Imagine my shock on Wednesday afternoon when I logged into my favorite sports-based website -- which also happens to be my favorite current employer -- and found an abomination of an article plastered across our “Golf” section (helpfully located at SBNation dot golf slash putt). What was this abomination, you ask? Well, shut up a minute and I’ll tell you.
‘Jon’s Golf Course’ is a terrible idea
On Wednesday, Jon Bois laid out his plans for a golf course. Don’t quit your day job, Jon!
Bill Hanstock is a writer, author and Emmy Award-winning producer. He began writing for SB Nation in 2011.
The abomination in question was an article written by one Jon Bois, outlining his plans for a golf course, replete with the laughable name “Jon’s Golf Course.”
Jon, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that you had never watched a game of golf in your life. In fact, your list of “qualifications” sound more like you’ve only ever heard of golf via third-hand information -- “golf” as interpreted by the popular children’s game “Telephone!” Your supposition that you “would have arrived at the idea” of one of the most hallowed golf quotes of all time (which you misquoted, by the way -- the full expression is “Golf is a good walk, played badly”) only shows that you are a braggart of the highest order -- possibly bordering on sociopathy. This is far from a “qualification” to open up a golf course. I scoffed so hard I nearly fell over.
Just to make sure I was coming at this from the right angles (something that you failed to do time and again in your egotistical ramblings), I took the time to check out your ACTUAL bona fides by researching you on the Internet. What are you ACTUALLY qualified to do, Jon? It seems to me the extent of your expertise is limited to:
- “Reporting” when someone runs onto a baseball field (would someone tell me how this counts as “news” exactly?)
- Using publicly-posted photographs to perhaps mock strangers on the Internet? (I’ll admit it: I don’t get the joke.)
- Breaching national security, apparently
Sorry, but I just don’t see how these ... attributes make you qualified for the most respected profession in America: creating and owning a golf course. I mean, just look at this so-called “course map”:
What the heck is this supposed to be? Please tell me, Jon, because it certainly doesn’t look like any golf course with which I am familiar. (And please don’t doubt my expertise on the matter, because I have been to upwards of five golf courses all over the great state of California and have watched golf played on literally TENS of golf courses via my television screen.) It looks like you disassembled one of those wooden die-cut first-grade puzzles of the United States and arranged the pieces haphazardly next to rudimentary drawings of a ruler and a book. Why wouldn’t you even use the “line” tool instead of drawing the edges of your “clubhouse” freehandstyle?
Good luck showing that “art” to any respectable golf club developer, Jon. They’ll laugh you right out of the room -- that is, if they don’t call “security” to give you a good working-over beforehand! Golf is serious business and is run by serious people, Jon. It’s clear that you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into -- in more ways than one.
Further, only three course rules? Are proper golf shoes required to play on your course, Jon? Are CLOTHES? What are the course rules for “playing through”? Is it just anarchy on your course, with everyone hitting their balls every which-way willy-nilly? Thank goodness you took the time to ban arson, since you’re going to be neck-deep in naked “punk rockers” flinging bricks and not replacing their divots!
Also, your plans for the clubhouse bar and grill include only two items (three if I’m planning on being charitable and counting the free peanuts) and no hard liquor. Pardon me, but this will simply not fly among discerning golfers. Of course, no discerning golfers would think of patronizing a golf course as shabbily-run as yours is shaping up to be. You seem to be more concerned with a slogan for your course than with making sure it’s a world-class establishment. You think Walt Disney was content to put up a hot dog cart after he came up with “The Happiest Place on Earth?” No, Jon, he was not. He made a little place you may have heard of ... place called Disneyland. It’s the happiest place on Earth.
I’m sorry, Jon. But your golf course appears doomed to be a failure before it’s even begun. I only hope that an unscrupulous bank has not already given you a sizable loan, knowing full well that you’ll never be able to pay them back and will soon be destitute because of your catastrophic attempt at sticking your toe in the shark-infested waters dominated by Big Golf Course.
I’m sorry, Jon. But someone had to say it.
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