"We want to continue to give the local folks a great golf course and also want to maintain our rating nationally."

Steve Lynn of New Mexico's The Daily Times looks at the revenue problems of the well-regarded Pinon Hills, the most blatant example yet of water costs impacting the health of a golf operation.

Meanwhile, the golf course is watering less despite spending more on the nonpotable water.

The course spent $42,000 on 134 million gallons of water in 2004.

By contrast, it spent $151,000 on 118 million gallons through October this year while spending about the same last year on $172 million gallons.

At the same time, the course has cut its budget. The city projected a $1.35 million budget that funds the city's golf courses this fiscal year, a decline of almost $90,000 from last fiscal year's budget.

The city expects higher green fees to raise revenue by $100,000, parks department director Jeff Bowman said.

"We want to continue to give the local folks a great golf course and also want to maintain our rating nationally," Bowman said.

"Golfweek" ranked Piñon Hills the No. 4 public golf course in the nation this year.

Naturally those last two sentences provide a nice reminder to those who don't think courses overspend to appease panelists.

"You may not want to hear this, but golf at every level is rife with cheating."

In light of the recently off-radar incident involving Elliot Saltman, John Huggan devotes his Scotland and On Sunday column to the oddity of non-cheaters in golf suffering penalties while elite players seem exempt from penalty for outright cheating.

You'll never read the names of those involved though. Officialdom doesn't want you to know who they are (and the legal implications of publicly exposing the culprits don't help either). Some, in fact, are really quite famous. One multiple major champion, by way of example, is a notorious cheat and the subject of any number of head-shaking locker room tales. Ryder Cup players are not immune either. At least one is tainted forever by his serial cheating. And there are others, many of whom have won events through the most dubious of methods.

Every year it goes on and on, right up to the present day. During this past season on the European Tour there was at least one instance where a pro, outraged by the behaviour of his playing companion, refused to sign that fellow competitor's card. Not that anything came of it. In such instances, tour officials invariably take it upon themselves to attest the disputed numbers.

And that's the problem. Why is it that the innocent seem to be persecuted to the nth degree by the rules while the guilty are protected?

"Why are we changing thousands of courses - or at least dozens - for the sake of the golf ball? Why not just change the ball?"

One last item from John Huggan's profile of Bill Coore. On the distance chase:

"Why are we changing thousands of courses - or at least dozens - for the sake of the golf ball? Why not just change the ball? There is no doubt it has had a negative effect on architecture generally. Guys just hit past stuff so much these days. To which people say we can move tees back - but sometimes you can't - or move bunkers - but sometimes that isn't practical or advisable. I hate to see bunkers that have been there for decades suddenly moved. For one thing, rebuilding a bunker exactly as it was isn't that easy.

"Having said that, the ball has less influence on our work than for some other designers. We don't do courses for tournament play. Mostly, our courses are for membership play. Yes, they have been used for events - the PGA Seniors was at Colorado Golf Club this year and the PGA Tour's season-opener has been at Kapalua for a while now. But we didn't do those courses with events in mind, they arrived later.

"We tend to work from the greens backward to a certain point. Beyond that, distance is not a priority. Our biggest interest is in making a hole fun to play."

"There's one guy in his 20's who has the physical strength, the putting, the monster ball flight to dominate and win six, seven, eight majors in the next 10-12 years."

I think this was the most intriguing statement from Brandel Chamblee in his Golf Magazine interview, conducted by Connell Barrett. The topic? The Ryo, Rory, Rickie talk and their future in majors.

Who steps up? One of the three R's?

Maybe. But they all lack one thing: size. I like the bigger guys who don't have to swing at 100 percent. Big guys tend to have what I call "big game" — the sky-high ball flight that wins majors. Bigger guys can do that while swinging at 80 percent. Think Tiger, Vijay, Phil. Ryo, Rory and those guys swing full throttle all the time. But there's one guy in his 20's who has the physical strength, the putting, the monster ball flight to dominate and win six, seven, eight majors in the next 10-12 years. And that's Dustin Johnson. Dustin has everything. He has some weaknesses around the greens, but so did Jack. If he doesn't win a Masters or two, I would be shocked.

GCSAA Cuts: "The economic recession, particularly in the golf industry, has been deep and severe."

James R. Fitzroy, Golf Course Superintendents Association of America President, writing to his members today after announcing significant staff cuts.

Dear GCSAA Members,

In recent years, my predecessors and I have shared with you the steps we have taken to ensure that GCSAA remains a viable and sustainable organization that delivers value to you, your facility and the golf industry.

The economic recession, particularly in the golf industry, has been deep and severe. Since 2008, GCSAA has reduced expenditures $5.4 million with the objective of having the least amount of impact on members as possible. Earlier this year, the GCSAA Board of Directors conducted an extensive strategic planning session to review our mission and vision, and chart our path for the upcoming years. Our responsibility as leaders is to keep GCSAA strongly positioned for the future by seeking new resources and optimizing the ones we have in order to execute programs and services on the members' behalf.

Therefore, today I am announcing a series of significant actions that will result in reorganization of GCSAA programs and services. Unfortunately, it will also result in reduction of staff. In the last three years, we have reduced staff from 122 to 85, so taking these additional steps places additional responsibility on those that remain. Working with interim CEO Rhett Evans, we will continue to focus on those areas we have deemed to be a priority. There is no denying that we will discontinue some activities and reduce the magnitude of others as we manage the association through this difficult period. But the reductions are also necessary to create the capacity to expand into areas of significant opportunity such as field staff, continued international expansion, advocacy/outreach and professional development, among others.