Some may disagree about spending more money on the arts or culture or focusing our attention on designing better buildings. But in a remarkable letter posted on the wall of the clubhouse of the Columbus Otter Creek Golf Course, one of the top 25 public courses in the country, community visionary J. Irwin Miller explained why a great golf course is just as important to a successful community as spending the money on charities, churches or schools. 

“…we would like to see this community come to be not the cheapest community in America, but the very best community of its size in the country. We would like to see it become the city in which the smartest, the ablest, the best young families anywhere would like to live…a community which will offer their children the best education available anywhere…a community whose citizens are themselves well-paid and who will not tolerate poverty for others, or slums in their midst. ...Our concern is to help get the most for our dollar, to help build this community into the best in the nation. And we are happy to pay our share, whether in work, or in taxes or in gifts like this one.”