Dude, because of all the times you swore you might aswell just go ahead and do"****" again.
OK, now that that's out of the way...
It seems to me we have two major attitude clashes in this thread
On the one hand, private courses are often a labor of love, and Johnny Betts obviously does this as a hobby above and beyond what he already does. Seeing that, and seeing how he views the course, I don't blame him for his frustration. Owning a disc golf course, at best, is a fun way to lose your shirt but give back to the community of disc golf we all love, and anyone who has a remotely playable course is a hero. I see how people view it as a privilege to play private courses, and when an owner doesn't charge a dime, it absolutely 100% is. When they charge, to me, that's a slight bit less of a privilege because I am paying you to be on your property, so I do have a right to be there because I provided the money you asked me to for the ability to play the course. Having said that, it is also still a privilege and if I'm sitting there and breaking laws or being a total asshat, then I should be asked to leave. It is 100% the course owner's property and their business.
HOWEVER, I also see the side of a player (especially with the current breadth of available courses) expecting a lot. Especially if that player has to pay to be able to play. Extra especially if that player is traveling a long way to play the course. Extra extra especially if that player is only able to play that one course on the trip. I was expecting to see an extremely slanderous and outrageous review when I went to read the review. What I saw was someone who planned a trip around this course, expected greatness, and was less than impressed with what he saw. Was it a little vindictive? Yes. But was it a player just bashing a course? No. To me, it was someone expressing that the course was not in the shape which he expected it to be in, and was a little extra harsh given what he expected versus what he got.
Could/should he have called ahead to find out the conditions? Oh yes, absolutely, especially if he was traveling that far. Could/should he have joined a facebook group and asked the locals about the course conditions for his trip? I think it would have been a really really great idea to do so.
But he didn't, and it's perfectly within his right to write an honest review about
what he experienced. The key is, the player's experience. Is it a privilege to be on the course? Again, for the most part in this case, yes, although he did pay for the experience so there is something owed to him for his money (that's how business works). Do I get why Johnny is so frustrated? Totally, this is his baby, and it's something he does for the community and it goes above and beyond what he does for a living and is probably an endeavor which, in the end, loses money. Are players now somewhat spoiled in their expectations of amenities and upkeep? Yeup, in fact, people in our school club b*tch about the unmowed rough on our home course when the fairways are still plenty wide and discs are still pretty easy to find in it, so I get the frustration. But to say "in my day players were just happy for a course" or "you should be happy he's opening up his land" as if that's an excuse for things which a reviewer would normally expect from any course, and in particular, this course now, be left off an honest review, is ludicrous. For a rating system to be valid, it needs to stay with the times and consistent. One of the great things about the system here is you can find players and reviewers who look for the same things and don't care about the same things as you and trust their reviews. 15 years ago it was acceptable for courses to be missing signs and navigation aids and benches on every hole because the community was just happy to have another course. It would have been great, but it wasn't expected. Nowadays, not every course does, but so many courses do it's part of what separates courses in terms of reviews.
But I would ask is, was the guy right at all or in any partial way? Did he catch the course when the rough was bad, either because of season or because of time constraints? Has some of the signage gotten worse or been broken over time since it was installed? His tone may not have been right, or he may have been extra critical, but did he have any sort of point? Again, I know the frustration, I can't even begin to name how many times I miss an opportunity to improve because I got frustrated and focused on the other person rather than how I could be better (I'm working on that). If he was, then it's an opportunity to improve, and I would say the review is still valid even if it's going to drop traffic to the course since Smuggler's Notch is now rated more highly. Work on the course and make it even better, or keep it in better shape if that's the case. It may not look that way to you, but sometimes fresh eyes are helpful. It just sucks when they're not diplomatic people either, and in some way they are privileged to be there (although again, the dude paid money to be there so he does have a right to have expectations and be disappointed when they aren't met).