comments turned off

At the request of a certain individual, the comment feature has been turned off on this blog. This protects me from comment spam (which populated some of my posts ads), and protects me from me, and protects others from me. Consider yourself protected.

pgatour.com sez Ames is still tropical by nature

The flag for Trinidad and Tobago still flies beside Steven Ames on the pgatour.com leaderboard. Interesting.

I've always had an issue with Canadian media outlets touting this guy as Canadian. I know he's become a Canadian citizen and all, and I'm sure he's proud of his new citizenship, but I wonder if he personally considers himself Canadian, or is this new-found nationism being foisted upon him by Canadian media outlets?

Besides, as recent as 2003 Ames played in the WGC World Cup, under the flag of Trinidad and Tobago.

flagstick.com redesign

I'd been hearing through various sources that Flagstick Magazine was redesigning it's online property. Being an Ottawa-based publication, I've been visiting the site for the past couple of weeks in anticipation of the new designs unveiling.

It's up now, and while more pleasing to the eye than the previous incarnation, it's not an improvement. There are two big usability mistakes being made on flagstick.com. They are:

Splash page?
Ick. Why force me to click to get to your content? To present an unnecessary barrier between the user and the content is a no-no.

Buried navigation!
Once you get past the splash, the navigation for the site now resides in the lower right corner of the design, within a dropdown. The location of the nav is counter intuitive, and creates another barrier between the user and the content - one should not have to click to open a dropdown to be able to see the taxonomy by which the site has organized it's content.

Now, as for the content, I heard a Flagstick representative on Kevin Haime's radio show before Christmas taking about how he wanted flagstick.com to be the defacto resource for golf and golf course information in Eastern and Central Ontario. I was expecting to see a myriad of course profiles a la ottawagolf.com, but was disappointed to see only four profiles of Eastern Ontario courses and none for Central Ontario.

Also, the tag line under the Flagstick Online banner says "The Internet Resource For And About Golfers In Your Region". Ok, but what region? Istanbul? Togo? Oompaloompaland? I know it's for Eastern and Central Ontario, and so do readers of the magazine, but how does someone know who isn't familiar with the area Flagstick covers? Then again, maybe Flagstick has plans to broaden its coverage base...

As for ottawagolf.com, it's been around 1996 and is run admirably by Dan Kilbank. While the site is begging for a redesign as flagstick.com was, the content contained within overcomes any usability concerns by miles. It's the first place to turn for course information, photos, openings, closings, and course condition discussions. The forums make a real difference on ottawagolf.com. The lively and freindly banter keeps you coming back to the site day after day.

The nice thing about the web is that it's not paper. Navigation can evolve, and content can be added. Here's hoping that flagstick.com is merely a work in progress and becomes a valued site for golfers in Eastern and Central Ontario, and that ottawagolf.com sees what flagstick.com has done, and uses their redesign as a springboard for a revamp of its own, taking lessons to heart along the way.

long overdue

After many months, golfsmack is back. An overwhelming lack of motivation and desire to write anything creative or opinionated of any sort is slowly lifting from my shoulders.

Watch this space for fresh content, to be supplied on a more frequent basis in the coming days, weeks, and months.