Out of my last 31 reviews, only two have more than 6 positive votes. One has 9, the other (Renny Gold) has 15. The summary is either reviews are getting less votes. Or, pander for votes.

I only have double digit votes in 4 of my last 50 or so. Those are all very popular courses (Flip, Wildcat, Meggido and the Canyons). I probably average 4 or 5 for all the rest. If you want the thumbs you need to play the top courses, at least around here.

I try to vote on 1-2 reviews every time I am on the home page (or at least once a day). And I try to choose people who are not trusted reviewers. I hope I can encourage them to write more reviews. I have also sent a personal message to a few of them telling them specifically what I like about a review. In one case, I disagreed with the overall rating, but I told the reviewer that I appreciated the information he provided to support his rating.

Absolutely! Keep it up, aclay; I try to do this as well.

Plus, I have a habit of noticing who gave me upvotes and then finding a recent review of theirs to upvote as well. Quid pro quo.

I'm always baffled when I see TR reviewers who don't/rarely vote. Like really? C'mom. Return the love.

Keep it up. Sending PMs can be a great encouragement for new reviewers.

I am just short of Gold level (this is not a pander!), and I've noticed many of the same things about which reviews seem to get the most votes - high traffic, popular, "big name" courses.

Whenever possible, I like to add details about individual holes to my reviews - to create a sort of "walkthrough" experience, from parking, to the signage and tees, to unique things the course offers during round play.

I've also been pleased to see my reviews with lower ratings don't earn a bunch of negatives. Sure, there are times where I guess I piss off the homers - but as a Premium member I can see who they are, and see if they actually write any reviews themselves (anyone else even been tempted to respond 'negative-for-negative'?).

Last thought - I think it's really helpful to point out changes made to the course since earlier reviews (most often for the better, but sometimes for the worse). There are a lot of 3-5 year old reviews on the courses I play, and I try to give as current a picture as I can. I hope that sets a tone for future reviews on the same course: two years from now, reviewers can point out changes since my visit.

I have a backlog of about 20 reviews to write. I make sure that only one of my reviews is on the Home page at a time, no reason to push your own review off the Home page with another one. So c'mon reviewers let's get more posted, I've got 3 written and ready to post!

A little trick I started using last fall when out bagging multiple courses: on the drive from one to another, I go to the voice recorder on my phone and record notes about the course I just played. Tees, signs, baskets, etc. and even a hole by hole recap. I'm writing the first ones now with these recordings, it does help jog the memory. Its a lot easier to record these notes as you're driving (since you can't write them down) and makes the drive a little shorter.

Good thoughts - I too like to highlight some of my favorite/the best holes on a course, I guess that makes them "memorable". Also neat if you can add some unique things about the course.

That is why we keep writing reviews of courses that have many, many reviews, to update any changes to the course, whether manmade, or acts of God.

Really important (especially now) to update the Course Conditions after you play each time.

Thanks Puck for inquiring about this old man. To keep with the recent conversation on this thread, I have 14 reviews with no thumbs and 107 reviews with only one thumb. Many of these reviews are for little church courses, school and college courses, extinct courses and all other sort of neglected or forgotten courses. If your looking for thumbs, you definitely want to play and review the more well known courses.

As for goals and future plans, my road trips these days are almost always tagged onto vacations with my wife. After she flies home, I often stay for 7-10 days playing any and all courses. I had planned on a baseball trip this summer to Kansas City and Milwaukee where I would have played some on the drive between these cities and then would have stayed in Milwaukee and played 30 to 40 courses. But the Corona virus put that and everyone’s plans on hold. The virus also cancelled our planned trip to Vietnam and Cambodia where I was planning on hitting one course in each country.

Goals? I kinda take those one step at a time. 1500 courses is coming up and i’m just short of 1400 reviews written. I want to play courses in more countries. I want to visit the last two Major League Baseball stadiums in KC and Milwaukee. I’ve been to all the rest. I want to get to Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, do an African safari, maybe get to the Seychelles and the Maldives Islands and hopefully hang around long enough to watch my son umpire a World Series. He’s maybe 5-7 years away from that. I think course wise, 1600 courses and 1500 reviews sounds like a reasonable goal.

The one thing I do know is as soon as I quit played, there are all these younger players here on DGCR who are racking up courses at an amazing rate and will blow by my career numbers. Good luck to all of them and everyone take care of yourselves and your loved ones in this difficult time.

TVK

Olorin just dropped is first review in over six years. I feel like i could accurately review the course from just reading what he posted. I think I'll go with a 3.0 as well.