"The golf industry was not included as part of the national stimulus package, but just about everyone else was."

There are a couple of great quotes in Steve Habel's Cybergolf story on the dismal state of the design business:

Many golf architects - much like some of the courses they built - will not survive this downturn. "We are just not building very many new golf courses because the banks won't loan any money to make that happen," noted "Open Doctor" Rees Jones said in a recent interview with CNBC. "The golf industry was not included as part of the national stimulus package, but just about everyone else was.

 If only that rich imagination of his could conjure up designs as rich as his fictional interpretation of TARP!

And this from analyst Tom Kite. 

"There is not much further the design industry can drop, and there are signs that it might be coming back somewhat," Kite said. "But there is still an oversupply of golf courses in much of the U.S. and that supply must be absorbed before any meaningful growth can occur."

I'm not really sure what that means, but it sounded great!