Fantastic rebuttal of Gladwell (whom I normally enjoy) and a pragmatic response re green spaces. I agree LA’s private club scene is unique and a poor foundation for extrapolation. Talk about unsustainable! But is that golf in its truest form? Of course not.
If Augusta represents the zenith of American, unnatural, and exclusive golf, is St Andrews the other end of the spectrum? I think of the traditions of golf as far more palatable to the general public than the way it is played here. There’s no better representation than the Home of Golf.
Can you imagine if AGNC was open one day a week for people to…walk their dogs? The game should find a middle way by returning to its roots, where it can.
Palmer Park GC in Detroit is now an “Exploration and Nature Center”. I drive by it all the time and I rarely see more than one car in parking lot, and have never seen anyone exploring the grass field where the golf course existed. I think something is not quite matching with the perceived wants and needs of the community and the actual wants and needs. I could see turning a course into public green space working in other areas but it’s clear that there is not much of an appetite in the city.
I've seen the People for Palmer Park nonprofit while researching the area, and it seems like they were quite active right after the initial closing of the golf course. At least in regards to their own updates, it looks like their activity has fallen off over the last few years. I can only surmise that the easiest transformations of the park were tackled first, and now they are running into a lack of funding for their grander visions. This to me is why an important argument in favor of golf is that it's one of the few ways to make significant revenue off of green space. It seems like for that space on the far northeast of the park, at least, some kind of golf/shared use green space could benefit the entire park as a whole. Preserving the old growth forest in the park seems like a worthwhile endeavor that the golf proceeds could help with.
Fantastic rebuttal of Gladwell (whom I normally enjoy) and a pragmatic response re green spaces. I agree LA’s private club scene is unique and a poor foundation for extrapolation. Talk about unsustainable! But is that golf in its truest form? Of course not.
If Augusta represents the zenith of American, unnatural, and exclusive golf, is St Andrews the other end of the spectrum? I think of the traditions of golf as far more palatable to the general public than the way it is played here. There’s no better representation than the Home of Golf.
Can you imagine if AGNC was open one day a week for people to…walk their dogs? The game should find a middle way by returning to its roots, where it can.
Many good points.
Palmer Park GC in Detroit is now an “Exploration and Nature Center”. I drive by it all the time and I rarely see more than one car in parking lot, and have never seen anyone exploring the grass field where the golf course existed. I think something is not quite matching with the perceived wants and needs of the community and the actual wants and needs. I could see turning a course into public green space working in other areas but it’s clear that there is not much of an appetite in the city.
I've seen the People for Palmer Park nonprofit while researching the area, and it seems like they were quite active right after the initial closing of the golf course. At least in regards to their own updates, it looks like their activity has fallen off over the last few years. I can only surmise that the easiest transformations of the park were tackled first, and now they are running into a lack of funding for their grander visions. This to me is why an important argument in favor of golf is that it's one of the few ways to make significant revenue off of green space. It seems like for that space on the far northeast of the park, at least, some kind of golf/shared use green space could benefit the entire park as a whole. Preserving the old growth forest in the park seems like a worthwhile endeavor that the golf proceeds could help with.