The RSG Tour
Back in the early 1980's, the state of the art in social networking was
distributed electronic bulletinboards, usually implemented and
maintained by underground programmers at universities and large
companies who used their employer's computers and telephone modems to
create a utility that allowed others to exchange messages on topics of
interest. The Usenet newsgroups facility was one of the largest
such, linking many universities as well as several large
corporations. Early on a group dedicated to golf was created
there. As the software evolved and many more people got connected
as it migrated from phone lines to the public internet, the number of
newsgroups grew and the name of the golf group was eventually changed
to "Rec.Sport.Golf" (usually known as RSG). The group flourished
with posts on equipment, courses, the pro tours, instruction, and
especially clubmaking. It attracted an international following,
and by the early 1990s members of the group started organizing golf
events to get people together. The events are basically long
weekends with 4 or 5 rounds of golf over 3 days and some sort of
competition for bragging rights, along with lots of time to get
together, share brews, stories, and lies.
Sadly, Off topic and abusive posts were always a problem in the wide
open world of Usenet, and RSG was no exception, and by the early part
of the 21st century the level of noise in the group became intolerable,
driving those more interested in positive exchanges about golf into
other forums. Interest in the get togethers remains high though,
with large gatherings (20-30 people) played in Washington state,
Columbus Ohio, Cincinatti, and the Washington/BC border towns, and
smaller events played in Pittsburgh and eastern Pennsylvania.
A large set of writeups on some of the RSG events of the past decade or
so can be found at Dave
Tuttleman's RSG-Events Page
Other pages for events include:
- RSG Cincinnati Played
every year in Cincinnati, now in it's 10th year
- RSG Northwest (Note that
while the page is a bit out of date, the event is still being contested.
- RSG Wisconsin
(This event was last run in 2007, but may be run again in the future if
the organizer has more time)
Other RSG Gatherings have been played at Bandon Dunes, in Scottland,
near Dallas, and in Atlanta. In addition, many of the people
attending these events will meet informally when they have a chance all
over the country.