Why are golfers so......

[TEPaul]

adamant in their opinions about golf course architecture? There's no game or sport that's participants are so opinionated about their field of contest! Why is that?

[RJ_Daley]

Because most other sportsman can't play baseball, football, basketball, ice hockey at Wrigley, Lambeau, The Garden, or Joe Lewis Arena, because they aren't good enough...  But, we all get to play on the various fields of golf, and can talk about how good it is to play there and how good we played there, even if we still aren't all that good.

[TEPaul]

RJ;

Then why aren't we just plain thankful instead of being eternally opinionated about architecture?

[RJ_Daley]

..because once we play there, the course becomes part of our ego or relates to our personal senses.  We were the competitors on the field, even if our competition was the course itself.  

Do athletes that play at the venerable old stadiums and the new spectator pleasure palaces have strong opinions about the venues in and upon which they play?  I think most of them do because competitions on fields is sort of ancient in our psyche and stirs emotion, thus opinion.

[TEPaul]

RJ;

Do you think it has anything to do with inability to take responsiblity? If something is not defined enough it's easier to account it to lack of definition, or consistency, instead of something to do with ourselves, isn't it?

[cary lichtenstein]

Most people don't know squat, don't care, and are not interested. We are in the vast minority.

[Norbert P]

  Is it mostly an American pathology?
 Peter Dobereiner wrote of a symptom of our sickness as always having to compare everything with the best*. Thus, we tend to rank value instead of absorb value with wondrous appreciation.

* "Back to Basics, Please" PD 1979

  (in his "World of Golf" compilation book)

[Jeff Fortson]

Because most sports are played on fixed fields of play.  With the exception of fence depths in baseball most sports like football, soccer, basketball, hockey, etc. play on the same dimensions everytime.  Sure the atmosphere of a place changes depending on the location (i.e. stadium or local park, etc.) and field or ice conditions can change but the dimensions are the same.  

I know I am stating the obvious but this seems to be the main factor.  I definitely don't think it is because golfers are different than other people in this regard, it's just simple logistics.


Jeff F.

[Mike_Sweeney]

I think skiing is probably the closest for me. Every skier has their favorite mountain (Snowbird). The skiing is broken down by region or type (East vs West as opposed to Links vs Parkland). I prefer Powder snow and Bent grass to groomed granular or Bermuda.

The big difference between skiing and golf is the timing. When you golf you have roughly 2-3 minutes between shots to think where with skiing you have no real time to think between turns, but you do have time between runs to see what you just skied.

There is also one mountain climber here that has a heath-like course laid out in his head at Everest !

By the way, more golfers are way more obsessed with their equipment than bunkers, and I have been known to throw a post or two up at Bombsquadgolf.com !

[Mike_Young]

Only a few are.  They are much more swayed by maintenance level and locker room and clubhouse.  And then most are told what they like.  

[JakaB]

I think people care a great deal about stadiums and their seats in each....I'm getting ready to head down to Jordan-Hare and should get the same feeling in my gut when the War Eagle circles the venue as I would get teeing off any top ten course in the country....In cities people buy season tickets for all the same wrong reasons they buy memberships....In St. Louis they are currently tearing down a perfectly good stadium for no good reason....sound like a renovation to me....Golfing venues and stadiums have more in common than this thread might indicate.   A Cub fan may even tell you the field is better than the fielders...

[A_Clay_Man]

Since WE are insignificant (save for our wallets) and golf is pure recreation (for the majority) the consequence of having an opinion is nil.

Even for those who make GCA their life study, and who have been shouted down by others, as someone who "doesn't know shit", or as, "a real a**hole", at the end of the day it's golf. Meaningless, by it's self on the grand scheme of things. The real lessons are learned by the real students and they are but a drop in the bucket compared to all those customers.

Isn't that why they have consultants?

[TEPaul]

John B:

When it comes to opinions on golf architecture and baseball stadiums, you've got a point there---and I think a good example might be Geoff Shackelford!

[TEPaul]

"Since WE are insignificant (save for our wallets) and golf is pure recreation (for the majority) the consequence of having an opinion is nil."

Adam:

Hold on there boy! I am not insignificant and neither is my opinion, particularly as long as it continues to dominate Patrick Mucci!!!!!!    

[A_Clay_Man]

TP-I'm forced to agree with that.

Let's use the example of two altered configurations. Pinon Hills and Banff Springs. Both courses have an artful quality to thier routings, but not in thier current config.

Are those who decided to change the route wrong?

I was always under the impression that opinons could never be wrong, yet some are formed from a combination of  disinformation and/or pampered subjectivity..

[frank_D]

There's no game or sport that's participants are so opinionated about their field of contest!

brother TEPaul

because the golf course is a SUBJECTIVE matter - where most other games require precise measurements about their field of contest and when there are variables they fall within a range

[Ted Kramer]

In many ways your golf game only has meaning within the context of the course that you are playing on a particular day. The course has an awful lot to do with how you play the game. The fact that on one course you might be hitting a lot of irons off tees for position and on another its just bombs away tells me that the difference in styles of golf course architecture is as much a part of the beauty of this game as a well struck shot.

If the landscape of a soccer field changed drastically from stadium to stadium (longer, wider, shorter, tighter) teams would have to adopt drastically different strategies from one arena to the next . . .Naturally some teams and players would enjoy playing and play better on certain field set-ups.

The changing nature of the golf course and difference between courses is very much a part of this great game.  

[Rick Baril]

IMO – some topographic change and a few strategic bunkers would significantly improve the appeal other sports (for me).  That other sports have not embraced this concept is testimony to their lack of adventurous spirit and unwillingness to revere nature.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom;

It's because of the simple fact that golf is the only sport where the field of play is widely variable from site to site, course to course and even from hole to hole.

Those inherent differences naturally lead to contrasting and comparing.  Those opinions are then based on our individual and collective experiences and so it goes...  

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Crown green bowls is a near equivalent in terms of the individuality of the ground on which it is played.  Cricket, too, despite having a fixed pitch length.  Everything else varies enormously and an astute captain of a cricket team reads every nuance of the wicket, the outfield, its topography and geology, the winds, the rain, the sun, even the state of the tides.  But, unlike golf, we cricketing rabbits never got to play at Lord's or the Melbourne Cricket Ground.  The cricket grounds at our humble level would be more like comparing golf at Brora and Golspie.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Punting!  Why didn't I think of it earlier?  And I don't mean that tourist stuff on the concrete bottom along the Backs at Cambridge!

[Brian_Gracely]

Actually, folks are looking at this from the wrong perspective.  Having played baseball for 15 years on every time of field imagineable; gravel infields with broken bottles in downtown Detroit to the most manicured fields of the schools in the ACC, there is a huge difference when you're looking at it from the amateur to professional ranks.  Even football has this with grass vs. turf fields, and flat vs. crowned fields.  The field of play is part of the sport, whether it's conditioning or dimensions or just proximity to where the sun rises and sets.

Of course golf is the one sport where the variation is so wide between venues, but it does get discussed in other sports as well.  And being an individual vs. team sport adds to the level of individual critique.

[TEPaul]

"Tom;
It's because of the simple fact that golf is the only sport where the field of play is widely variable from site to site, course to course and even from hole to hole.
Those inherent differences naturally lead to contrasting and comparing.  Those opinions are then based on our individual and collective experiences and so it goes..."

Mike Cirba:

That's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is how adamant about their individual opinion particular golfers, called members can get about one course---their own---forget about what they all think about other courses.

If you want to see how adamant golfers can be individually about architecture try taking something like a restoration plan through from beginning to end. If you have 300 members you generally have about 150 different and adamant opinions on anything and everything.  

I sort of figure it has more to do with the fact that golf is just a very personal thing with many golfers and they can get very adamant with their opinions about the architecture (or maintenance) that effects it.

[T_MacWood]

When an art form crosses paths with the John Q Public you are bound to get all sorts of diverging opinions...film, music, literature, cuisine, golf architecture, etc.

[Steve Curry]

Tom,

Easy, most other playing fields don't have trees.  

Steve