Free association regarding the golf ball

[Ted Kramer]

My brain doesn't seem to be functioning in its normal, boring, logical manner this morning. I'm in more of a free association mode.

I've been thinking about "Proportions" in golf.

Risk/Reward - how much risk vs. how much reward?
*That whole reality changes a great deal as the ball flies farther and straighter.

The game is getting straighter.
More linear.
Higher.

The GCA cannot put hazzards in the air.
The wind is a hazzard.
The new ball handles the wind "better".
It curves less.
It is MUCH more aerodynamic.
Wind is less of a factor with the new ball.

If 280 was a long drive before, and 340 is a long drive now, logic says that a golf course must grow in size in order to maintain its character as it relates to the player. But should width grow in proportion to length?
*The new ball is LONGER and STRAIGHTER
*Adding width combined with a straighter flying ball makes the fairway DISPROPORTIONATELY EASIER TO HIT.
*Adding length without width changes the nature of the golfing landscape.
*Holes are narrow
*No options
*No angles
*No thinking
*No fun
 
The changing PROPORTIONS of the golf ball's characteristics is changing the game.
*The game can't keep up.
*The course is an integral part of the game.
*The course is the game.
*The course is on the ground.
*The new game is in the air.
*The air isn't even the same hazzard that it used to be.

Golf has fascinated so many due to its incredibly complex proportional relationships.
*Those proportions are changing and the game is becoming MUCH LESS FASCINATING.

-Ted

[Craig Sweet]

Stop thinking...take a bunch of lessons...play better golf.

 

Too much obsession over the ball. Golf is all about the HOLE.

 

[Mike_Cirba]

Ted,

That's awesome.  I think your thinking is spot on.

What's more, you're a poet, man!  I'm serious!  

[Ted Kramer]

Man vs. Nature

Man vs. Man tends to remain fair and proportional.
*As I get faster so do you
*As I get stronger, so do you
*While the man vs. man might remain "fair" at the highest levels of golf; the man vs. course, which is certainly key to golf's allure, CAN NOT REMAIN FAIR AS THE PROPORTIONS CHANGE.
*The course is on the ground.
*The ball is in the air.
*The course CAN NOT HAVE THE SAME MEANING IN THIS CONTEXT!

Man's mind and his ability to generate new technology is an incredibly powerful combination.
*Western culture hasn't embraced the idea of co-existing with nature.
*It has more to do with dominating and controlling nature and there isn't anything very subtle about that relationship. It has a lot to do with brute force.

Technology works to help man dominate the golf course via brute strength.
*There was a give and take between man and the course(Earth) when the ball wasn't as advanced.
*That relationship has changed drastically.
*The old ball was acted on by man and the ground/Earth.
*The Earth/course/ground is largely taken out of the equation based on the changing proportions of the new ball's flight characteristics.

Despite any technological advance, nature still amazes us.
*Reducing the Earth's role in this game makes it much more mundane.
*Without the course's ability to factor into to this game in a meaningful way, we lose so much of its majesty.
*Man vs. Man can be contested on a track, in a boxing ring, or across a chess board.
*Golf has given us the ability to test ourselves against one another and Mother Earth at the same time.
*As the course becomes less of a factor, this game becomes more like boxing and the 400 meter.

-Ted
 

[A_Clay_Man]

Mike, If all what Ted wrote is "spot on" why does anyone here, Ted & you in particular, continue to play?

[Ted Kramer]

Mike, If all what Ted wrote is "spot on" why does anyone here, Ted & you in particular, continue to play?

Can we be headed in the wrong direction?
When you make the first wrong turn you're well on your way to being really lost, but you aren't quite there yet. . .

-Ted