In an effort to begin simplifying the left area of the site, we moved the search and new message center to the top of the page. All of the same information is there, it's just a bit cleaner and more compact.
Its a good idea and it does simplify things a bit but I feel that it could get lost with it being at the very top of the page.
Have you thought about putting the links that are on the left hand side along the top of the page under the LynnBlakeGolf logo? Then you could move the Search and new message center under that so its more visible? That would mean that you could move the adverts, online users part to a different part of the page and save having user scroll the page if they are using a small browser size or small screen.
Just an idea.
Alex