[Brent Hutto]

Brent,

You would get in a wager with a man who, assuming all else is equal, has a 500:1 experience ratio on the golf course you're playing?

Joe

Only if he lets me use a rangefinder 

And I hope it could have gone without saying that I'd be happy to play golf with Mike G. anywhere, rangefinder or no, friendly match or no. And at least he wouldn't have to worry about me being in a cart on a hot day. Like most of us his double standards apply much more strongly on the Internet than walking down the fairway on a beautiful golf course.

[Joe Hancock]

Brent,

You would get in a wager with a man who, assuming all else is equal, has a 500:1 experience ratio on the golf course you're playing?

Joe

Only if he lets me use a rangefinder 

And I hope it could have gone without saying that I'd be happy to play golf with Mike G. anywhere, rangefinder or no, friendly match or no. And at least he wouldn't have to worry about me being in a cart on a hot day. Like most of us his double standards apply much more strongly on the Internet than walking down the fairway on a beautiful golf course.

No need to be so defensive. I was just trying to figure out where I wanted to take you in a golf match.....

Joe

[Bill_McBride]

Brent,

You would get in a wager with a man who, assuming all else is equal, has a 500:1 experience ratio on the golf course you're playing?

Joe

Brent, if you do, don't leave any handicap shots on the table!

[Dean Stokes]

You know what Shivas, my sand game is not very good at present, having trouble taking the club away and visualising the shot. The ass cheek method may eleviate both my problems. Thank you.

[Bill_McBride]

You know what Shivas, my sand game is not very good at present, having trouble taking the club away and visualising the shot. The ass cheek method may eleviate both my problems. Thank you.

I'm not sure about this.  The rules say you can't ground your club in a bunker.  They don't specify that it has to be the club in your hands! 

[Dan King]

Brent Hutto writes:
So let's say you had played the eleventh at Lake Merced 500 times and I was seeing it for the very first time. We're playing a friendly match for a dollar a hole. It would be perfectly fair for you to hit the correct shot based on your years of experience there and watch me hit it OB over the green because I got fooled by the architecture. Them's the breaks, you win a dollar.

Back in the olden days that was part of the challenge of playing a new course, figuring out the architecture. Now you just point and click. Does the course really matter?

Yet in the same situation if I pull out a rangefinder, get an exact number and hit the ball five feel from the hole I'm cheating you out of something because I was supposed to be fooled even if you were not.

Nothing wrong with a bit of knowledge you didn't earn. Mike Golden earned his knowledge; you want your's as a gift from up high.

That's a mighty two-faced attitude right there. The old selective moral indignation.

That's  might American attitude of your's. "I want something, but I don't want to put in the work to earn it. If my fellow man earned something then it is my right to get the same gift without work."

Dan Herrmann writes:
There's an old saying - "Choose your battles."

When the USGA allowed buggies,
I remained silent;
I sometimes liked to ride in buggies.
When they allowed everyone to touch the golf ball,
I remained silent;
I didn't have to touch my golf ball.
When they ruined the U.S. Open setups,
I did not speak out;
I've never qualified for a U.S. Open.
When they dumped Golf Journal,
I remained silent;
There were plenty of other golf publications to read.
When they allowed rangefinders,
I was told to pick your fights, you allowed all this other stuff, leave it be.
   
Cheers,
Dan King

We are living in the future
I'll tell you how I know
I read it in the paper
Fifteen years ago
We're all driving rocket ships
And talking with our minds
And wearing turquoise jewelry
And standing in soup lines
We are standing in soup lines
 --John Prine

[Dean Stokes]

You know what Shivas, my sand game is not very good at present, having trouble taking the club away and visualising the shot. The ass cheek method may eleviate both my problems. Thank you.

I'm not sure about this.  The rules say you can't ground your club in a bunker.  They don't specify that it has to be the club in your hands! 

Who said anything about grounding the club - clench tightly.

[Steve Lang]

 
player,
ball,
set of clubs,
field of play,
wind, rain, & sun,
bottle of liquid sustanance,

the game of golf.. priceless

[Brent Hutto]

The courses I like best and certainly the holes I like best have interesting contours and are firm enough for those contours to matter. I enjoy a well-implemented visual deception as much as the next guy but if a hole becomes less challenging after I've seen it two or three times because I'm now clues into some optical illusion...well, that is a negative more than it is a positive. I know hidden tricks that fool you because they're invisible from the fairway give some of you guys a hard-on but honestly that sort of thing does absolutely nothing for me.

There's a little fold in front of the seventeenth green at Cypress Point. If you come up well short of the green in two and the hole is all the way on the front of the green it makes bouncing the ball up there (the obvious shot for a player of my ballstriking ability) quite problematic. The day I played there, the caddie told me the bump was there so I walked 40 yards up to the front of the green and saw it myself. Knowing what I needed to do I chose my shot, hit it just about like I meant to and it kicked on up into the middle of the green. Nice try, better luck next time.

What makes that a neat feature is how tricky a shot it presents. If the caddie had not told me about it that would not have made it a better hole or a more interesting shot. Any feature that is supposedly more interesting the first time you play the hole is a pretty lame-ass feature in my book. The seventeenth-green speed bump at CPC is good because it's fun to negociate the first time or the four hundredth time you play the hole with a front pin position. Not because a first-timer won't see it from 40 yards away. I'm not like a toddler who will be equally delighted the twentieth time I see the same pop-up book.

[Peter Pallotta]

If this thread proves anything (well, it proves a lot of things actually), but among the things it proves is that the term "the spirit of the game" -- which is a wonderful term, and full of nuance and meaning -- would probably be better rendered as "the spirit(s) of the game", i.e. in plural form, to suggest that what moves people most deeply in the playing of golf is a very personal and variable thing; in fact, that's one of the main beauties of the game, that it allows for that kind of individual and unique participation and experience.  Thankfully, the game and its thousands of (non-standardized) fields of play still makes room for all of us, within the rules

Peter 

[Bill_McBride]

The courses I like best and certainly the holes I like best have interesting contours and are firm enough for those contours to matter. I enjoy a well-implemented visual deception as much as the next guy but if a hole becomes less challenging after I've seen it two or three times because I'm now clues into some optical illusion...well, that is a negative more than it is a positive. I know hidden tricks that fool you because they're invisible from the fairway give some of you guys a hard-on but honestly that sort of thing does absolutely nothing for me.

There's a little fold in front of the seventeenth green at Cypress Point. If you come up well short of the green in two and the hole is all the way on the front of the green it makes bouncing the ball up there (the obvious shot for a player of my ballstriking ability) quite problematic. The day I played there, the caddie told me the bump where there so I walked 40 yards up to the front of the green and saw it myself. Knowing what I needed to do I chose my shot, hit it just about like I meant to and it kicked on up into the middle of the green.

What makes that a neat feature is how tricky a shot it presents. If the caddie had not told me about it that would not have made it a better hole or a more interesting shot. Any feature that is supposedly more interesting the first time you play the hole is a pretty lame-ass feature in my book. The seventh-green speed bump at CPC is good because it's fun to negociate the first time or the four hundredth time you play the hole with a front pin position. Not because a first-timer won't see it from 40 yards away.

Not sure what that has to do with using a range finder.  The caddie knows that wrinkle, you'll know it next time, the range finder knows nothing but the empirical distance to the target, the pin reflector or GPS coordinates, pretty irrelevant info.

I think you have just made the point of why I prefer not to have a SkyCaddie or Bushnell.

This thread needs to die, the combatants are diametrically opposed with no inclination to come to any kind of consensus.

[Dean Stokes]

Yet in the same situation if I pull out a rangefinder, get an exact number and hit the ball five feel from the hole I'm cheating you out of something because I was supposed to be fooled even if you were not.

Nothing wrong with a bit of knowledge you didn't earn. Mike Golden earned his knowledge; you want your's as a gift from up high.

It

Dan, didn't you get the memo?  We all HAVE TO BE equal in everything in life -- even golf -- and to the extent we're not, the rules of the game will be forced upon us to "correct" all inequality.  Your kid isn't allowed to beat my kid at soccer (we won't keep score), I am not allowed to be wealthier than Dean (they'll tax the crap out of me until I'm not) and Dean isn't allowed to use his understanding of course architecture to his advantage in club and shot choice (we'll give everybody a rangefinder to "level the playing field").

Everybody has to be equal - radical egalitarianism run amok has finally caught up with the last bastion of individual skills-based competition. 

This is why we need to keep inventing new clubs just like the belly putter Shiv

So that if you can't putt the way people putted for hundreds of years, we'll invent something that makes everyone equal. Soon we'll all be scratch golfers and we wont need a handicapping system. Great, one less argument on GCA.

[Dean Stokes]

I sure hope you don't use a center-shafted, face-balanced, heel-toe weighted putter. 

C'mon, fess up...whaddya use?

If it's anything other than Calamity -fricking - Jane, I'm going to only half-jokingly ask you to consider at least the mild hypocrisy of your position... 

I've actually got the old bullseye so that when I'm having a bad day right handed I can change to lefty. Is that allowed in the rules?

[Brent Hutto]

Not sure what that has to do with using a range finder.  The caddie knows that wrinkle, you'll know it next time, the range finder knows nothing but the empirical distance to the target, the pin reflector or GPS coordinates, pretty irrelevant info.

I think you have just made the point of why I prefer not to have a SkyCaddie or Bushnell.

I think it has nothing to do with a rangefinder, myself. Dan seems to feel that there are valuable and interesting features of some golf courses that I will be cheated out of if I know the exact, true distance to where I want the ball to land. I say any feature that is rendered moot by knowing the distance to the hole is neither valuable or interesting. I don't place any value of surprise. Blind shots are fun because of the challenge of making a good shot when you can't visually lock in to the target. They're not fun because if you've never been to the course before you don't know how far to hit the ball. Same with the little feature I encountered at Cypress Point.

Using a rangefinder, like looking at a yardage book or asking a caddie for a yardage, cheats you out of nothing except the dubious pleasure of guessing how far your target is rather than knowing. I am totally accepting of the fact that some of the people I like to play golf with enjoy that guessing game. For my game it's a distraction and uninteresting and I don't understand why my refusal to play the guessing game is so offensive that it must be totally cryt down lest it destroy the game for those guys. I think they're acting like big babies.

[Dean Stokes]

The bulls-eye was a HUGE technology breakthrough.  I think Bobby Jones would have been appauled at the center-shaft... 

I assume you eschewed a leather grip and opted for a legal rubber grip because you couldn't putt in the "traditional style"... 

No, I've got one of those monsterous 3 inch thick things which negates my twitchy right hand I can only think it breaks some rule somewhere I just can't find it in that USGA bible.

[A.G._Crockett]

I use yardage markers all the time as a reference but that doesn't provide anything close to the accuracy of a Range Finder and that, in my opinion, provides an unfair advantage when you can stand at a 150 marker and say, 'the pin is 157' when my eye is telling me something different because of terrain or just architectural genius.  That's where this concept of how Range Finders don't get in the way of appreciating architecture fails because it eliminates the doubt put into a golfer's mind BY THE ARCHITECT!  Anyone who has played holes like #2 at Pasatiempo, #6 at Bethpage Black, #11 at Lake Merced, or any other hole where the yardage marker says one thing, your brain says another, and the reality is something else because of the design truly understand it.  The rest of you, unfortunately, just don't get it.

Not just "well said", Mike.  That was PERFECTLY said.

I disagree, and strongly.  The only way there is any difference whatsoever in the reaction of the golfer to the work of the architect between a 150 marker and a laser that shoots 150 is IF the golfer believes that the course markings are flat out wrong.

The laser does NOT eliminate doubt about how the shot will PLAY, and does not take away from illusions that the GCA might have built anymore than any other course marking.  It is silly to claim that it does.

Since course markings have been reckoned with lasers since sometime in the late 20th century, its ALL THE SAME, and you are grasping at straws to even go in this direction.  This is weakest argument yet on a thread filled with flat-earth arguments!

I have a suggestion.  If you don't like technology, don't use it.  Get rid of titanium, steel shafts, current golf balls, tees, and on and on, along with range finders and GPS.  Don't look at the 150 marker, don't look at sprinkler heads, don't look at the scorecard yardage, and don't compare notes with fellow competitors.

But get off the soapbox about some technology if you aren't willing to give it ALL up.  You guys remind me of the people that give Christianity a bad name; selective use of scripture (in your case, technology), combined with a holier-than-thou view of others, is an ugly path to go down, boys.  Repent!

[JESII]

My primary concern with Range Finders is that people think they need them...they think that for two reasons: 1) People think they are better than they are and 2) golf courses are not kept firm enough.

Firm golf courses produce enough uncertainty after the ball lands that knowing the exact distance to the pin is pretty unimportant...

Hunitngdon Valley is kept as firm as any golf course in the region and has a good number of good players...almost none use range finders. A couple of the younger guys who haven't learned yet, but otherwise, very few.

[Dean Stokes]

The bulls-eye was a HUGE technology breakthrough.  I think Bobby Jones would have been appauled at the center-shaft... 

I assume you eschewed a leather grip and opted for a legal rubber grip because you couldn't putt in the "traditional style"... 

No, I've got one of those monsterous 3 inch thick things which negates my twitchy right hand I can only think it breaks some rule somewhere I just can't find it in that USGA bible.

Oh, I get it...you fiddled with the long putter but couldn't wield it well enough to get over the pride issue... I have none, so it works for me....

You must be a lawyer Shiv Are you??? Psychologist? Therapist? Five minutes ago we were talking about the rules and regs regarding YOUR putter. You've cunningly and rather slyly got on to the subject of MY putter. My ex wife would get away with that occasionally.............

[A.G._Crockett]

My primary concern with Range Finders is that people think they need them...they think that for two reasons: 1) People think they are better than they are and 2) golf courses are not kept firm enough.

Firm golf courses produce enough uncertainty after the ball lands that knowing the exact distance to the pin is pretty unimportant...

Hunitngdon Valley is kept as firm as any golf course in the region and has a good number of good players...almost none use range finders. A couple of the younger guys who haven't learned yet, but otherwise, very few.

JES,
Neither of your two reasons are true, at least in my experience.  Lasers/GPS are just a faster way to play, with added accuracy as a side benefit.

I'm not good enough to need to know that I am 134 instead of 137 from the pin.  But it would be a pretty weird device that said "about 135" on the read out, wouldn't it?  The laser reads exact distance not because I need it, but because that is the way its made.

As to the firmness issue, I've never heard that one and wouldn't know how to factor it in anyway.  Can't imagine that it would be any different than finding the distance any other way, though.

In two hours, I'll be on an unfamiliar course that requires carts.  I guarantee you that I will be low maintenance in terms of pulling clubs compared to golfers who are pacing yardages OR eyeballing course markers, then misclubbing and taking additional time for additional shots.  What's so bad about that?  That's GOOD technology, like refrigerators or computers.

[Mike Golden]

Brent,

You would get in a wager with a man who, assuming all else is equal, has a 500:1 experience ratio on the golf course you're playing?

Joe

Only if he lets me use a rangefinder 

And I hope it could have gone without saying that I'd be happy to play golf with Mike G. anywhere, rangefinder or no, friendly match or no. And at least he wouldn't have to worry about me being in a cart on a hot day. Like most of us his double standards apply much more strongly on the Internet than walking down the fairway on a beautiful golf course.

Brent, what double standard is that.  My position is a single standard, that I will not use one, that everyone can do what they want, and I will not get upset about losing a match to someone who uses one or would I ever play for more than a few dollars with someone with that advantage.  I have said at least 3 times on this thread that it is a personal decision and have criticized no one for using it.  Why do you find that as a double standard or disingenuous?

[Tim Bert]

Shivas,

I understand your desire to leave the hyperactive everyday world when you get on a golf course.  But, how intrusive is a rangefinder?   At least my Bushnell doesn't make any noise.   Hunters, fisherman, and other outdoorsman use electronic devices including distance knowledge devices without much controversy.  Do you look at your cell phone/Blackberry when you're on the course?  A digital watch?  Have you tried a range finder in a competitive round?  I think you would like it.

I can't understand your defense of the long putter/belly putter while you condemn the range finder as against the spirit of the game.

Tiger Woods and Ernie Els on the long putter/belly putter controversy:

"I thought the art of putting is to try and figure out how to swing both arms together,'' Woods said at the Memorial Tournament. "Anything fixed, I don't think that's right.'' Els ignited the debate last month at PGA European Tour event in Germany, where countryman Trevor Immelman of South Africa won using a belly putter. He said the putter makes it too simple for a golfer to repeat the stroke.

Stewart Cink won this year using the long putter.

"It's become such an easy way to putt," Els said. "Nerves and skill in putting is part of the game. Take a tablet if you can't handle it.

I don't believe for one second that if Els thought it made it easier to win he wouldn't use a long-putter himself.  I've seen enough guys playing with these things losing all feel on the longer putts to know better than to think it is simply an "all advantage, no disadvantage" equation.  Doesn't really have anything to do with the original premise of the thread, but that's been out the window for some time now.  This is one of those bizarro threads that we are going to somehow manage to turn into one of the top 10 on this web site.

I predict that when all is said and done, no one will be convinced to begin using or to stop using a range finder based on the posts in this discussion.

[Mike Golden]

I use yardage markers all the time as a reference but that doesn't provide anything close to the accuracy of a Range Finder and that, in my opinion, provides an unfair advantage when you can stand at a 150 marker and say, 'the pin is 157' when my eye is telling me something different because of terrain or just architectural genius.  That's where this concept of how Range Finders don't get in the way of appreciating architecture fails because it eliminates the doubt put into a golfer's mind BY THE ARCHITECT!  Anyone who has played holes like #2 at Pasatiempo, #6 at Bethpage Black, #11 at Lake Merced, or any other hole where the yardage marker says one thing, your brain says another, and the reality is something else because of the design truly understand it.  The rest of you, unfortunately, just don't get it.

Not just "well said", Mike.  That was PERFECTLY said.

I disagree, and strongly.  The only way there is any difference whatsoever in the reaction of the golfer to the work of the architect between a 150 marker and a laser that shoots 150 is IF the golfer believes that the course markings are flat out wrong.

The laser does NOT eliminate doubt about how the shot will PLAY, and does not take away from illusions that the GCA might have built anymore than any other course marking.  It is silly to claim that it does.

Since course markings have been reckoned with lasers since sometime in the late 20th century, its ALL THE SAME, and you are grasping at straws to even go in this direction.  This is weakest argument yet on a thread filled with flat-earth arguments!

I have a suggestion.  If you don't like technology, don't use it.  Get rid of titanium, steel shafts, current golf balls, tees, and on and on, along with range finders and GPS.  Don't look at the 150 marker, don't look at sprinkler heads, don't look at the scorecard yardage, and don't compare notes with fellow competitors.

But get off the soapbox about some technology if you aren't willing to give it ALL up.  You guys remind me of the people that give Christianity a bad name; selective use of scripture (in your case, technology), combined with a holier-than-thou view of others, is an ugly path to go down, boys.  Repent!

AG, aren't you missing the point I've tried to make?  I don't care if others use Range Finders, I just don't want to be criticized for not wanting to use them.  For me, the difference between a laser marked 150 marker and a Range Finder is that the 150 marker gives you approximate yardage because you don't know exactly how far the pin is.  With the Range Finder, you know it exactly.  The difference can be 8-10 yards very easily, enough to make a gimmee birdie putt a 30 footer.  Here's a perfect example from my 9 holes today-third hole, par 5, I was about 65 yards from the center of the green with the pin somewhat back and left.  I played a 70 yard shot, hit it perfectly and flew it 15 feet past the pin.  With a Range Finder I would have gotten it much closer and probably made birdie.  It's not that Range Finders are going to turn a 15 into a 5 but it will shave a couple of strokes off your handicap, that much I am sure of.  Again, I don't care about that but the first post of this thread called those of us who did not want to use them 'Luddites' (a term for a group of people who hate technological advances) which is the furthest thing from the truth.  Two of us, Dan King and myself, are long time participants in Silicon Valley (Dan with NASA and Google, me with a number of microelectronics companies as well as the Chair of an important industry committe regarding the standardization of measurement techniques for microelectronics manufacturing processes).  We get the technology and embrace its use, it's just that we don't want to employ it for a recreational game with hundreds of years of tradition.  As for club and ball technology, there is a simple solution, just reduce the length of golf courses back to 6000 yards and less and roll everything back but that isn't practical.  I enjoy hitting a golf ball as far today as I did when I was 30 and that would be impossible without the technological breakthroughs in equipment (although I am currently using a Titleist 975D driver, which, as I was reminded yesterday, is about 5 generations removed from current).  The funny thing is that I can hit a ball just as far with that driver as a newer one, it's just the slighly offcenter hits that pay the distance penalty.  Your approach to the use of a Range Finder seems fine to me, I just would not be interested in playing a match against you for a $20 Nassau if you were going to use it-for a $5 Nassau it wouldn't matter.

[Patrick_Mucci]

JWinick,

Unlike Shivas, I'm anti long putter.

I don't think that croquette should be permitted in golf.

You never answered my question regarding the advantage that more financially successful golfers have over less financially successful golfers, with respect to being able to afford range finders, versus not being able to afford and employ them.

Is that in the spirit of golf ?

I give Ken Bakst a lot of credit.
He's making an effort to change/restore the culture of golf.

[Dean Stokes]

Mike Golden:

I"ll take it one step further.  I don't want them in my group unless they're specifically legal.  I want to play GOLF with people, not video games.  If somebody wants to use one in my group, I want to see a copy of the local rule permitting them first.  Otherwise, the Rules of Golf do not permit them  -- at least if we're playing GOLF.

These damn things are becoming so prevalent, they're becoming impossible to avoid.

Another reason to hate them - NOISE POLLUTION.   I'm sick to damn death already of rudely being forced to listen to that stupid little "beep" a gazillion times a round.  I am certain that most of the people I play with would start to get pissed at me if I set my cell phone alarm to go off every 10 or 15  minutes for 4 hours.  In fact, I might just start doing that when playing with beep-whores:  setting my cell phone to beep every 15 minutes.   

Shivas, you've got to get a Bushnell. They don't beep.

[Michael Moore]

I don't think that croquette should be permitted in golf.

Pat -

At my club, we have chicken croquettes and sometimes lamb as well.  You can get them at the snack shack and they are great improvement over the traditional hot dog. Washed down with Geary's ale or perhaps Sauvignon Blanc, they really hit the spot. Croquettes should definitely be permitted in golf.

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