Quote:
Originally Posted by BeerMoney
I mean, I respect who ever it is that puts the money up for some of these places, but does it make any of you secretly happy that some of them are going busto? I mean, a place charges like $300/round, should I feel bad if it goes busto? Or they wanna be all snotty and exclusive..
I don't want to see anybody go out of business. However, the economic downturn could have some beneficial results. Golf has gotten too expensive, too slow, too far from its roots. It is more than OK to play a cheap course with 8 clubs on foot. In fact, it is a better form of the game than that played at many over manicured, over built, over the top courses. A brown patch is OK. Doing without the fake waterfall is an improvement. Firm turf is good. greens that are shaggy by the standards of tour prima donnas are fine.
Golf course architecture will, fortunately, change some. Hopefully guys like Doak and Coore/Crenshaw should get some work, and hopefully their courses won't be bull dozed/ go busto.
People have lost perspective and valued things that didn't matter much. Like the color of sand in the bunkers or insisting that fairways get mowed to make a nice pattern. The simplicity and fun got left out. For those who had fun playing as a kid, will you have more fun at a mediocre design expensive upscale public course than you did playing at a crappy municipal course carrying your cheap bag and using mismatched clubs? Not saying you have to go get some lousy clubs, but the fun in golf is not always tied to price. You can have fun even if you get a bad lie sometimes. It is part of the game and OK. You don't need a new driver every year. You don't need everything perfect.
That doesn't mean I don't like a nice course, and I don't play a muni as my main course anymore. But things in golf got out of whack. Scaling back some could bring more players in, which golf needs. If the economic downturn hits the lower level of courses too hard though, we will have some bigger problems.