EDITOR'S COLUMN
If there’s one word that describes the years 1998-2008, FORE Magazine’s fourth decade of publishing, it’s technology. Technology has, in many ways, dominated the entire game of golf during this time span: graphite shafts, composite and adjustable driver heads, titanium and other space-age alloys, square grooves, v-shaped grooves and a myriad of golf balls, to name just a few.
It’s been the same with communications. When I arrived at the SCGA in 1983, FORE’s copy was being written on a typewriter (I brought with me an Osborne 1 computer), photos were taken on film with lenses that didn’t focus automatically, and pages were built with art boards, X-Acto knives and Rubylith (all ancient history to today’s young communicators). Advertisements were either submitted via film or we built them ourselves, and the entire process took nearly two months from beginning to end to get a magazine into your mailbox.
Today we use iMacs to produce the magazine, photography is all digital, ads are submitted via e-mail or (occasionally) on CD and the entire time frame has been compressed dramatically.
Two watershed moments stick in my mind. In the early 1990s, I participated in a panel discussion with some major publication professionals, all of whom thought that switching to what we now call computer-to-plate printing (essentially an all-digital format) would be very hard to undertake because advertisers and ad agencies wouldn’t want to make the switch. We found that just asking companies to submit ads via a digital format was enough to get the job done and we became an industry pioneer.
When I began in 1983, a story on the California Amateur (played in June) ran in FORE’s fall (aka September/October) issue. Just 10 years later, I can remember driving home from Pebble Beach after the final match on Saturday (arriving at about midnight), getting film processed on Sunday and writing several stories, designing the section on Monday and shipping everything to the printer on Tuesday so that it was in your mailbox less than two weeks later.
The internet has made news even more timely. For this year’s California Amateur, you can visit the tournament Web site and get live scoring, stories, photo galleries, tournament history and more, all at the click (or a few clicks) of your mouse. The same is now true for all SCGA championships. Whereas in the magazine you got a few pictures and a story, the tournament Web sites (created by Assistant Editor Katie Denbo) provide more stories, scores and scorecards as well as photo galleries with every player in the tournament.
The Web has both fueled people’s desire for instantaneous information and responded to that want, as well. Consequently, print publications — including FORE Magazine — are using the Web to provide up-to-date news while focusing more and more on features, travel articles and other areas that can be read at leisure. The SCGA introduced its Web site in 1996. There have been two updated designs and we’re about to begin work on a complete redesign that we hope will be ready to unveil by the late fall.
Much has happened in the 40 years of FORE’s life span and the future will bring even more changes and innovations both for the magazine and the association. However, our main goal continues to be to produce the best possible association communication vehicles possible, all dedicated to keeping you fully informed about the association, its mission, values and goals, and to be the “Bible” of amateur golf in Southern California.
— Robert D. Thomas has been FORE Magazine’s editor and publisher since 1983 |
