The Sand Trap

Interview With: Erik Barzeski

When did you start The Sand Trap?

The Sand Trap launched in August, 2004, though I’d been planning to start the site for a few months prior.

What made you start it?

I had planned to “glom on” to an existing golf site, as a writer, and spent several months looking around and trying to find sites that interested me. Unfortunately, none of the sites had quite the focus I wanted – they were either oriented solely on one thing, were run by one person who intended to keep it that way, or – frankly – were too amateurish. By no means am I a professional journalist, but I’ve played one several times throughout my life.

What is your background?

You mean aside from my degrees in medicinal chemistry, French, and computer science? <grin> Despite what I told my high school English teacher, I’ve made my career writing for the most part. Sometimes it’s been writing programming code, but more often it’s been writing. I ran an electronic magazine called “Apple Wizards” which reviewed Mac hardware and software and covered Mac-related topics in the late 1990s. I was Editor-in-Chief of SegaWeb, a games news/reviews site after that. I’ve written reviews for MacAddict and had a column at a site called MacOpinion for awhile. In about 2002, I moved into programming and consulting.

Nowadays I still find myself doing the same general things as I was in 2002 – consulting, programming, development, writing.

Do you blog for fun or are you trying to make it a career? What is your goal with this blog?

I maintain a personal blog at http://nslog.com. I blog for fun, enrichment, and as one of my favorite Mac bloggers says, “so google can index my brain.”

Though The Sand Trap is powered by WordPress, a blogging package, I’ve tried to push it into a realm where it’s not so much considered a “blog” as it is an electronic magazine. I think “golf blogs” have a bad name as flippant, personal, insignificant golf diaries, as in “today I went out and shot 77 with two birdies…”.

I think The Sand Trap is so much more than that. We publish the best reviews of golf equipment you’ll find anywhere, bar none. We cover the world of golf, not just what’s happening with our own games or in our own neighborhoods, and we’re a staff of eight, not one or two. We view ourselves as a sort of electronic magazine, as I’ve said, and very few other golf blogs seem to share in that approach.

That’s not to say that the other golf blogs aren’t interesting – I subscribe to and read about 50, after all – but just that they aren’t going about it quite the same way we are.

What type of blogging software do you use?

WordPress with a fair number of plugins and a custom theme I’ve built along with some other tweaks. The appearance of the site hasn’t changed, but a little over a year ago we moved the site from MovableType to WordPress, and thus far have been very happy with the move.

What ad network(s) do you use?

We don’t rely on an ad network. Titleist has been sponsoring the site for most of the time we’ve been around, and our click-through numbers are high enough that they keep coming back. We’re happy to have them, both as a
stable partner and on a personal level, because I’ve always appreciated and used Titleist equipment.

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Enough to pay the bills and a little extra for staff rewards like our yearly Newport Cup. I make a living doing software and web consulting, and each member of our staff earns their own living as well. I think that if we ever became worried about making money with The Sand Trap, some of the appeal and joy of writing for the site would be lost. Currently, I’m happy to keep it a
site for people who are passionate about golf – myself included – to share their thoughts with a large audience.

If you could get something for free to help you out with your blog, what would it be? (Ex: design, marketing, ad optimization, etc)

I think we’re doing fairly well and we’ve been on an upward climb in viewers, listeners, and more since launch. I said before that the site hasn’t changed much in appearance for several years, so I’m looking to redesign the site at some point, but the current site works quite well for now.

What are some of your favorite blogs?

I subscribe to about 200 blogs, and I have favorites in every category. Photography, golf, technology, Apple, humor… I’ve got all the topics in which I’m interested covered.

Any bold predictions for the future of sports on the internet?

No bold predictions. I think blogging is mature, and yet diversifying at the same time. We see corporate blogs and we see blogs about someone’s cats, yet both are called “blogs.”

Everyone from the NFL to the PGA Tour has done more with real-time statistics and broadcasts online lately, and I’m happy to see that trend. I think it can enrich sports viewing or bring sports viewing to people who can’t get to a TV because they’re stuck at work or something.

But bold? No, I’m sorry, I don’t have anything for you there. I’m fairly happy in the knowledge that technology marches on.