Golf Is Just......

[ForkaB]

As horrid and embarassing as our 9th hole antics were, I have to believe it came out for the good.

TH,

At least it was a long way from the clubhouse...

Yeah, Doug and Tom, but it is exactly on the route from my Dornoch trailer to the beach.  My innocent sprogs could have seen and heard you!  For shame!

Maybe we should ask the course to plant some buckthorn between the coastal path and the 9th tee......

[Tom Huckaby]

Rich:  my humble apologies, I am suitably chastised.  Your sprogs would have gained unwanted education had they seen - and heard - my antics that day.

Buckthorn might be a good idea...

 

[George Pazin]

There is a world of difference between NATO and don't give a s@#$.

Put a slightly different way, I don't attach my play with my self esteem (God help me if I did), but I do like to play as well as I can. Some days that just means hitting one good shot, some days it means shooting a good score, some days it means just appreciating the course while I struggle to do my best and stay happy.

[Doug Wright]

As horrid and embarassing as our 9th hole antics were, I have to believe it came out for the good.

TH,

At least it was a long way from the clubhouse...

Yeah, Doug and Tom, but it is exactly on the route from my Dornoch trailer to the beach.  My innocent sprogs could have seen and heard you!  For shame!

Maybe we should ask the course to plant some buckthorn between the coastal path and the 9th tee......

Rihc,

You don't need no stinking buckthorn...there's plenty of GORSE to go around (which is part of the story, of course).

And let's be clear--my antics were totally of the verbal kind, the likes of which your sprogs are no doubt accustomed Rihc!  No club or bag-throwing on my part, unlike that heathen Huckaby, who should be banned from all things Royal...  

[Tom Huckaby]

There is a world of difference between NATO and don't give a s@#$.

Put a slightly different way, I don't attach my play with my self esteem (God help me if I did), but I do like to play as well as I can. Some days that just means hitting one good shot, some days it means shooting a good score, some days it means just appreciating the course while I struggle to do my best and stay happy.

George:

It's as I expected - you do understand NATO.  You more or less captured it.  It's not total lack of giving a shit; it's more not letting the outcome be the primary determiner of one's joy/fun level.  And many can, and do, play that way, at least some of the time.  I'd bet even Patrick does.  

Doug - oh yes, based on the behavior that day, I ought to be banned from all golf, not just royal.  Good god... I cringe thinking about it.  But I paid my penance, I think.. I'm a good boy now.    

[Tom Huckaby]

BTW, reading BillV's thoughts on another thread, the thought occurred to me that many of us know a particular man who captures this in his golf (and I believe his life) better than anyone ever could...

Neil Regan.

Tell him he's not having fun playing the game... as he pays no attention to score, putts from 100 yards off the green, etc.

The man's a hero the way I see it.

Now I guess some will say when he does this he's not "playing golf", but if that's the case, well put me down for his game.

TH

[Dan Kelly]

Tell him he's not having fun playing the game... as he ... putts from 100 yards off the green, etc.

Yeah, I've had the shanks with my wedges, too...

[Tom Huckaby]

DK - as have I!

Hmmmm... maybe Neil's been figured out.  

He does tend to have more fun playing this game than anyone I've ever seen, though.  Maybe we all should get the shanks.

TH

[Bob_Huntley]

...

Neil Regan.

Tell him he's not having fun playing the game... as he pays no attention to score, putts from 100 yards off the green, etc.

The man's a hero the way I see it.

Now I guess some will say when he does this he's not "playing golf", but if that's the case, well put me down for his game.

TH

Neil Regan,

Quite possibly the best long putter in golf.

At Sand Hills I had a six iron to a green some 150 yards away and with a steroidal bash put it on the green. From the same distance Regan reaches for his putter and with a Henry Cotton flick of the wrists, puts it closer to the flagstick than my best shot.

Some of his putting techniques deny the laws of physics and I must agree with the Huckster, no one seems to have as much fun on a golf course as does the Wizard of Winged Foot.

Bob

[RJ_Daley]

As a cheesehead, I'm just a hillbilly wannabe.  We don't have all that frenchie lingo here.  So I had to look it up on the cheesehead translator.  This is what I got...

Chacun a son Goût.
 
“Everyone has (a) his taste”; or, “Everyone to (à) his taste.” The former is French, the latter is English-French. The phrase is much more common with us than it is in France, where we meet with the phrases—Chacun a sa ehacunerie (everyone has his idiosyncrasy), and chacun a sa marotte (everyone has his hobby). In Latin sua cuique voluptas, “as the good-man said when he kissed his cow.”

You can see how they tailor this stuff for us dairyland folks...

[Bob_Huntley]

As a cheesehead, I'm just a hillbilly wannabe.  We don't have all that frenchie lingo here.  So I had to look it up on the cheesehead translator.  This is what I got...

In Latin sua cuique voluptas, “as the good-man said when he kissed his cow.”

Kissing cows reminds me of the two English colonels drinking pink gins on the verandah of their bungalow in Poona, India during the days of the Raj.

FC.   I say old chap did you hear about Plkington-Smythe?

SC.    No, what happened?

FC.    His dear wife died. He then took up with a native gal.

SV.    Oh, then what?

FC.    She came down with cholera and died.

SC.    Poor chap, what's he doing now?

FC.    He's living with a goat.

SC,    A female goat I trust?

FC.    Oh yes, there's nothing queer about Pilkington-Smythe.

Sophomoric I know, but it goes back a long way.

Bob

[RJ_Daley]

Boab, I'll pass that one along to Steve, and try to affect the accent, which as I imagined you telling it, makes all the difference!

[Dan Kelly]

FC.    He's living with a goat.

SC,    A female goat I trust?

FC.    Oh yes, there's nothing queer about Pilkington-Smythe.

Sophomoric I know, but it goes back a long way.

Bob --

That reminds me of my History tutor in college, who was writing his dissertation on American Attitudes Toward Animals. (Working title, according to one of his fellow-tutors: "Barking Up the Wrong Tree.")

One day, he returned to the House from a session at the library and regaled a tableful of us (literally) sophomores with an account of his recent readings about bestiality at Plimoth Plantation.

Naturally (so to speak), goats and sheep figured prominently.

From that day forward, whenever one of us saw him in conversation with any senior member of the History Department -- any one of whom our tutor was most eager to impress, of course -- we would wander up behind him, put our mouth near his ear, and say ... just loud enough to be heard by him, but not
by his departmental superior: "Baaaaahhhhh."

Simple pleasures.

Oh, to be Sophomoric again!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat- maybe as the kids say you should take a "chill pill". I'm not sure I got all of what you were intimating re: Sand Hills,

Maybe you should take a refresher course in reading comprehension.[/color]

but it seems that all kinds of people have ventured to places far and wide [size=4x]just for the joy of experiencing golf.[/size]  

I don't think too many of us go to  places like Bandon, Whistling Straits, Myrtle Beach or the RTJ trail, or venture abroad to the British Isles for any other reason than to have just a bunch of fun coupled with the comraderie that goes along with it.

Wayne,

You need to reread my post.

That was my point,

They aren't going to those places to hike around the terrain and commune with nature.

They're going there to play GOLF.[/color]

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick is partially right, but also partially wrong.
You're right about the correct part.[/color]

See, the man is a competitor.  It's not in his nature to understand that one can play this game non-competitively.  

That's totally untrue.

In fact one of my great joys is to play late in the afternoon when noone else is around.

I experiment, I try different shots, different clubs, but always with the goal of getting the ball into the hole.[/color]

He'll come back in and tell me I'm FOS also - he's done it before -

That's true.
And, I have done it before.

It's all about executing shots wherein the inherent purpose is scoring.[/color]

but those who understand how this can be done (like me) just politely nod.  One either understands NATO golf or one doesn't.  It's not in Patrick's nature to understand.  But I bet you do.

You can continue with the practice of mental mastubation if you like.

There's a difference between a driving range, a practice facility and a golf course.

A golf course has a designated teeing area, a field of play in front of you and a green with a 4 1/4 hole, and the purpose of the game is to navigate from point A to point B in as few strokes as possible.

If it wasn't so, you'd play the holes sideways, backwards or any configuration other then that as designated as standard.

You and all the others who claim they play the game for other reasons ARE FOS.  

Tell me, that when you played Ran at Sand Hills that you were just out there for the views, which, by the third day are fairly repetitive.[/color]

[Andy Troeger]

I think Pat has a point here. I used to play in a lot of junior tournaments and was very competitive. I then went through a major slump, got tired of losing, and dropped out of the competitive stuff for the most part.  After a couple years away from the game I started coaching and got my game back generally. I really never got back into the tournament arena, but I still want to play my best every time I tee it up, no matter where, when, or with whom. If I hack it up I don't get as upset as I used to about it, but I'll still give it my best shot.

That said, I can also have fun on the golf course just based on being on a wonderful course or with wonderful people. But I'd always rather be playing well too

[Craig Sweet]

Obviously getting the ball from point A to point B is the object of the game, and why we all play the game. But there's certainly much more to a round of golf than that.

For example, we have gobs of ducks on our course and yesterday a mallard hen was taking her ducklings out for what looked like their first swim. The little ducks zipped around like little rubber band propelled boats....our foursome lingered for a few minutes and watched with big smiles on our faces before moving on...

The other thing I enjoy about golf is the people I play with. Good guys all, and very interesting people as well.

I'm lucky to be living in Montana....inspiring vista's are everywhere.....yet I see some golfers trudging along, head down, eyes glued to the grass...going from point A to point B....maybe they are bored with vista's and golf?

[Bill_McBride]

Bob et al, remind me to tell you the story about the guy who was arrested for having sex with a goat in Bay Minette, Alabama when we meet up in Palm Springs.  It's a bit lengthy for this board.  

[Bob_Huntley]

Bob et al, remind me to tell you the story about the guy who was arrested for having sex with a goat in Bay Minette, Alabama when we meet up in Palm Springs.  It's a bit lengthy for this board.  

Bill,

I bet it ends with one juror saying to another, "They'll do that you know."

Bob

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bob Huntley,

Watching Neil Regan putt from 1 to 150 yards out was a treat.

He's amazingly adept at it.

In fact, if you didn't see him do it, so often, so successfully, you wouldn't believe it.

[Tom Huckaby]

Patrick:

When I played against Ran, and against you, the goal was to get the ball in the hole in less strokes than you guys.  That was VERY fun.  It was golf.

When I played my solo "church" nine holes, the reluctant requirement was that I finish each golf hole.  The ultimate goal was something VERY different from getting the ball into the hole... Oh, that was A goal, just not THE goal.  I'd explain what THE main goal was, but I doubt you'd get it.  But that's ok.  This too was golf, just a different form.  That too was very fun.

Different goals, different times, same thing, same level of joy.

And you know what?  I have played the game sideways, backwards and several other configurations other then that as designated as standard.  That too is very fun.

There are lots of ways to derive joy from this game.  You know this.  But hey, it's fine with me if you stick to your strict definitions.  Just don't expect ME to do so.

To each his own, my friend.

TH