Reply To: Course Concerns

[David Baker]

Good afternoon to all ladies and gentlemen. We are one day closer and I believe that we all are motivated and excited by the course draw. It is after that the excitement is dampened when you see a course that you played last year that was subpar. And yes, we all play the same course, but I don’t think that is a good way to explain away a subpar course. This a premier event, at least marketed that way by the WA. Parallels have been drawn about the business plan that the WA uses, it is a down week and the WA brings people that results in economic benefit to the community. It would seem to me, in my humble opinion, that good course conditions would result in a higher turn out. The first year I played we had 5,000 participants. The sandbagging was so bad that people quit coming, The WA has done a good job of cleaning that up and people are coming back. I think all arguments have merit but in my opinion the WA really doesn’t care about our opinions. We complain but keep coming back. Why is that? Well for me it is the people that I have met over the years. I have made many good friends with people I would never have met, if not for the WA. In that group I consider many of the WA people who are really good people. Jeff Monday and I had many disagreements about things but I consider him a great friend and genuinely good person. Bottom line I like coming to the WA subpar course or not.