THOUGHTS FOR THE PARK BOARD ON BLOWING UP THE THIRD NINE

REMARKS TO PARK BOARD/WRITTEN VERSION LEFT WITH BOARD 05/21/13 PUBLIC MEETING WITH  NGCA ECONOMIC STUDY

Mr. President, Commissioners and Mr. Executive Director, thank you for your service and your stewardship.

My name is Anthony Cameron. My address is 529 Hampshire St. I am here as a friend of Scotty Glasgow, a volunteer committeeperson for “the Scotty” and self-appointed counsel for all the youth and beginning golfers of the future. More on that in a minute.

Your third nine is a true treasure. When one finds oneself in possession of a treasure there is a resulting obligation to take care of, to make the most of it.

Let me tell you a brief story about your treasure. It was sometime between 1985 and 1988. I wish I could be more specific about the year.  I was on an airplane from Phoenix to St. Louis. There was a man a few rows behind me who looked very familiar. I thought I had seen his face in a golf magazine. When I got onto the commuter airline to shuttle to Quincy, he was on my flight. We talked. His name was Ed Ault. He was a golf course designer and he was going to Quincy to look at a golf hole that was an outstanding representation of a certain architecture style.  He intended to incorporate that style into a course he was building near Phoenix. The hole? Number 22, a perfect representation of the linksland “washboard” style of conflict without using linksland.

We live in an age of specialization. You have a monopoly on two very valuable things. First, you have the only freestanding nine hole public golf course in the immediate area. Anyone nearby who wants to play nine holes of public golf virtually must come and see you. Is it is an enviable position. Additionally, you have the only contiguous 27 hole facility for more than 100 miles.  No publicly owned facility in downstate Illinois can match your number of holes of availability.

If you were giving up that specialization to create something where you were literally without competition, that would be at least rational. This plan, however, seeks to build an executive course, within one mile of an existing and apparently successful executive course. It also seeks to build a practice facility within 1 mile of an existing and successful practice facility. The logic of tearing down a true monopoly to compete with a benevolent and successful local not-for-profit truly escapes me.

I am told that this decision is driven by a need for new revenue from this portion of the property. Understandably, you wish to increase revenue. To calculate whether anything will increase revenue, you would first have to have a mechanism by which you could know what revenues the third nine now brings in. When someone buys a hot dog, a dozen balls or a golf club, how do you know which nine accounted for that retail purchase? 

How do you know whether your marketing program has optimized the monopoly you have in the treasure that is your third nine? Most respectfully, I believe you are missing data to support any teardown of an existing, viable recreational facility.

Indeed, strongly marketing the third nine might resolve your revenue problem altogether. I’ll bet a lot of local kids would jump at the chance to play nine with a devil or raider varsity player. If a passholder kid could bring his non-passholder playmate out one time all day for two dollars or five dollars, you’d be making more golfers.

Scotty Glasgow always said that the way to succeed in the golf business is to “make more golfers.” My friend and PGA professional, Steve Cramblitt, in his homage to Scotty last Friday said “Scotty was the First Tee before there was a First Tee.”  The purpose of the back nine, as built, was to help “make more golfers.” In the final analysis more golfers in our area means more revenue for Westview.

The National Golf Foundation states that a so-called “core golfer” is a reliable source of revenue for local public courses. The definition of “core golfer,” is a modest one. A core golfer is simply someone who plays 8 or more rounds of golf per year. 

In the 70s and 80s, Quincy made core golfers by the dozen, largely through the inviting nature of the third nine. If that gateway to pleasurable golf is cut off, it can be virtually guaranteed that we will make core golfers at a much slower rate.

National Golf Foundation statistics are difficult for me to access because I am not a member. This much is clear: in every 15 year period there is a roughly five-year period of decline. The other approximately 10 years are growth. By that statistic, it would appear we are coming to the end of the period of decline, which began in approximately 2008. People will need places to play if there is to be growth. Take away golf holes and you don’t give the natural growth a place to happen.

What if you tear out the back nine and find there was and continues to be a need for those golf holes?  Baseline, it costs about a million dollars to build a nine-holer.  Do you really have enough data to make this decision?

Finally, we should focus on your core constituency here at Westview, your season pass holders. By and large they appreciate this place. They respect it. They replace divots and fixe ball marks. They are loyal to the continued success of Westview and are entitled to loyalty in return. Look at your own schedule on your webpage. There are 35 days listed entailing golf course unavailability or closure. Anyone who plays here regularly will tell you there will ultimately be for five more days that are not on the list on your web page but the course is closed for outings or some such. Right now, those passholders can still play golf. If you take out the back nine, you have taken those passholders off the golf course for more than 25% of the viable golf season. (Using 150 days for the golf season and 40 days of golf course closure). If you take that step, you have devalued the pass by about 30% but conditions will not allow you to reduce its purchase price by that much.

Leaving the third nine in and marketing it to “make golfers” yields a realistic business model to increase your revenues. Tearing out the third nine amounts to negative market-making. You will be creating an environment in which the market for your principal service, the enjoyment of golf, inevitably shrinks and shrinks because of conditions, you, the seller, created.

Thank you for the opportunity be heard.  I leave you my complete remarks in written form and a copy of the NGCA economic report on the prospects of golf rebounding.

"THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN REMOVED BY THE USER"

The studio version of the "Lonnie Dunn Traveling Salvation Show" has been taken down.

The group-grope is still up here.

Lonnie's part of the tribal chant starts up at 19:22 and runs a little past 21:30.  You can just slide the little bead to about 19:20.

Here's the part I don't understand, if one is proud of something like this, why would one take it down, once it has been called to the public's attention?

Your input would be appreciated.

Many of you are looking for my post on "The Scotty" tournament and Scott Glasgow in general.  It'll go up over the weekend.  This little tidbit preempted it.

LILLIPUTIANS IN THE SECOND TERM: GROWNUPS LONG TIME GONE.

Today, let's look at the IRS, AP and State Department controversies as symptoms.

Yes, I know that our Republican friends will say "Yeah, symptoms of democrats always being corrupt and overreaching."  If we take a historical look at all this, the second term of the Eisenhower administration gave birth to the military-industrial complex that Ike could caution us against but not do anything about.  The second term of of the Nixon Administration was a Plumbers' crack. (Yes, the apostrophe is in the correct place.)  The second term of the Reagan administration gave us a good guy losing his grasp and the Iran-Contra thuggery, coverup and other Meeses. (and I guess messes.)  The second term of the Clinton Administration gave us biological evidence and a president so toxic (at the time) that Al Gore (I believe incorrectly) ran away from him.  The second term of the Bush administration gave us endless war and the "Big Short".

Second term vaporlock is a bi-partisan disease.

Oh, there a lots of theories why.  The favorite seems to be that the legislative agenda becomes impossible as soon as the next election is in sight.  Some folks like the Hubris theory and some go big for the post-election exhaustion theory.  All have merit but I have my own special favorite.

All the grownups go home in the second term.  There is no buffer to the Valerie Jarretts and Oliver Norths.  You can tolerate overzealous and political amateur types when there are professionals in the building.  When the professionals go home and the kids become principal decision-makers you are in trouble.

Why would Clinton go get Dale Bumpers at the end if Cheryl Mills had everything under control?  Why did Baker have to come back for Reagan.  Why did it take so long for Bush to off Rumsfeld?

Getting grownups to join a second term effort is difficult.  Getting zealots and amateurs, full of piss and vinegar but lacking in judgment is easy.  Imbuing them with judgment and wisdom seems out of reach.

AP CAPER COMMENTARY: ARE YOU STUPID OR DO YOU THINK WE ARE?

OK, the DOJ subpoenaed a buttpile of phone contacts from a journalistic organization.  Conceded that's a big deal.  Conceded that the White House has butchered the response.  None of that is my point today.

ALL the networks are bringing on "experts" to describe the situation.  All the "experts" describe, in loving detail, how there exists this "tension" between the Press and the Government's prosecution arm.  Each and every one of them looks so proud of himself as he explains this tension, as if he is revealing one of the great mysteries of the universe.  In fact, they are explaining "Milk comes from cows."

Look, this is a "No shit, Sherlock." situation.  The tension has been in play since the Republic was founded.  The drafters acknowledged the tension by making the First Amendment, well, first.  Uh, guys, it's been around since 1791.  This conflict of doctrine was refined during Watergate.  There is nothing new under the sun.

The First Amendment is first because it addresses the most critical and easily anticipated problem.  The American people get that.  They do not Howie Kurtz, Larry Tribe or Jeanine Pirro to absorb that principle.

To the networks, I would say.  Get better experts.

CHIP

As one might expect from my age and military experience, I normally handle the whole death and the grieving thing relatively gracefully.

Not this time. So many really bright people have written so many insightful things about Parker/Chip/Tookie that I am ashamed to admit I could not even compose myself to attempt the task until my young friend was buried.

Understand at the outset that any close friend of Chip's explaining Chip would be something like Dr. Timothy Leary explaining an acid trip. Being close to him was unreal, too real and surreal all at once. He was, at once, brilliant and learning disabled, polite and crude, resolute and maddeningly indecisive, open and cautious, dedicated and distracted.  He was all of us--all of our good and not so good traits-- with the volume knob turned up.  And we loved him all the more for it.

He often told whomever would listen that he suffered from both dyslexia and ADHD. I have not even the foggiest notion where he got that diagnosis but how he reacted to it was instructive. He would bring me books that he had completed and say "I have to read five or six books a week or else my dyslexia and ADHD get worse. You read these and then I'll read them again and will discuss them." At the same time, we would both read statistical matters and his memory of what we had read would far exceed mine. I was skeptical about the whole dyslexia and ADHD thing.  On top of that, he would have a mature and well thought out interpretation of the stats we were reviewing.

It is true that his thought process would sometimes tire and his mind would go to some new shiny object, leaving our discussion someplace utterly unintended.

He knew I didn't care.

That he was somewhat easily distracted madeTwitter the perfect medium for him. In fact one of my first thoughts when I learned of his death was, selfishly, "there will ever be another SEC football game where I tweet my way through it with Chip." The very limitations of time and space imposed by twitter put it right into Chip's "sweet spot."  He was the Prince of the Twitterverse.

As I said earlier, it's impossible to describe the intensity of a close friendship with this man. I will just tell you two stories that capture a little bit of him and leave it at that.

In early 2002 we were working on a project together, we were either on the telephone or at my house every night. Predictably, we would get sidetracked with SEC football talk or local gossip or politics. Around the end of February, the intense work on the project was nearly completed. There was not nearly the constant need to meet or talk as much.

Almost on cue, I suffered a temporarily disabling illness. By March, I was hooked up to an IV and confined to a bed or couch. I kept my illness very quiet, being self-employed. About the second night of the whole ordeal, Chip shows up at my front door with the penultimate draft of our project and wants to discuss several very un-Chip things like font styles and margin sizes. The next night, the same thing. He literally wanted to discuss where to put the commas.  And so it continued for nearly 2 months, Chip thinking he was fooling me that his visits were business and not convalescent calls and me, appreciating his kindness but not letting him know I was aware of his benevolent ruse.  Chip cheering me up but leaving me my dignity and keeping my secret.  When it was over, we never spoke of it again.

The other incident happened in about 2008. We were in a public place and, by sheer chance, Chip witnessed two people that he really liked commit a drunken, gratuitous act of bigotry. He was also fond of the victims of this act of bigotry. He didn't hesitate in taking sides. He called out the bigoted action and let the offenders know in no uncertain terms that they needed to leave the victims alone. It was interesting to see how my old Sunday school pupil and ballplayer had, at some point, decided what his standards were and what kind of man he wanted to be. Aside from being a bit worried how I was going to have to pull him off of these guys, I was proud of him. When we talked about it a few days later, I told him his sense of justice was a credit to his mom and dad but that is conflict resolution skills could use a little improvement.  We both laughed.

There are 1 million ways to describe Chip, all comprehensively inadequate. All I know for sure is that it will be years before I stop reaching for the phone in an impulse to share with Chip the ironies of football, politics, the neighborhood, the business environment and the geist that surrounds the place where he lived and that he loved.

As I said on Twitter, and he is already inside the pearly gates because SEC guys go in the first round.

Too soon gone, Chipper.  Roll Tide!

OH, WAIT: JUST FOUND THIS SOIREE FROM "ONMYHONOR"

Again, no dispute with the BSA's right to keep its current policies and no quarrel with those who will withdraw from BSA if the policy changes.  Whatever gets one up in the morning.

But the arguments are instructive.

This is a 37 minute "I'll pretend to listen to you if  you'll pretend to listen to me" fest.  I suggest you watch some of it, especially the women, then slide to about minute 19-21:30 to see Mr. Dunn's less edited version.

To view the vid click here.

I am nearly speechless.

VIDEO: HONESTLY SOLICITING YOUR SERIOUS COMMENTS (Please read the preamble before you watch the vid.)

I understand the BSA is reconsidering their "closet gays only" policy and there has been a more permissive one circulated.  I understand that everyone, even a prospective public official, is entitled to personal views on this topic.  Certainly, most legal scholarship and case law supports the right of the BSA as an NGO to restrict its membership pretty much any way it wants.

Don't care to debate any of that here.  What I want to know--and please comment here rather than on FB or Twitter--your impressions, your reactions to what you see.  I do not want to argue about it, although I may later share mine.  I guess the  ultimate question is "how do you feel watching this?"

Click here to watch video (Just a bit more than two minutes).

Whether you feel the topic is the role of a scoutmaster, the rights of  NGOs, the speaker's grasp of adult sexual behavior or just "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?," please comment here, as opposed to in the social media. I seriously and earnestly want to here from anyone who will kindly share his or her views on this.

I know what Tookie would have said.

DOCTOR, I GET THESE TERRIBLE HEADACHES

Here is what is hurting my head today.  There are all these experts out there commenting on security protocols for diplomatic outposts.  Some of them could probably even pull Benghazi off a pin map.

That's fine.  I like to learn stuff from real experts.

But, if they are so expert in the protection of diplomatic personnel and missions, why are all their posts, statuses and comments Cut and Paste Jobs?