Southside Golf Course Vandalized.

If you read the post title to mean that Dan Vandal had a killer round of golf, then I'm sorry to mislead you. What I mean is that the Southside Golf Course has been damaged by vandals.

Late Thursday night, fools in a GMC Sierra pickup truck drove on to the golf course and spun circles on four of the greens doing substantial damage. Holes 1, 7 and 8 all have damage on large portions of the greens, but they remain playable in parts. The green for hole number 3 is in very bad shape and cannot be used at all. A temporary green has been set up for players.

A GMC Sierra was seen on the golf course, and later was found burned out a few miles away. The torched truck turned out to be stolen, but the culprits have not yet been caught. I suppose joy riding a stolen vehicle on a golf course is safer than joy riding it on Portage Avenue, but the completely senseless destruction of private property is still very aggravating.

In some ways it's fortunate that this occurred late in the season. The man I spoke to at the club house ... I can't remember his name ... (I would suck so bad as a reporter) said that three of the four greens could be brought back to reasonable shape by next season. The green for hole 3, however, is more problematic. "We're looking at our options" he said.

The rest of the golf course is still in good condition, and green fees have been discounted by $6 to compensate for the damage.

Cherenkov reporting for Anybody Want A Peanut.

Winnipeg's golf courses: Wrap up

Previous posts:
overview
action items: part I
action items: part II

In the current state of affairs, the City of Winnipeg owns 12 golf course complexes, under 5 different management systems, with losses of $1 million per year and increasing.


My goals are:
1) stop the downward spiral of massive losses, and hopefully make golf a break-even proposition for the City
2) improve the quality of public golf in and around Winnipeg
3) increase public green space
4) increase urban density

Some of these goals may seem contradictory. It may sound like I'm asking for too much, but hey ... shoot for the stars.

So of the city's 12 golf courses:


My grand plan scraps 5 of them:


Three of those are definitely obsolete money losers. Both Kildonan and Windsor Park require $1.5 million in upgrades just to get back to the condition they should be in, according to the study done for the city. Even then, their layouts and amenities are substandard. Ditto for Canoe Club, which has deferred capital requirements of $775,000. This alone will go a long way towards stemming the losses of Winnipeg Golf Services.

I feel kind of bad about blowing up St.Boniface, but it was sacrificed because of it's potential for excellent river-side green space and infill development, in conjunction with neighboring Windsor Park.

My arm could be twisted enough to spare Wildewood as well, since reports are that it's a nice little track. But if so, then the nearby Canoe Club should be scrapped and Wildewood should be sold to a private golf course operator. In fact, that's probably the better option. Maybe the nordic spa can purchase land next to Wildewood instead of Canoe Club.

So either Canoe Club or Wildewood -- whichever one we're keeping -- should be privatized. Also, Blumberg:


Which leaves 5 public courses, one for each quadrant of the city, plus Harbour View, which is a beginner par 3 course:


For more on the logic, or lack thereof, behind these decisions, please review the previous two posts. There are some very good comments in those posts as well.

5 courses is a reasonable number for a city to own. Much more reasonable than 12. Some might say that 0 is the only reasonable number, but that's a big leap from where we are. Now, if the city is going to own courses, it should not run the courses. The city has done a lousy job with the courses that it currently operates and maintains. Farm out the responsibility to a third party, complete with service level objectives and penalties for letting service or course condition slide.

How does this accomplish my objectives?
1) big money-losing courses are gone, replaced partly with development that will generate greater property tax revenue. The remaining courses should have decent attendance.
3) yes, green space does increase. A golf course is not "green space", depending on your definition. Green space to me is free public space that anybody can access any time. That is not the case for a golf course. I'm convinced that many people who are fighting to 'keep the golf courses as green space' are more concerned about losing their view than having actual space to picnic and frolic in the grass. My plan increases actual green space along the Seine River, up by Kildonan Park, and little bit in Wildewood.
4) new houses will be built somewhere. You can either build out and decrease density, or you can use space available within the city and increase density. Perhaps some of this golf course space can fill our need for new units until that Kapyong Barracks fiasco gets sorted out.

See, there you go! Oh right .. I forgot number 2.

2) As a golfer, I have a direct stake in the golf environment here in Winnipeg. There are indeed some sacrifices here, but in the end, of the 5 courses that were scrapped only two were public, and those were inevitable. Meanwhile, my plan calls for two previously semi-private courses to be made public, both of which are far better quality than the two that were scrapped. Public golf will actually improve.

The big losers are the patrons of the semi-private courses. However there are several very good private courses around that people could become members at if they have the dough. I have heard that some of these aren't doing great and could use new members. As well, I am hopeful that the loss of some of these marginal courses in the city will be mitigated by new courses springing up just outside the city. It is possible that golf course developers are spooked by the large quantity of city-owned courses.

So there you go. Whew. That was a long fours posts. Time for me to sit back, relax, and sip on a fine single malt as I watch the smart people at city hall spring into action implementing everything I wrote.

Winnipeg's Golf Courses: Action Items Part II

To recap Part I:

• sell Crescent Drive golf course
• destroy Windsor Park, Kildonan Park, and St.Boniface golf courses
• preserve river banks as park space, develop the rest as residential

Onward ...

4) Destroy the Canoe Club

Much like Windsor Park and Kildonan Park, the Canoe Club is an obsolete golf course. It is only 9 holes, and it is split clean in half by a major road, leaving two small but separate parcels of land.


Parcel 1: This is easily accessible by road. In fact Glenlawn Avenue comes to a dead end right at the golf course, almost as though they intended to develop it and had a last second change of mind. Meanwhile, with Dunkirk on one side and Fermor on another, this is hardly prime park space. That makes this an easy decision: extend the adjacent residential development into this space. Bonus: close to a school!

Parcel 2: This area is on the Red River, so in accordance with my policy of reclaiming riverbanks I toyed with the idea of turning this into greenspace. However there are three factors working against that. 1) The only access is from the north, past existing condominiums. 2) There is no trail access except via a large culvert under Dunkirk Dr, but the river banks both to the north and south are clogged with private properties, making this a somewhat useless and isolated greenspace. 3) One of Winnipeg's largest unbroken stretches of river-side greenspace -- Churchill Drive Park -- is a mere 5-iron away just across the Osborne bridge. It is remarkably greedy of people in this area to demand more greenspace when they have so much just a short walk away.

What I therefore envision for this spot is a condo-park of sorts. More condos, since the ball is already rolling on that, but spaced out enough that it's a pleasant sort of place to walk around. Maybe a retirement home, or maybe row-house type units. Something like that.

5) Destroy Wildewood

Oooo, the residents of Wildewood aren't gonna be happy about this one. Wildewood, directly across the river from the Canoe Club, is a quiet park-like enclave, and the residents want to keep it that way. This is a neighbourhood were the residents even fought to kill a cell phone tower.

Wildewood golf course, much like Canoe Club, is a short 9-hole semi-private course, but given it's tucked-away location many people may not even know about it, rather is seems more like a plaything for the residents of this litte Shangri-La. I wonder if it would be profitable if they had to pay more than $1 in annual lease fees. Maybe it's time we let other people into this elite enclave by developing this course. It appears taylor-made for it when you look on Google Maps. You could build a series of bays with single family homes that would integrate seamlessly into the surrounding neighbourhood.


*****

By now you're probably thinking: "what the hell dude, you're blowing up all our golf courses!" Don't worry, the destruction is over ... but the changes are not ...

*****

6) Sell off John Blumberg

There are two courses in this complex: a 9 holer and an 18. The 9 hole track is fine for what it is. The 18 is easy, and mostly wide open. It is a decent length, yet it's not up to the standards of a modern golf course. I would like to see what a private owner could do with it, perhaps improving drainage and irrigation, maybe adding another set of tee boxes, planting some trees or moving some dirt to make the holes more interesting ...

Blumberg is way out in Headingley, barely even part of the City. Turning it into a park would be useless, and developing it would add to sprawl, but it's potential as a golf course is being wasted in the current arrangement in my opinion.

7) Keep Tuxedo

Like Kildonan Park and Windsor Park, Tuxedo is an undersized 18 hole course, but it is margially longer, has a better layout, and has a driving range. It is also the only course in the SW quadrant of the city.

8) Convert Assiniboine, Rossmere and Transcona to public courses

I'm sure it's not as easy as that. You probably have to wait for the lease agreements to expire, and then what do you do with existing memberships? Grandfather them out? Buy them out? Hang 'em out to dry? I don't know, but I can tell you this: the city should not own semi-private courses, much less subsidize them with $1 lease agreements.

Assiniboine
I was waffling on this one. Although it sits right beside the airport, it certainly could be developed as residential housing. In fact there are houses on either side of it. People who are hearing impaired need someplace to live too. In the end, I decided to let it live to represent the NW quadrant of the City.

Transcona
If the city trashes Windsor Park as recommended earlier, that will leave a public golf void in SW Winnipeg. That's where Transcona fits it. This would be a poor place to develop as residential because:
1) It is out on the edge of the city. Developing it would reduce density, not increase it.
2) It is across the street from an industrial park. The small number of people who already live there created a minor uproar when a hog processing plant tried moving to town; if we create a whole new subdivision it may be even harder to draw industry to the industrial park.
3) It is in Transcona. Who wants to live in Transcona?

Meanwhile it is a decent golf course. A little on the short side, but it would make a good public golf alternative if it were opened up to everybody. I am convinced that some of these courses don't get the number of green fees that they should because of their semi-private status.

Rossmere
It is a sea of green in the residential grid that is North Kildonan (or is it East K? I don't know where the line is.) You could do anything with this space. It could easily be converted to infill residential, or into a park for the low-to-mid income masses that live around it. However, there is not much public golf in this area, especially if we kill Kildonan Park Golf Course. But if we keep it as a golf course, it should be as accessible as possible. It should be public.

9) Keep Harbour View

Lastly, we have modest little Harbour View. At 1124 yards, it is the shortest course in the city, yet it is a far more interesting par-3 course than Crescent Drive. It has elevation changes and water holes, and it also has a driving range. It is a great little course for beginners, and resides in a nice park-like setting. Although it has been many years since I've golfed there, it would be a shame to lose it.


Next post: the wrap-up!

Winnipeg's Golf Courses: Action Items Part I

In the last golf post we established that Winnipeg Golf Services was, financially speaking, in a death spiral to hell, and that drastic action needs to be taken. Here are the actions:

1) sell Crescent Drive

I would have said "plow it over" except that a ballyhooed Nordik spa has already planned to move in this year, leveraging the golf course to complete it's spa/nature concept. It would be unfair to plow it over without offering them the opportunity to purchase the course. It is also unfair to city taxpayers to subsidize an unprofitable golf course for the benefit of another party. Therefore, the City should attempt to sell the course to the spa promoters or franchise owners.

2) blow up the obsolete public courses

I'm talking to you, Kildonan Park and Windsor Park. Even if you were to pump millions of dollars into restoring these courses to a reasonable condition, they will never be profitable because they are poorly designed and lacking amenities like a driving range, decent putting/chipping area and a proper club house.

Yes, there was a time when they could get away with it, but that time is gone. There is more competition now. The Meadows, Southside Golf Centre, and even Fantasy Lakes have all been built in the last 5 years or so, and provide golf experiences that are superior in their own way to the two city courses mentioned here. That leaves us with no choice but to blow up the courses.

Kildonan Park
Kildonan Park Golf Course, as you might have guessed, is right beside Kildonan Park. An organization like OURS Winnipeg might therefore suggest merging the whole space into the park, which would more than double the size of the current park. Would it double the enjoyment of the park? Probably not. Would it double the cost of the park? I suspect so, but that's not the big cost .. the big cost is the opportunity cost of forgoing other land uses, like infill development.

At the same time, we here at the Peanut are tree-huggers and like our greenspace. I personally am a fan of reclaiming our riverbanks, and am a little bit jealous of those cities that kept them as public spaces. Therefore I present the following compromise:


Extend Kildonan park along the river, up to the natural escarpment that runs through the golf course. Above the escarpment, develop it into residential housing, maybe with a few condos in the mix. I would prefer no commercial development, although I will allow the A&W on the 7th tee box to stay.

Windsor Park
There is no Windsor Park next door to this golf course, so I guess in this case the "park" refers to the course itself. But I'm not here to nitpick on the name, I'm here to tell the City what to do after we blow up the golf course.

But before I do that, I need to talk about St.Boniface golf course which is attached to Windsor Park. The two should not be looked at in isolation because the value of the two together is potentially greater than the sum of the two apart.

3) blow up St.Boniface

The golf course, not the area of Winnipeg. It's actually not a bad golf course and could be sold off, but developing Windsor Park on it's own is a little awkward because of how it's positioned. You can't make use of the lights at Cottonwood because that would bump you right in to an existing bay in Niakawa Park. Autumnwood dies at the railway track. The best way to get into that area is by extending Elizabeth Rd. across Archibald at the existing traffic lights, through the St.Boniface golf course. You just have to plow through the cemetery keeper's house first, but we'll be sure to replace it with a better one.

Again, keep the land adjacent to the river banks as park space. Windsor Park is a popular skiing area in the winter, including Winnipeg's only lighted x-country ski trail. That could be re-routed all the way north past the cemetery, right through the St.B golf course territory, making for a longer trail with more tree shelter. Skiers rejoice! The end result would be something that looks like this:

Residential development would be in high demand, and would generate some pretty good property tax revenue. Ten minutes from downtown, on bus routes, and right next to a park. Sounds pretty good to me.

There are different sorts of residential development. There are low-rise condos à la south St.Annes or just about any area on the periphery of the city. There are clusters of look-alike stucco McMansions on curvy streets with small back yards and double garages sticking out front. Infill development, I think, should be more reflective of the surrounding area. If you've ever walked around in that little neighborhood just south of Marion and west of Archibald, you'll know that it's a pleasant area with generally well-kept, but small houses. That's what I have in mind for this area -- especially the north segment. Smaller scale builds of single family homes on straight streets to maximize density. Straight streets! Imagine that!

Okay, enough about that .. what else can we blow up? I'll tell you. Later. I'm going to have to divide this sucker up into more than one post, so hold tight and check back in a few days or so.

Winnipeg's golf courses: an overview

A recent commissioned report by Golf Convergence Inc ("The Report") on Winnipeg Golf Services shows that the agency is $8 million in debt and losing over $1 million a year. In the words of The Report -- and this is a quote -- "The City’s Special Operating Agency model for golf is broken." Also, "without immediate action, massive losses will continue" and "the City’s golf courses are in an accelerating downward spiral". You get the idea ...

I will not discuss why we had to wait until our golf courses were $8 million bucks in the hole and in a death spiral to hell before we decided to consider doing anything about it. That would be futile (and also par for the course for this city). Best to look forward at this point, and discuss how to get out of this mess and make things better.

In a follow-up post I will make some specific recommendations about what to do with our golf courses keeping the best interests of the city in mind. But first, let's look at our golf operations from a golfer's point of view and take stock of our courses. It is critical to look at this from a golfer's viewpoint because, firstly, I'm a golfer and I say so and this is my blog so there. But also because it will help explain why WGS is losing so much money, and how that trend can be reversed.

Here is an overview of the public and semi-private courses in and around Winnipeg, including some key stats and a rating based on the acclaimed Cherenkov Golf Scale:



Course	Holes	Par	Yardage	Rating	Notes
Assiniboine	9	36	3137	**	s
Bel Acres	18	72	6947	***	p
Canoe Club	9	34	2652	*	s
Crescent Drive	9	27	1376	*	p
Fantasy Lake	18	54	2281	*	p
Harbour View	9	27	1124	**	p
John Blumberg	9	34	2739	**	p
	18	72	6343	**	p
Kildonan Park	18	69	5494	*	p
River Oaks	18	72	5909	**	s
Rossmere	18	70	6442	***	s
Shooters	18	57	2879		p
Southside	18	63	4596		s
St.Boniface	18	71	6348	***	s
The Meadows	18	72	6801	***	p
The Player's Course	9	36	3015	**	p
Wildewood	9	36	3003		s
Transcona	18	71	6291	***	s
Tuxedo	18	70	5644	**	p
Windsor Park	18	69	5176	*	p

blue = owned by the City of Winnipeg
p = public
s = semi-private

The first thing you probably noticed is that the City of Winnipeg owns over half the golf courses around here. If you have a keen eye, you may have also noticed that most of the courses suck, particularly the city-owned public courses. The only public courses that rated 3 stars are the privately-owned Meadows and Bel Acres.

A common small-talk conversation starter on a golf course is "So, where do you normally golf?" Honestly, I seldom golf on City-owned courses, nor do any of my friends. This is because the public courses provide a poor golf experience. They are too short, poorly constructed, typically have poor amenities, and are poorly maintained. The Report puts is this way: "the price exceeds the experience"... and the price is not very high by most standards.

The semi-private courses owned by the city are better quality courses, but they are hard to get on because they have restricted tee times. The best times are reserved for members. Twice last year I tried to get on St.Boniface but was denied. I am used to rejection, but that doesn't make it any funner. I guess when you only pay $1 a year for your lease, you can afford to be a snob and turn away paying fares. I have been able to golf the Transcona course a few times in recent years, but knowing the Golf Pro may have helped. Otherwise, I don't even consider them an option. So basically, the City is driving golfers away by giving them only two choices: a crappy golf course, or a crappy tee time at an OK golf course.

Where do I golf? I might golf at Blumberg or Tuxedo once a summer, but that's it for City courses. I'll usually look to The Meadows at East St.Paul and Bel Acres for a round or two, but otherwise I get in my car and drive ... 40 minutes or an hour away, to any of the nicer public courses around southern Manitoba.

The solution to me is obvious: scrap some of the crappier golf courses, and convert some of the semi-private courses into public courses just as soon as their leases expire. This will improve the overall quality of public golf available within city limits, and will keep more golfers like me from hitting the highway.

Any remaining courses should be sold off to private operators. The city has no business owning semi-private courses. Some, including The Report, will argue that the City has no business being in the golf business at all. This is a valid argument, but it's also very common for a city to own a few courses (municipal courses, or "munies") to ensure there are some affordable golf options out there. You can look at it as a service, much like hockey rinks or swimming pools, but if we do decide to stay in the golf biz it should be drastically downsized to a small base of decent quality courses.

Next post, or the one after that, I will get into the nitty-gritty of exactly which courses should stay, which should go, and what we should do with any freed-up land. Stay tuned!

**** tales from the golf course ****

Kildonan Park: I returned to this course for the first time in many years this past summer. They don't water the fairways at Kildonan, only the greens, so the clay-based fairways were bone-dry; yet I managed to lose a ball in a mud puddle. This phenomenal achievement was made possible by a broken sprinkler in front of one of the greens. I had hit the ball directly at the green (yay!) expecting the ball to bounce up onto the green, but stood in amazement as my ball disappeared into a large mud pit that had formed because of a faulty green-side sprinkler that nobody thought to fix. The poor conditions made it all the more unbelievable when the bitter course marshal came by to tell me to move my cart onto the cart path. No, not a motorized cart -- a pull cart! I had it stationed on the fairway about 6 feet off the green, and the marshal wouldn't leave until I moved it. Are you kidding me? I could detonate a bomb on this fairway and you would barely notice.

Windsor Park: Like Kildonan, this is a short and cramped layout for an 18 hole course. It is so cramped in fact that one hole doesn't even have a real tee box. The teeing area for the par 3 6th hole is on the edge of the 5th hole's fairway, and as there is no room for a tee box, they provide you with a ratty old driving range mat to hit off of. Note: I have not golfed here in about 6 years, so perhaps they have replaced the mat since then.

Crescent Drive: If you golf here, avoid putting anything sharp in your golf bag, as you will most likely slit your wrists half way through the round. Although this is only a par-27 nine hole layout, the pace of play is so slow ... and I'm not exaggerating here ... you can fly to Scotland and golf Loch Lomond and fly back to Winnipeg in the time it takes to golf one round at Crescent Drive.

Variety Pack: Iraq, Gordon Bell, Wie

End of combat in Iraq, whether it makes sense or not

Prez Obama today, as you all know, announced the end of combat operations in Iraq -- over seven years after Bush gave his famous mission accomplished speech on an air craft carrier. Bush was jumping the gun just a little bit back then, but is Obama? He is drawing a line and pulling troops out, which you have to do sooner or later, but some people feel it should be later, including Iraq's most senior military officer:

"At this point, the withdrawal is going well, because they are still here," Zerbari told the AFP news agency on Wednesday.

"But the problem will start after 2011 - the politicians must find other ways to fill the void after 2011. If I were asked about the withdrawal, I would say to politicians: the US army must stay until the Iraqi army is fully ready in 2020." link

Maybe he's just a little nervous about going it alone. We can hope.

*****

Beginning of combat with Free Press mods

Another article today about Gordon Bell where everybody in the comments are arguing about whether a field will fit there or not. A debate that I could constructively assist if I were able to post a link to my post with the pictures of a field super-imposed on the area. But I can't because the Free Press mods are being a bunch of cunts. They allow ex-Green Peacer Ron Thiessen to post a link to his web site filled with lies and propaganda about bipole III in their comments section a while back, but I'm not good enough for them. Bitches.

Anyhow ... good to see that they're finally getting a start on the "Field of Dreams". Driving past that site makes me think of an abandoned Detroit inner-city school yard.

Although, given that consultations on what to do haven't even started yet, the tractors tearing up the concrete may just be a "hey look! We are doing something!" reaction to the negative publicity last week that started on the New Winnipeg forum and spread to the Freep. Not unlike the new stadium, actually. What can we do to make it look like there has been some kind of progress? Hmmm, let's rent a backhoe and dig a hole.

I wonder how much consulting there is to do though. After they shoe-horn a field in there, all they will be left with are three small triangles of land. They're going to hire land-scape architects for that?

*****

And the Wie-ner is ...

I made a comment in my last post about Michelle Wie ... something about her perhaps drawing attention that was not proportional to her skill level. Well, perhaps it was warranted after all. Congratulations to Michelle on her outstanding win at St. Charles.

Now, I shall study my video of her for many many hours to see if I might capture some of that magic myself.

Canadian Women's Open : notes from the practice round

• Ai Miyazato is not only the world #1 right now, and about 3' 2" tall, she is also very friendly and positive. She would be fun to golf with even if she sucked.
  
  
  
• Sam Katz is not a horrible golfer. I saw him tee off on the par 3 #8, and not only did he not hit anybody in the face, but he got it on the green.
• Phil Sheegl was also out there golfing. I wonder how many other city bureaucrats were in the pro-am, and I wonder if they paid the $3000 $10,000 to do it out of their own pockets. Hmmm.
• Cute little Korean girls are to women's golf what leggy blond Russians are to women's tennis.
• Notoriety draws the attention, not talent. While Ai Miyazato is currently the #1 golfer and last week's winner, her crowds were small while Michelle Wie had a floatila of media and fans following her.
  Michelle teeing off on #15:
  
  
  ... I don't know what happened to the sound with that video.
  
• Although Michelle made the birdie putt after the above tee shot, putting is definitely the weak part of her game.
  
• If the temp tomorrow is supposed to be 27, I had better wear my mesh tank top to stay cool, 'cause I was damn warm today and it was only 21.
• Canadian or Bud Light: $6.25. Negra Modelo: $6.25. I don't understand the pricing, but I'll take the Negra Modelo thank you.
  
  
• Yummm. :-)
  Oh ... I was, ah, still talking about the beer. Ya.. That's it.
  
  

Coach Ingram

The Peanut would like to congratulate Derek Ingram for landing a new gig as head coach of the national women's amateur golf team. In addition to private lessons at Elmhurst, Derek has been the coach of the local Bison university team, and has a hand in developing the next wave of Canadian men's golfers like Matt Hill and Nick Taylor -- two of the top ranked amateurs in the world -- as one of the coaches of the Canadian men's amateur team. I do not know if he will continue with these other jobs in addition to the new one and his private teaching. I suspect that he will drop the amateur men's job.


Useless trivia: Derek was a high school class mate of the Free Presses' Bartley Kives back in Garden City.

Nice Round ...

quick golf note: Mike Weir finished this weekend's PGA tournament with a blistering 9 under par 61. His scorecard showed only 4s and 3s, including seven straight 3s to finish the round:

*UPDATED* Olympic Golf in 2016?

We'll find out tomorrow if they make the cut:

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will announce a shortlist of two sports on Thursday and in two months’ time a final vote will decide whether they will be part of the Games programme.

Squash, rugby, softball, baseball, karate, rollersports and golf are bidding to make that shortlist which will be announced during the IOC executive board meeting in Berlin.

My vote is for golf, and here's why:

• It is a truely international sport. The top 20 men in the world golf rankings represent 10 different countries and 6 continents. The women's game is also very diverse, with the best player hailing from Mexico, and various Asian and European countries being well represented on the LPGA money list.
  
• It is a well established sport. It has been played competitively and remained popular for generations.
  
• Both men and women compete at a high level and attract viewers.
  
• New facilities do not need to be built. Any country that's properous enough to bid for an Olympics game will have a number of championship golf courses available. Aside from facilities for spectators and media, there would be no additional infrastructure cost.
• It is spectator-friendly
  
• It is an individual sport and thus will add fewer competitors to the games than a team sport would, reducing cost and strain on Olympic facilities.
  
• It is the only one in the list that I'm any good at, and therefore is the best reflection of true skill, talent and good looks.

If that's not enough to convince you, here are some of the knocks against the other sports:

• Team sports like rugby, softball and baseball are cumbersome, because a lengthy tournament schedule needs to be set, and a larger number of atheletes need to be accomodated. Team sports are also not consistent with the original Olympic ideal of individual achievement.
  
• Rugby and baseball are played primarily by men. As much as I may enjoy a good game of bikini football, I have a hard time seeing women's contact sports being played at a competitive level.
  
• Squash is played by accountants, and its not spectator-friendly.
  
• Karate is not needed because there are already enough marshal arts represented. Marshal arts do not attract much of an audience, and judging is sometimes subjective. If you are going to add one, you should get rid of another, like Judo.
  
• Rollersports? Are you kidding? What, like roller derby, or roller hockey, or X-Treme roller cross? Leave that shit for MTV.

In my humble opinion, the Olympics need to get back to basics, hacking off "sports" where judging is purely subjective, and fringe sports that nobody cares about. (You already know one of the sports that I think should get chopped.) Get the cost down so that hosting the stupid event doesn't bankrupt a country. At the very least, they should implement a one-in-one-out policy where new sports displace old sports, so the total package doesn't grow.

** I have added a poll to the sidebar to see what you think. Which of the 7 sports do you think should be added?

****UPDATE****
The vote came in and golf made the first cut, (along with rugby). Final selection will be in October.

If golf is in, you will see 60 competitors for each gender. The top 16 in the world rankings get in automatically, plus up to two more per county based on their ranking. Given current rankings Canada would have two men in there (Weir and Ames). No sure about women. Probably none. The PGA spokesdude expects that about 30 countries will be represented for both men and women.

EDIT: it is possible that Ames may choose to play for Trinidad and Tobago. I hope not, but he might. Wouldn't surprise me.

Obama Day in Canada

The media is, like, totally freaking out about this Obama visit to Canada. What is he going to do? What are they going to talk about? Will he get out of his car and wave to people? What are they having for lunch? How will he react to the snow? Good lord people .... this Obamagasm is out of control. He's coming in to Ottawa, meeting for 6 hours with government representatives and leaving. It's an important meeting, yes, but there is not exactly a whole lot of suspense or uncertanty about what is going to transpire.

As far as I'm concerned, the most exciting thing happening today is this: The Northern Trust Open. Mike Weir is coming off a second place finish at Pebble Beach and heading back to the technical Riviera course where he won twice in a row back when it was the Nissan Open. Defending champ Phil Mickleson is having a brutal year, but is off to a good start today. Should be an interesting showdown between the two lefties and the rest of the field.

If I turn on the TV today, it will be to the golf channel and not CBC.

update (1:27 pm) -----------------

aside from a little bunker mishap on #10 ...

... Mike Weir is solid but not spectacular. Phil is tearing up the course, in the lead with a bogey-free -7 thus far.

James says that CBC is going nuts. I'll take his word for it.

update (3:00 pm) ----------------

Weir finished with a pair of birdies to get back to -1. Good enough for day one.

Phil is the club house leader at -8.

Obama has left Parliament Hill and healed some lepers en route to the airport.