of-the-mill Donald Ross course (Tobacco Road is surrounded by them) instead, it's something that's completely unique and original. Strantz was a man unafraid to break the mold, and there are two examples of his work within an easy drive of my house. Unfortunately, cancer claimed Strantz at too young an age, cutting short a promising career.
So while Geoff is generally correct, I think that there are specific courses that have recently been built that have modern sensibilities already incorporated into them, but that they are few and far between. Golf is evolving, as it always has, and it will continue to do so. Courses must be part of that evolution, and that's something that courses designers today and from now on really need to think about if they want their creations to last the test of time and be well respected, say, in the 22nd century.
The whole issue begs the question: if you were a course designer, what would you put into your course to make it modern and challenging, all the while staying friendly and welcoming? Here's one minor thing I would do: build two sets of junior teeboxes that young players could use, and not rely on plaques in the middle of the fairway; one set for older jumiors, the other for the little kids who are learning the game.
I'm sure that there are a lot more things that can be done. Thoughts?
"Woods’ PGA Tour season ending on a sour note
Woods’ PGA Tour season ending on a sour note: "Tiger Woods shot a third-round 73 to fall 11 strokes behind Francesco Molinari at the WGC-HSBC Champions."
Sunday, November 29, 2009
TW The Man, TW The Brand
(warning - this is just a rant on the PR and marketing side of the recent Tiger Woods car accident and spin mill that is flying, still out of control after 3-4 days)
Perhaps the deepest lasting impact of the Tiger crash news explosion is that we've lost trust in Tiger Woods the brand. I remain an enormous fan of his golf ability. I can't imagine that ever changing. But TW the brand has been severely damaged by his lack of talent in how he's communicated to his fanbase.
Tiger the man is entitled to all the privacy he wants, demands, and that the constitution will allow him. We all have the power of free will, of choice, and we live with the consequences of those decisions.
Tiger the brand had another mis-hit with today's poorly worded statement. A combo of bad timing and off center messaging produced more bad results. The 3 main constituents for TW the brand are his fanbase, his sponsors, and the media. This 3 some creates an ecosystem that drives that part of his business and rev streams. The ecosystem wants to know "why" and "how" and until we do this story will just not go away.
We want to know this, and feel we deserve it because what has transpired so clearly does not fit the brand we've been overtly sold and bought into all these years.
This incident has peeled back the curtain on how little respect and affection the brand of Tiger has for his audience ecosystem. That surprises the hell out of me and that makes me a little angry at him and at me. I may be even more surprised that I am this surprised.
When a brand loses respect for its fans, and shows it so clearly it puts all its equity at risk. That's just horrific business management.
Its a shame really. A little humility, transparency, and authenticity would go so far in a time like this. This ain't rocket science. And we don't expect to hear all the details. But when TW clamps down and goes into the control defense the full ecosystem smells blood and reacts, careening into assumptions and innuendo. We lose trust.
We lose trust. You lose credibility. That's huge. That costs a lot of money.
Important sidenote: This event caused me to really internalize his quote about why he loves to go scuba diving: "because the fish don't ask for autographs". When I first heard that I figured he was kidding and being flippant and yet now I pretty much believe that this sums it up. TW has an astonishing lack of respect and affection for the engine that drives his brand: his fans, his sponsors, and the media. He doesn't get it.
Get with it TW. You went to Stanford. You're supposed to be smart. We feel a little bit like you hoodwinked us and we hate that. It isn't too late. Time to get a few new caddies on the biz front and open up a bit. Communicate to your fans with some level of apparent sincerity. Punch it back in the fairway and grind it out, take the medicine.
this could be a great opportunity
Perhaps the deepest lasting impact of the Tiger crash news explosion is that we've lost trust in Tiger Woods the brand. I remain an enormous fan of his golf ability. I can't imagine that ever changing. But TW the brand has been severely damaged by his lack of talent in how he's communicated to his fanbase.
Tiger the man is entitled to all the privacy he wants, demands, and that the constitution will allow him. We all have the power of free will, of choice, and we live with the consequences of those decisions.
Tiger the brand had another mis-hit with today's poorly worded statement. A combo of bad timing and off center messaging produced more bad results. The 3 main constituents for TW the brand are his fanbase, his sponsors, and the media. This 3 some creates an ecosystem that drives that part of his business and rev streams. The ecosystem wants to know "why" and "how" and until we do this story will just not go away.
We want to know this, and feel we deserve it because what has transpired so clearly does not fit the brand we've been overtly sold and bought into all these years.
This incident has peeled back the curtain on how little respect and affection the brand of Tiger has for his audience ecosystem. That surprises the hell out of me and that makes me a little angry at him and at me. I may be even more surprised that I am this surprised.
When a brand loses respect for its fans, and shows it so clearly it puts all its equity at risk. That's just horrific business management.
Its a shame really. A little humility, transparency, and authenticity would go so far in a time like this. This ain't rocket science. And we don't expect to hear all the details. But when TW clamps down and goes into the control defense the full ecosystem smells blood and reacts, careening into assumptions and innuendo. We lose trust.
We lose trust. You lose credibility. That's huge. That costs a lot of money.
Important sidenote: This event caused me to really internalize his quote about why he loves to go scuba diving: "because the fish don't ask for autographs". When I first heard that I figured he was kidding and being flippant and yet now I pretty much believe that this sums it up. TW has an astonishing lack of respect and affection for the engine that drives his brand: his fans, his sponsors, and the media. He doesn't get it.
Get with it TW. You went to Stanford. You're supposed to be smart. We feel a little bit like you hoodwinked us and we hate that. It isn't too late. Time to get a few new caddies on the biz front and open up a bit. Communicate to your fans with some level of apparent sincerity. Punch it back in the fairway and grind it out, take the medicine.
this could be a great opportunity
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Confessions of a TV Golf Addict - WSJ.com
Check out this great article from a fellow addict at the Wall Street Journal
Confessions of a TV Golf Addict - WSJ.com
Confessions of a TV Golf Addict - WSJ.com
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