Leave Your Mark

When someone assumes ownership of, or presidency over, there is this compulsive need to “leave your mark”, whether that be business or politics. Should I sell the course… the first thing someone would do, is change what I did. Is my way bad, or is it the need for the new person, to leave his or her mark?

Private clubs have it even worse. Every two years they elect a new president. Each president feels the need to do something meaningful, I mean why else become the president, right? It’s a crappy job. The first adds an outdoor patio, the second decides the grill room needs to be modernized, though most are eating outside now. Third guy adds some fountains to the golf course ponds, the next guy really likes landscape plantings and tons of woodchips, just like his club down south. The fifth takes down some trees, and I know it’s weird, but the sixth plants some trees, he wanted to honor his late wife. A female president finally gives the ladies locker room a face lift, but she is soon replaced with the guy who arranges for all the bunkers to be flashed up. The ninth believes it’s important to acquire the land due north for some ungodly reason, acquisition is power. The final presidential maneuver… in this 20 year window… is paving all the cart paths (way to close to the line of play, I might add) to form one continuous loop. Congrats! A busy two decades.

What comes next is always priceless. The next president to come in after this 20 year menagerie, decides this club needs a master plan, and he’s kind of right. His “mark”, is hiring the firm, that suggests erasing all the marks of the last 20 years, so that one homogenous product can be experienced.  Humans, much like my dog, can’t resist leaving their mark. Oh… the money and time wasted going in circles, but it gives RSPGL something to write about. What mark would you leave?