What a great golf year!

Thank you, dear readers, for following my golf geography - or "golfography" - during 2005. It was a special year. I played some outstanding courses for the first time (Cypress Point, Pebble Beach, Bandon Trails, Western Gailes), attended a number of first class outings (to Scotland with the Blue Elephants, my brother's trip to Caves Valley, outings to Pinehurst with my friend Robert Miller, another with The Golf Channel, and a lovely stay at the Ritz at Reynolds Plantation with LINKS, among many others). Plus, I enjoyed more happy days at my beloved Secession.

I won't attempt to relive great moments here. The entire year's posts represent my highlights. So rather than write on and on about this Member/Member or that par 3 (on which I likely made 5), I'll say merely that, yes, 2005 was a very good year for golf for me.

And here's to a better (?) 2006!

Changing the landscape

I began this blog early this year with this statement:

"We all have our passions in life, and then there are the things we truly enjoy. Playing golf is among the things I enjoy. But what I refer to as 'golfology,' now that's a passion. 'Golfology' is the culture of golf. And there's nothing quite like it."

For the last year or so I've written about the places and people with whom I've played golf. "Golfography," I call it, what I consider to be a subset of the bigger study of golf, "golfology." For the next 12 months or so I plan to write about the business of golf, especially the marketing aspects, an area in which I consider my company and myself to have a particular expertise.

I was meeting with a prospective new business customer recently. In preparation I made a list of all the golf companies with whom we've worked over the last 20 years. I couldn't believe the list myself - more than 25 different companies, large and small, established and new, some wildly successful, others (but not very many, such as NetGolfShop.com) no longer in the, ahem, golf landscape.

BURRIS is about to begin a dedicated push to acquire new golf industry customers, either for marketing consulting or communications plan implementation projects. There are quite a number of companies I believe we can help, bringing ideas to life and in the process making their brands stronger, their strategies tighter, their delivered customer experience richer, their communications materials better.

So the journal - or "blog" - "Golfography" will remain here, and perhaps from time-to-time I'll post my thoughts on a new (or revisited) golf "place." But most of my energies in this field will now go into "Golfology." And you can find that blog here.

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll visit Golfology often.