"If they want to learn the business, they've got to pay their dues and go and work under some other people."

Thanks to reader Tom for this Lewine Mair piece on Jack Nicklaus criticizing player architects for mailing in designs. Oy vey...Jack. You can't have your son-in-law designing courses under your name and go on rants like this!

The ball, fine. But come on, this?

Mair writes:

Jack Nicklaus has let the cat out of the bag. In an interview for CNN, to appear on Saturday, Nicklaus confirms that there are top golfers who have lent their names to courses which they have never clapped eyes on.

Nicklaus does not include Tiger Woods, whose first design project is under way in Dubai. Though he begins by saying: "Tiger doesn't know anything about designing golf courses at the moment", he makes it clear that when Woods lends his name to a project, "you know it's going to be good".

It is more the general trend of tour players assuming the role of designers with which Nicklaus is so uncomfortable. "There's a lot of fellas out here who know how to play the game, but they don't really understand a golf course," he says. "If they want to learn the business, they've got to pay their dues and go and work under some other people. That way, they'll not only be able to use their name to produce a facility, but they'll produce a facility they're proud of.

"What you don't want," he continues, "is to have people saying, 'This is a Joe Jones' course' when Joe Jones was probably never there."

Nicklaus is interviewed on CNN International's Living Golf on Saturday at 6:30pm.