You would have been proud of me, Dear Reader. My left brain was kvetching and boiling with guilt about not posting the minimum recommended once weekly blog, right brain countered that followers already deluged with blogs, tweets and e-nuggets of questionable import had earned time out. So I posted nothing. I scoured the golf news…
Category: Business
Business, Golf
Golf Lessons for the Hard-of-Thinking
by Dominic O'Byrne •
Thirteen years in the golf industry and I never encountered James McCormick. Along the way, I did indeed meet crackpot inventors, gullible fools, hopeful dreamers, nasty bastards and outright charlatans among a lot of thoroughly decent and gifted people. McCormick is in a league of his own, though… Golf Equipment makes a lot of money,…
Business, Hobby Horse
7 New Reasons for Class Envy
by Dominic O'Byrne •
Sociological Milestone or The Emperor’s New Survey? Apparently our intellectual betters have decided the redundant and archaic class system is no longer fit for purpose. An entirely new meaningful and modern class system is required to help us more usefully define our station in life. For whom, why and to what end? ‘Class’ in its…
Business
Why you pay your PR a retainer
by Dominic O'Byrne •
PR people need continuity. So do their clients. The PR consultant with the heart of a journalist (instead of the brain of an outright showman) cultivates niche interests. When you hire him or her you pay for the PR to cultivate YOUR interests. These consultants are intelligent people with a nose for news and a…
Business
Is it Safe? Dental Fascism a Dead Floss
by Dominic O'Byrne •
I bloody well knew it… All those years of angst and guilt surrounding countless visits to the dentist’s chair were a needless terror. Anybody with a modicum of nous must hate the idea of dental floss and the mind-numbing business of standing in front of the bathroom mirror (especially late at night) gazing down your…
Business
Anatomy of unedifying reporting
by Dominic O'Byrne •
Anatomy of unedifying reporting The scary experience of Lord McAlpine (convicted via Trial by Twitter of child rape some 20-odd years ago) will have shocked all reasonable people and has also rightly prompted columnists among the better papers to cast a beady eye over the business of citizen journalism. But a sense of perspective is…
Business
A Lesson for Would-be Citizen Journalists
by Dominic O'Byrne •
A Lesson for all Would-be Citizen Journalists Now it’s all well and good, people posting rants and unsolicited opinions on blogs and all over the web. Bodies like the NUJ have been up in arms about anyone with an internet connection and a gripe passing themselves off as credible reporters – and it’s true that…
Business
The Idiot-Bridge
by Dominic O'Byrne •
This is a new term to me… one I heard on BBC Radio 4 earlier in the week, and it’s indicative of our times. For the life of me, I can’t recall who spoke the term, as it was largely in the background, but the passive/intrusive nature of radio embedded the term in my brain…
Business
TaylorMade Adidas Buying Adams Golf is No Joke
by Dominic O'Byrne •
There is an old joke that goes, “Did you hear about the Dachshund that killed the Pit Bull Terrier…? it got stuck in the Pit Bull’s throat and choked it.” So cavernous is the maw of TaylorMade Adidas (TMAG) Adams Golf would barely have touched the sides as it went down, and Yes! Golf even…
Business
News on Golf Europe 2012 (…und weiter)
by Dominic O'Byrne •
The German PGA having been singularly unresponsive to requests for details of their re-invigorated strategic support for the Augsburg Golf Europe (see previous press releases on www.golfeurope.com), I sought out the opinions of one or two well-connected European golf journalists who were in Orlando for the PGA Merchandise Show last week. Golf brands at all…