Marketing is part of golf world

Letters to the Editor
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 27, 2003

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Bob Harig's article (Courses pay for lower rates, Thursday) showed some local golf-course employees do not understand the basic law of supply and demand. A fundamental law of marketing is that a product is worth only what people are willing to pay for it, and no more. Dave Stewart, head pro at Fox Hollow, needs an attitude adjustment. If people are not willing to pay what he wants to charge, then his product is not worth the price. Referring to us as "locals" in a tone clearly not meant to be deferential shows he has little respect for the patrons of his course.

If his product was as good as he thought, he would marshal enough of the high rollers he likes to make Fox Hollow a private course. If he can't do that, he must live in the same marketing world that Burdines, Dillard's, cruise companies, airlines, hotels, restaurants and every other business must live in. The population during the winter (because of tourists and snowbirds) is part of a normal cycle - and the golf courses take advantage of this by raising rates. When those people leave, the courses respond by lowering rates. Both of these are normal. It is the way the market works.

-- Charles Decker, via e-mail

Too much talk TV for Devil Rays

I have been a Devil Rays fan since their inception, attending many of the home games and watching the road games. Though we have two fine, articulate TV announcers in Dewayne Staats and Joe Magrane, I have listened to other announcers who do not talk constantly and yet describe plays without injecting unnecessary bits of information.

Staats has a tendency to talk too much. He constantly expounds on so many insignificant facts between pitches. Why inform us about a relief pitcher's average ERA for the past year? A few moments of silence would be appreciated.

Magrane is a former pitcher who knows the art of pitching, and he keeps explaining how to throw a two-finger fastball and slider and how a knuckleball reacts. Most fans do not know what a slider is and couldn't care less. He has an extensive vocabulary, but why explain how "adroitly" a player executes a play or how "fortuitously" a player catches a fly ball or how "innocuous" an error was because no runs were scored? Is it necessary for him to mention a batter "inadvertently" swung at a bad pitch? I think the average fan would rather listen to a sportscaster than a college professor.

I hope they make a few adjustments because I would rather listen to them and not the radio announcers while watching a game.

-- Chris Cashavelly, St. Pete Beach

Racing treated as Sport of Serfs

I cannot believe your sports department does not know that the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown races are about to take place and are of utmost importance to a considerable portion of the sports-minded public of the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. Why do you think 20,000-50,000 enthusiasts go to Tampa Bay Downs every week if they are not interested in what is going on in this Sport of Kings? Do you think hockey and baseball are the only sports of interest? What do we have to do to get some news going on in sports in other areas of major interest?

Some colossal news might be happening at Churchill Downs, Pimlico or Belmont that will rival the results of the Stanley Cup or the Masters. Why do we have to always be in the dark before the trumpet sounds?

-- George J. Myers, Homosassa

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