In My Opinion Listen to the dinosaur


The experience, knowledge and wisdom of longtime golf industry veterans is often overlooked as a valuable resource of information.


didn’t. It was because I played with James Dodson, an author and golf writer who had long been a favorite of mine, even before we met on that beautiful spring day in Pinehurst. As someone who was still relatively new to the golf writing world,


A


it was incredible to get insight and knowledge from a man who was a columnist at Golf Magazine for almost twenty years and has authored ten books, including my favorite, Final Rounds. As we made our way through the front-nine, we chatted about so many different topics, but most of them came back to golf. We reminisced about the game we both loved and felt so lucky to have been exposed to when we were young. We talked about the grand, old resorts that our dads had taken us to play when we were young golfers and we wondered when those resorts went from affordable to off-the-charts expensive. We talked about the powerful modern player of today and the old-school, shot making heroes that we grew up admiring. When we made the turn the topic moved to Arnold Palmer. Jim knew


The King well, having helped Palmer write his autobiography titled A Golfer’s Life in 1999. We both admired the way Palmer personally touched so many fans through the years with his sincere appreciation for their support. Jim compared Palmer to a few of today’s stars who for some reason walk with their heads down, ignoring requests for autographs. Palmer just didn’t do that. Jim’s opinions and keen perceptiveness on where the game was heading


were spot on and powerful. After one of our exchanges, in which we probably convinced ourselves


that we solved all the problems of the golf world, Jim closed his thought by saying,“but what do I know, I’m just an old dinosaur.” A dinosaur with a wealth of knowledge. The kind of guy the game of


golf should utilize when searching for ways to grow the game. A guy like Barney Adams. Adams was a featured speaker at a golf symposium I attended shortly after my round of golf with Jim Dodson. He was the founder of Adams Golf who developed a popular club that went viral in the mid-1990’s called the Adams Tight Lies. But Adams, who retired as chairman of Adams Golf in 2012 after Taylor-Made Adidas purchased the company, wasn’t at the symposium to talk about club manufacturing. He was there to share knowledge on why the game of golf—which he had loved since his caddie days as a young boy near Syracuse, New York—was losing participants. Like Dodson, Adams spoke in a simple but eloquent style that was


captivating to the audience. His golf I.Q. was off the charts. While golf course owners and industry executives were paying lots of


10 Virginia Golf Report • Spring 2015 • virginiagolfreport.com


couple of years ago, I experienced one of my most memorable rounds of golf. Not because I shot a great round—trust me, I


money to consultants, hoping they could “look outside the box” for ways to grow the game, Adams was looking at the actual problems that were causing golfers to abandon a game they once loved to play. “Golf is no fun,” said Adams at the symposium, alluding to the length


of modern-day golf courses. “Who wants to torture themselves by hitting three-woods and hybrids into every green? ” His solution—playing from the correct tees—turned into a phrase that both the USGA and PGA of America would later adopt as a growing the game initiative: “Tee it Forward”. It didn’t come from Madison Avenue. It came from a guy who had been around the game his entire life. A guy who closed out one of his many important messages that day with a “but what do I know, I’m just an old club-maker.” Golf instruction is another part of the game where the old-school professional doesn’t get enough respect. No video camera or Trackman? Move aside grandpa, technology is taking over the game. According to a few high-profile self-promoting instructors, if a player doesn’t have all his “numbers” synced up, he can’t possibly compete at the highest level. It’s amazing that a guy like Jack Nicklaus was able to win 18 major


championships without all of this information; without an entourage and support team? How could he have played so well, all of those years, using the same old club professional—Jack Grout—who taught him how to play when he was a kid? When Tiger Woods lost confidence in his swing and instructor Sean


Foley, a couple of Hall of Fame members, Gary Player and Lee Trevino, went on record as saying they could help Tiger. They didn’t want to talk to Tiger about his swing. They wanted to share their wisdom. “I would love to sit down with him for one hour and give him a piece


of my knowledge,” Player told Yahoo’s Graham Bensinger during a recent interview.


Any response from Tiger or his handlers? Not yet. Hopefully Player


and Trevino are not holding their breath. Could they help Tiger? Who knows. But what’s the harm in showing a couple of legends in the game a little respect? I know times have changed and the world is moving faster than ever.


Technology is sometimes hard to keep up with, especially for some of us who didn’t grow up in the computer generation. But there has to be value in good-old-fashioned experience, knowledge and wisdom, stuff that can’t be found by doing a Google search. Golf is a game built on respect and tradition. Sometimes the answer to complex issues and problems, like growing the game, or trying to get back to winning ways, can be found in those values. Just ask a dinosaur.


Patrick K. Kane, Editor


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36