Standard-Examiner Letter: Golf Course Can Be Modified Inexpensively

An elegantly straightforward application of the philosophical guiding principle of Occam's Razor

Incremental improvements have not provided the expected turnaround to the course's financial difficulty.
"Our belief has been for a long time that there were changes we could make that were fairly inexpensive that could fix the problem. Our experience has been that it hasn't changed it."

Mayor Matthew Godfrey
Standard-Examiner
Upgrading Mt. Ogden Golf Course to take money
November 22, 2009

The ploy now seems to be to dump this on the city council with two choices: Bond for massive improvements or sell the property to developers, while hiding behind the lame excuse that "inexpensive modifications have not worked." The only reason they have not worked is because they were never tried!

Frank McFarland
Standard-Examiner
Golf course can be modified inexpensively
December 9, 2009

Fantastic letter to the editor in this morning's Standard-Examiner, wherein Ogden resident Frank McFarland calls Boss Godfrey out on his November 22, 2009 misrepresentation of the facts regarding purported past incremental Mt. Ogden Golf Course improvements, and offers a simple three point plan to "modify this course so that an average high-handicap golfer can break 100":

1) Bond for $400,000 and do the mods that will improve the playability and make it a fun course.
2) Forget for now, the new sprinkler system and the new clubhouse. Concentrate on what will increase play and enjoyment of the beautiful site.
3) Advertise what we are going to do and get support from local groups and organizations, plus get the Standard-Examiner to run some feature articles during the modifications.

Mr. McFarland's suggested strategy is an elegantly straightforward application of the philosophical guiding principle of Occam's Razor, which consistently illustrates that the simplest strategies tends to be the best.

We thus join with Mr. McFarland in urging the new City Council to address the Mt. Ogden Golf Course situation at its earliest opportunity, to adopt a "minimalist solution" such as Mr. McFarland suggests... and to kill off, once and for all, Boss Godfrey's harebrained scheme to transform Ogden's precious undeveloped parklands into a gargantuan $143 million condo/hotel/golf course boondoggle.

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