http://johnstrawn.com Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:37:45 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In the spring of 2007, I attended a tribute hosted by Colm Tóibín in honor of novelist John McGahern at the Irish Film Institute in Dublin. An enthusiastic audience watched a series of clips from films either written by McGahern or based on his stories, with commentary on each provided by Tóibín. Tóibín spoke of his recently deceased friend with generosity, admiration and affection. He recalled McGahern's anguish when a director asked him to doctor some ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/reviews/886/review-of-the-empty-family-by-colm-toibin "Bill Coore spends weeks tramping around a work site.  On a new project, his first task is to identify the easiest, most natural ways to move around the land, often guided by the paths that deer and other native animals have created."      John Paul Newport, The Wall Street Journal, “Zen and the Art of Golf Course Design,” April 7, 2012.     When we hired him, Bambi knew nothing about golf.  Like a lot of child actors, he’d knocked ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/golf/871/bambi-and-the-art-of-golf-course-design-an-appreciation Arcadia, by Lauren Groff.  Hyperion, March 13, 2012.  304 pages, $25.99. When I was in graduate school at the University of Rochester in the late sixties, the embers of the Second Great Awakening were still smoldering to ash in upstate New York.  Known as the burned-over district because it was aflame with religious fervor, western New York in the first half of the 19th century was as thick with prophets as the eastern Mediterranean had been ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/reviews/856/a-review-of-arcadia-a-novel-by-lauren-goff The Clicgear Cart is, as its website says, “the original compact three-wheel  golf pushcart.”   The Clicgear Cart won the 2007 Best New Product Award at the PGA Merchandise Show, providing a terrific promotional boost.  The cart has great word of mouth, too.  Two of my regular playing partners swear by it, in part because it’s easier to push a cart than to pull one, and we’re all dedicated walkers.   Setting up the cart ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/golf/equipment/843/the-clicgear-three-wheeled-golf-cart China Daily reported in 2010 that Beijing’s population had reached twenty-two million people. (Eight to nine million of these are “non-permanent residents.”) City planners hope to cap Beijing’s size at eighteen million, but that seems implausible—how do you shrink a city that’s already a magnet for every ambitious person in a country of 1.3 billion? Beijing sprawls across 6,489.5 sq miles, which means, according to Wikipedia, that its land area is slightly larger than the country ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/golf/courses-and-travel/831/lost-and-found-in-beijing The Golf Road Warriors launched our Palm Springs campaign with a round at the Classic Club, an Arnold Palmer-designed course that opened in 2005 and was a co-host of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic from 2006-2008.  Why its lush fairways are no longer stalked by the big boys from the PGA Tour, despite the course having been created specifically for the purpose of hosting the Hope, is a cautionary tale about who wields real power ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/golf/823/the-classic-club-a-coachella-valley-gem-you-can-play Indian Wells. Indian Wells Golf Resort Anthony Holder is the Head Golf Professional at the Indian Wells Golf Resort, where the Golf Road Warriors played on Saturday, February 25, the penultimate day of the Warriors’ 2012 Palm Springs swing.  Anthony joined the Warriors for our round at Indian Wells’ Players Course, and it was my good fortune to share a cart with him.   Not only did I get to witness some exceptionally fine golf, with booming tee ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/golf/equipment/808/learning-from-golfs-leading-professionals-in-the-coachella-valley The Clean Uncluttered Lines of Midcentury Modern The Palm Springs Golf Road Warriors bivouacked at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa tonight, resting before they launch their assault on the Coachella Valley’s golf courses tomorrow.   Jeff Wallach and I did some early reconnaissance today at the Desert Springs Resort’s Palms Course, designed by the late Ted Robinson in the mid-1980s.   The course has all of the characteristics of Robinson’s style, most notably the hard ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/golf/804/golf-road-warriors-bivouac-in-palm-springs Willie Nelson's anthem keeps cycling through my brain as I wrap up my preparations for the Golf Road Warriors' trip to Palm Springs next week, February 21-27.  "I just can't wait to get on the road again!"   I'm not unaccustomed to traveling, but most of my journeys over the last twenty years have been strictly for business.  I've flown a couple of million miles, but  I haven't felt so excited and eager about anything since I was getting ready ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/golf/equipment/789/just-cant-wait-to-get-on-the-road-again Economists have discovered over the last several decades that a whole lot more than simple financial self-interest drives our decision making.    Freakonomics is the name Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner coined to describe this new field in a popular book explaining some of their findings.  Classical economics assumed that people always made rational choices, while the modern behavioral economists have discovered that people make decisions for all sorts of irrational reasons, even when they believe ... ]]> http://johnstrawn.com/golf/golf/776/using-incentives-to-remove-the-curse-of-slow-play-a-modest-proposal-and-a-contest