Interestingly, the editor at Travelgolf.com apparently doesn’t have much golf to write about. He spent the day taking further shots at Jay Flemma and myself, though I don’t quite understand why. All I did was make a note about the site’s feud with Walters Golf (see “The Truth Behind Travelgolf.com’s attacks). I really don’t know who was in the right — I just reported their fight.
Anyway, Tim McDonald, the editor, continued to take a run at me today, the same guy who said recently in a column that Going for the Green was “a good blog he keeps current.” McDonald also wrote that I’m “a course rater for Golf Digest and includes solid, though prosaic, course reviews.”
Well, that’s changed. Today McDonald wrote: “His blogs are dull, run-of-the mill musings from an unimaginative mind � he must have gone to that great Canadian college, the University of the Obvious.” Nice. Attack Canadians. That’s so typical and easy.
Such a smart fella, that Tim McDonald. Apparently his opinion changed after I decided not to write for Travelgolf.com for free as a blogger. But isn’t the Travelgolf.com website supposed to be about, well, golf? I’m not sure, since McDonald so rarely writes about it. Interestingly, I got several nice comments from readers about how irrelevant Travelgolf has become, or maybe always was.
At least I write under my own name, Tim. The wording of the Rebel Blogger attack on Jay Flemma and myself is very, very similar to the wording of the post under your own name. Yawn.
Let me say this clearly: I endorse Jay Flemma. Actually, why do I need to endorse Jay? What’s my endorsement worth? He seems like a good guy, though we’ve never met. Apparently he was enthusiastic and that’s what McDonald doesn’t like. He writes some nice course reviews. Full stop.
Now back to golf…
They recruited me but I just want to do my own thing…
Besides, I’ve never tried my hand at Walters Golf bashing… Not that they are wrong for bashing Walters Golf, but that seems to be 80% of what they do there.
By the way, the new look is defintely a change for the better.
Thank you again Rob! Great how you showed Tim to be…”inconsistent” in his writing.
Looks like Travel Golf can dish it out but they can’t take it. After the initial frenzy of posts caused such a negative reaction, they’ve all of a sudden stopped talking about it. They also removed at least one of their Jay-related posts, and they’ve deleted several complaints from readers in the blog comments section! What a bunch of weenies!
This is so meta. I love it.
TravelGolf.com weenies out and deletes posts that are saying how worthless they are. Log on to http://www.golfbb.com and click on “golf news” for more about Travel Golf Dot Sucks.
TravelGolf.com�s Tim McDonald and Chris Baldwin are
clearly losers who can�t get a job with a real print
golf magazine. The golf writing from these guys is
clearly amateur stuff. I was introduced to a golf writer once who had met Robert Lewis and said he was about a minute
from the funny farm, that he had a very strange
personality � one of those types with zero tact. So your comment about the “awfully weird” TGM is right on target. Check
out TravelGolfMedia.com and a photo of a building that
says �TGM Technical Headquarters� � that�s probably
where the server is. In the early days Lewis tried to
pass it off as their offices. They have always been a
�mom and pop� working out of their house. Also check
out the staff: All the technical web design stuff is
done in India. Lewis probably pays them about a dollar
a day�-a dollar more than he paid the bloggers who
linked their sites to his. Some one also told me that Lewis’ wife is Nancy Foster, whose
photo appears as �Blog Leaderboard�. TravelGolf.com,
what a scam. This is a web site, it clearly isn�t a
real publication. Lewis is a loser and his advertisers are finding that out.
Have you read Jennifer Mario’s latest blog on racist comments by Barry and Stacy Solomon’s blog (Its worth reading). Toward the bottom of the string, one “visitor” challenges Robert Lewis to take some action regarding rampant bigotry on Travelgolf by several “visitors”. Can’t imagine Lewis’s advertisers are thrilled to be associated with such things. Bigotry in media is usually about as welcome as the Black Plague.
C’mon Sally, racist comments? I’m sure that’s what you say when you have nothing else to say, but to put down the Solomon’s is ridiculous. Take humor for what it is. I didn’t see any Asian people on the site complaining…just you and Jennifer Mario.
Golf for Beginners blog is one of the best golf blogs on the internet. It’s insightful and their podcast (which you can catch on iTunes) has helped me lower my handicap.
I’m not surprised by the attacks on Jay. TGM’s focus is wholly on driving traffic to their sites. Anyone who ‘dares’ step out of line gets placed on the chopping block. I have no doubt all the bloggers on TGM pay were asked to slant their blogs as a sort of punishment for Jay refusing to continue his association with them. And of course ‘the boss is always right’. Rebel Blogger (and Blogger Leaderboard when he’s in the mood) are written by Lewis himself. Although by now it’s possible he has handed over the Leaderboard blog to another staff writer who will agree to parrot his ideals.
Racist comments…years ago one of the staff writers left because of a racist slur against their ethnicity from Lewis. Notably that writer had been told to maintain secrecy about their ethnicity and so no real photos were ever put on the site. Lewis wanted to maintain the image that the work was being done by a ‘white’ person. Allegedly the Leaderboard photo had come from a Russian bride catalog, but who knows.
All that aside, Lewis is a shrewd businessman. Hence the multimillion dollar deal selling the sites he had accumulated under his umbrella to a group of investors. Hopefully the standard of blogging will improve to everyone’s benefit, where it won’t rely on cheap shots to create traffic.