(more?) proof that distance-finders save time

[Chris DeNigris]

Dave- I get the concept, it just seems that if you aspired to that version of Golf so fervently, that you'd find more occasion to experience it.

[Ian_L]

Those who continue to state that I am superior keep coming out with this crap every time, must be due to their weak argument.

I am not arrogant, nor do I consider myself superior, but I base my opinion on history and how it was when I started the game. Yes I want all distance aids banned, but I have no power on this site (which is just a Discussion Group lest we forget) and certainly not because who my father or his father may have been. 

Golfers need a ball, a club to play but they do not need distance markers – they just gives the golfer a reassuring mental boost which clearly is now habit forming. The real truth and problem is that golfers feel it gives them an advantage thus they are not willing to give it up – that makes a clear statement about the quality of the individual golfer and not those who wish to see all markers & electronic aids removed.

Had many of you bothered to read any of my past posts you will have noticed it’s just my opinion I voice, which by the way has no authority whatsoever so why the venom in your replies? 

Melvyn

PS Ian, My friends and I don't use distance aids. nor do we use carts, so we would not want a fourth joining us if they used both or either - they would be playing a different game to the rest of us. It’s a majority rule decision not just mine. 

Melvyn, when you say that 99.99% of the world is not playing golf just because we use sprinkler heads/yardage books/GPS/carts, you have to understand that many people will take that to mean you feel superior to the rest of us.

Why is knowing the yardage from a spot in the fairway to the green such blasphemy, but playing with steel shafts (as I believe you previously mentioned you use) OK?  Where and how do you draw the line? (and honest question for you)

[Steve Lang]

  Melvyn, can you advise what year the R&A institutued the 14 club rule?  I believe USGA took until 1931??


DSchmidt.. I think your sanctity needs to be refernced to a base year.. you talked about hickories at Kingsley.. any thought of just really going all the way back?

Definitions of sanctity on the Web: 

holiness: the quality of being holy

Sanctity was a heavy metal band from Asheville, North Carolina, USA. They formed in 1998 and split up without much notice given in late 2008. ...

Holiness, or sanctity, is in general the state of being holy (perceived by religious individuals as associated with the divine) or sacred (considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspiring awe or reverence among believers in a given set of spiritual ideas). ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctity

Holiness of life or disposition; saintliness; The condition of being considered sacred; inviolability; Something considered sacred
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sanctity

holiness, set apart for God
www.request.org.uk/main/churches/glossary.htm

1) Sanctity is another expression of ‘holiness’. Those who are thought to be close to God or who have a developed spiritual life are thought ...
www.easterncathedrals.org.uk/glossary/retrieve.php

Sacredness or holiness. While we have anger, lust, envy, pride and all the other moral defects, we are not sanctified. To acheive sanctity we must eliminate our psychological defects. ...
www.gnosticteachings.org/component/option,com_definition/Itemid,10262/index.php

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom:  lots of people do. Indeed, most people do. You said it yourself:  the genie is out of the bottle. Virtually NOBODY plays the Game of Golf the way the Game of Golf was conceived.

You can't have it both ways, my friend. You can't say "the genie is out of the bottle and everybody now relies on their distance aids (or for that matter, cheater lines, hot balls, metal woods, etc.)" and then turn around and say "but who deludes themselves into believing they're playing Golf?"

And why do I care? 

I'll tell you why. Because I'm unselfish, that's why. I care about the sanctity of the game more than I care about my ability to shave a shot and cheat the Game here and there. It's the same reason that Catholics care about instant-anullments, birth control, women priests, first Friday, mass every Sunday, Holy Days of Obligation, no meat on Fridays in Lent, fasting prior to receiving Communion, and all the rest.

Sure, life would be easier if you didn't have to follow these rules. That's why there are more cafeteria Catholics than Catholics. It's the same issue.   

Most golfers are Gaff-eteria Golfers...(pun intended). 

That is NOT at all what I said, or meant.  You misread me completely.  What I meant is I firmly believe that few care if they are playing "golf" as you so narrowly define it.  They are not deluding themselves at all.  They play what they know of as golf - it's YOU who choose to call it something else.

And my question remains why do you care to narrowly define a game that so many are quite happily playing? 

And also, why do YOU care what definition you give to a game you're playing on any particular day?

I quite honestly do not get it. 

TH

[Melvyn Morrow]

One of the great weaknesses of this site is the total lack of simple common sense. If one is trying too hard to push his point or defend an argument that might be heading for the slippery slope out comes the ‘if you’, ‘as a purest’ etc., etc., I presume to try to corner that individual.

Members jump into a topic and post their comments, some without reading the earlier posts missing the full arguments or understand opinions.

I do not believe that many and that includes myself are against technology. In fact I welcome it, but in a controlled manner to improve the quality and consistency of the equipment. I do not want a new, say seven iron to give me more distance than my previous one, clearly that would not have been the result of my efforts, which I believe is the whole point of golf. I have no problem with different materials for the shafts or heads as long as they offer the same performance consistence as my previous club. In other words, the new club is stronger and less lightly to snap, I certainly do not want improved distance. The word ‘Purest’ is now used to describe those who just want the game to maintain its standards, who seek uniformity in equipment to help achieve that goal.

I do not understand the mentality of any player who willing knows that he is achieving an advantage (either physically or mentally) by using new hi tech equipment. If he/she knows that, their improvement is down to the equipment and not down to their own skill and performance then surely that must be described at the very least of taking the piss or more honestly cheating.  For the life of me I do not understand what the R&A or USGA are thinking. Is golf now laid low because we all want to be winners and what really matters is just our final score? If that is the case then many on this site are playing the game for the wrong reasons. We should be using words like enjoyment, fun, challenging and spiritual. Yet you look at players on a course today many will be so immersed in distance/yardage that they unaware of the GCA and to a certain extent the course itself. This whole argument re yardage is part and parcel why a round of golf now takes so long. The modern game is totally blinded and blighted by yardage IMHO. My proof, just stop using yardage for a few rounds on a new course, and play a full 36 holes. It may take more than just a couple of rounds if your game is dominated by yardage, markers etc but I will be surprised if you do not at the end of a short trial say the game is real fun.       


If one were to play the game in its purest form then it would be hickory golf, obviously without yardage, and walking only.
No Ron I do not agree, I feel you can use consistent equipment, but yes one needs to walk without distance information.

Of course, even hickory shafts and heads are more technology advanced with frequency matching, etc.
And why not, its reliability we seek, not advantage

Anyone who uses steel or graphite shafts or metal headed driver is not playing golf in its purest form.
Again I do not agree, this is where common sense needs to come in the material is not necessary important (unless playing Hickory golf) but uniformity in performance is.

Rangefinders are only one issue tightly tied to yardage. If you use ANY yardage, why does it matter if you pace it, use a rangefinder, look at a 150 pole or sprinkler head or use a distance device, it is ALL the same thing.
I agree, but feel that pacing is the unacceptable in golf as not being in the Spirit of the Game as well as being a pain in the backside to other players, showing no respect or consideration.

Even if you look a the yardage on the scorecard you are "cheating" and not playing "pure" golf.
No, I again do not agree. The lengths of courses were known and sub divided into the 9 holes, so I see no contradiction with lengths on scorecards or Tee Markers. Look at the reports dating from the mid to late 19th century.

Does "pure golf as it was played hundreds of years ago" even exist anywhere?
I believe there are small pockets that try to honour the old ways and I feel the Hickory Players try hard to follow the 19th Century way of golf.

This is probably a new thread but anyways.
I will leave that with you to consider.

Melvyn

[A.G._Crockett]

"I do not want a new, say seven iron to give me more distance than my previous one, clearly that would not have been the result of my efforts, which I believe is the whole point of golf."

Of course, Melvyn, the other side of the coin is that your previous 7 iron, inferior in some way, was holding you back so that you could not achieve your full potential, which I believe is the whole point of golf.  This is all perception.

I must say, I find it impossible to understand why you don't use hickory shafts and ancient golf balls with no tees and no gloves and no golf shoes and on and on.  You seem to have arbitrarily drawn a line somewhere around 1992 (or whenever titanium came into use).  I don't get it; why then?  Why was that pure?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Why would you expect me to use Hickory or ancient golf balls, I have never called myself a Purest, that is a label that been given to me. I play golf in the traditional manner. Modern golfers want their equipment to do the work for them, i.e. Carts to save walking; Distance markers/electronic aids to save them working it out for them selves; Modern equipment to achieve the distance they cannot under their own efforts.

Don’t attach me for showing up the pathetic reliance modern golfers are putting on the above three examples.

This is where this site fails, the ability of those to conduct an honest and common sense debate, stupidity seems to creep in plus name calling I suppose to try to make a point.  I do not need to use Hickory, ancient golf balls to play traditional golf. As for my old and trusty seven iron being inferior, that is your take on the matter not mine. In fact, I do not believe I have any 1992 clubs in my bag. I’m not calling myself a purest, others on this site are. I am just trying to playing the game as per my father and family taught me. Yes, we do have a long history of playing golf in my family, so I have a little knowledge of the game pre WW2.

Some want technology to improve their game by giving them extra distance that cannot be achieved by in their own right. Fine do so, the R&A are not doing anything to stop it so it must be fine. However, if you think that is the right way to improve your game then I feel sorry for you and anyone else who is that weak and miserable that they feel the need to do so – nevertheless, that is your choice. 

You don’t agree with me or like my opinion, OK just tell me but to come out with all this nonsensical rubbish is beneath most on this site. Yet I have been called asshole and various other names for my opinions, which I think just conveys the real arrogance and superiority of some who should know better.  In fact, it actually says more about them than me.   

I am not forcing anyone to play the game as I do. I do accept that I am trying to make others aware of my feelings to certain new practices, which I feel is harming the game of golfer. Is that not the purpose of the Discussion Group?

Melvyn 

[Brent Hutto]

Everything from rubber-core golf balls to steel shafts to sand wedges with a flange on the back has been decried in turn as unwanted and unneeded technology attempting to make the game too easy. In every era there is a certain minority of golfers who want to see everyone else forced to use implements from some arbitrary time in the recent past. I'd imagine it's usually, to a pretty good approximation, whatever equipment they saw their daddy playing golf with when they were in short trousers.

Using the equipment that is available and allowed under the Rules today is an arbitrary choice. Moses didn't come down from the mountain with tablets declaring titanium drivers to be morally acceptable to God as long as their C.O.R. does not exceed a certain threshold. Or choosing to use only the equipment in use c. 1940 would be a different, just as arbitrary choice. Or for that matter using only the equipment and techniques available to Old Tom Morris, that arbitrary choice would be no more or less defensible than any other (although I guess greenskeepers would consider chipping over a stymie pretty damned unethical).

The majority choice, and it is a huge majority, is to just go with whatever the USGA/R&A happen to deemed allowable in the current era. There's nothing wrong with making another choice but it's disingenuous to put on an air of moral superiority because you prefer the game with WW-II era practices to the game played by the majority of golfers in the early 21st century. Some people enjoy being an oddball and a curmudgeon, taking logically inane positions just for the bloody-mindedness of it. Have at it but there's no surprise when they become objects of derision. Others simply gain more enjoyment playing an earlier instantiation of the game while caring less how others choose to play it (howdy Sean!) and personally I have a lot more time for that approach than the put-upon True Believer who feels everyone ought to be held to his own idiosyncratic mix-and-match of out of date ways of playing.

[Tom Huckaby]

What I meant is I firmly believe that few care if they are playing "golf" as you so narrowly define it.  They are not deluding themselves at all.  They play what they know of as golf - it's YOU who choose to call it something else.

OK, that's fine...then they're stupid.  Because you can't really believe that you're playing Golf when you fluff lie, take stones out of bunkers, use drop zones, call OB a hazard, play lift, clean & cheat or use a rangefinder.  Why?  Because it's all there...black and white...clear as crystal...they stole fizzy lifting drinks!

So why do you care if others are stupid?
I am serious in this, my friend.. I just don't get your take here.
Play your game as you like to do it - what the hell does it matter all that much what others do, or how you define yours or theirs?

As for chipping away at the traditional way of playing the game, I get that.  I've understood that about Melyvn's take all along.  Where I part with him - and I guess you also - is my reaction to this.  I shrug, say "not much I can do about that" and go back to happily playing the game I love.  You two?  Well I know you happily play the game when you can, and seemingly just like to bitch!  Melvyn, I am not so sure.  I hope he happily plays the game.  But it doesn't seem like it.

TH

[Tom Huckaby]

Ok, I don't get your take.   That didn't help. 

We each play both golf and Golf.  So do most people.

Who cares?

[Melvyn Morrow]

Brent

Thank you for your comments, clearly, you seem to think that you have known me for many, many years to come to that conclusion.

I am very disappointed and also sorry you feel that way about me considering you really do not know me at all. Nevertheless, you have the right to your opinion.

Melvyn

[Jim_Kennedy]

Let's use Melvyn as an example, he chose a certain period of golf's 400+ year history and emulates that style of play. He may be using the equipment of that time period but he probably doesn't follow the rules of that era, he only chooses to forgo modern yardage aids, carts, etc..  He probably uses 'modern' teeing grounds, probably lifts, cleans and places his ball if the situation calls for it, probably doesn't remove the flagstick when inside 20 yards, probably does remove loose impediments, probably takes relief from casual water, etc., etc., etc..

The rules of golf have changed so much over the past 400 years that no one has the high ground in this debate. The change is sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, but the long view has prevailed and that keeps the game going. The ruling bodies understand this concept.

[Phil McDade]

Melvyn, I'm still curious.  If Old Tom had walked out onto the Old Course and seen a guy in a coat and tie and knickers fiddling around with a long-shafted hickory putter that he anchored against his chest, do you think Old Tom would have said "Laddie, yer cloob looks fyne...may I try it oot?" ... or do you think he'd have been appauled?

Is there any record of Old Tom experimenting with new club designs?  If so, what?  I'm just not terribly educated on this aspect of B&I history, so this is a serious question...

Shivas:

Technology actually played a key role in the falling out between Old Tom and Allan Robertson, widely viewed as the game's first true golf professional. The two were playing partners, and Tom apprenticed under Robertson at Robertson's shop in St. Andrews, where he made clubs and featheries. Old Tom saw the gutta percha (the most significant advancement in the history of the game, IMO) being played on TOC, and thought it advanced the game because it was more reliable and could be hit farther than the old featheries. Robertson, then the primary manufacturer of featheries in St. Andrews, took offense (correctly seeing that the costly and unreliable feathery would soon be outdated), and the two parted ways. Tom set up his own shop, still overlooking the 18th fairway at TOC, to manufacture and sell gutties. The feathery went the way of the Dodo.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Old Tom was not against technology, he encouraged it. His acceptance of the gutty in place of the feather ball got him fired. He knew and worked with many of the early club makes and used the latest iron heads from his friend at Prestwick, John Gray.  Old Tom knew that quality would stabilise first the equipment, then the game to allow all the chance to play the game. We were never taught to jump on an advantage and that skill came from hard practice, as well as quality made and tried equipment.

Old Tom knew the pitfalls of the equipment first being in the industry making the feather balls ,to knowing Dr Patterson (gutty fame) and the clubs and shafts through his own endeavours. Young Tom when in his late teens was able to wiggle the clubs in his hands back and forward so fast that the shafts shattered. In addition, some of the Professionals would deliberate break their shafts as the repaired club was stronger and more reliable. There is a difference between providing a player with an advantage against proven and reliable equipment  So the question would Old Tom seek an advantage over others with equipment, well I can’t answer for him but I believe the family and general information seem to say NO he would not, but he was certainly keen that the equipments was reliable. In his later years when the Haskell (rubber covered ball) arrived he had no problem as the old gutta percha ball had a tendency to crack and shatter, inflicting problems for the golfer.

I feel he always sought the consistency of equipment over any advantage, one thing I do not believe that the R&A Members ever understood and hence why we have the problem today. The other thing I was taught, if you cheat, you are only cheating yourself in the long run. Do I think he would willingly support equipment that would give certain players an advantage over others, I sincerely believe he would not.
  
He was also against the stymie and was please to see that problem finally resolved.

Melvyn

PS Good One Jim keep dreaming them up, you might just be nominated for the Old Tom Morris Award (for fiction)

[Melvyn Morrow]

Jim

If the R&A understand this why did they do nothing in the 1920’s regards the golf ball, it was a sit back and see policy, in fact what is the most important thing on the minds of the R&A re The Open this year – as Dan, he might tell you. The R&A are not as wise or on the ball as you think, but this is nothing new and dates back twell ino the 19th Century.

Melvyn

[Michael Blake]

Melvyn:

I'm curious as to what Old Tom's problem was with the stymie.
It seemed like a very interesting part of match play.

[Jamie Barber]

In principle I'd rather we had no yardages anywhere, but given it's within R&A rules I've just succumbed and bought a laser range finder in a bid to get to Cat1 (and I need all the help I can get)

[Tom Huckaby]

Who cares?

OK, I'll tell you:  the people who seek to maintain the distinction between Golf and golf, that's who.  Without this distinction, it'll all be golf, because if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that the velocity of the downward progression of man's standards is as great or greater the upward progression of man's ability to advance technology.  Call that Shivas's Law.  And my law is faster than Moore's Law.  So what happens is that because we seek the lowest common denominator faster than we can create newer, higher thresholds to achieve, the greatness of the old is lost to the mediocrity of the new.

This explains why incredible technological feats like the internet get used by most people for porn and watching videos of dancing babies .... and why great putters like Mike Kennedy wind up using the cheater line...

OK, I at least understand your take better.

I just don't share it.  You can't be surprised.  I find golf and Golf to each be just fine as they are today.  I love each of them.  My life is too short to take it much beyond that.

When we play, I'll try to look beyond you holding your nose.  That is if you'll deem me worthy of playing with.  Melvyn doesn't.

 

[Melvyn Morrow]

Michael
Old Tom Letter to Golf  3rd July 1894

Stymie

In reply to your of June 15, anent stymies, I beg to state that I have always been in favour of Stymies being abolished. I think a modification could easily be made. A motion was proposed by Captain Burn at a meeting of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club that a rule as follows should be made: - ‘A player may, on the putting-green, remove his opponent’s ball, but such act of removal should be equivalent to the opponent having played his stroke and holed’. This would do for me, but, of course, the Royal and Ancient would have many suggestions brought before them if the subject was put to them by other Clubs

Old Tom, had lost quite a few major matches because of the stymie and was not very taken with it. Although he also used it.  If it came back today lifting of the ball on the Green may be outlawed as any slight movement may give one player an advantage over the other. But then come to think how the modern mind set, then I expect that’s acceptable it would probably be allowed today.

Melvyn

[Tom Huckaby]

Tom, we can play golf or Golf anytime, my friend, and have a great time at either.   

Of course.  That's why I fail to really grasp your takes here.  I mean I get it rationally, I just don't get why you take the positions you do.

TH

[Melvyn Morrow]

WILL YOU GUYS STOP - YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT I MAY OR MAY BE THINKING, DOING, LET ALONE SAYING

Tom, I would have no problems playing with you, or with Brent (although I do not think he would feel worthy to play me). However take out a Range finder and it will not be me seeking the higher softer ground to sit on. We will see if these things can see in the dark and get an accurate reading from your ass to your tonsils

Vlad II The Impaler (AKA Melvyn)

[Lou_Duran]

Eric,

Not at all on the first question, though when I see a guy who whines forever about markings on a ball then pulls out a putter that's longer than my driver, I have to wonder whether he is seriously intellectually challenged or just agitating (in this particular case, it is the latter).

Lou, I've explained this before but there is no logical inconsistency or hypocrisy in using a long putter and decrying the cheater line and the range finder.  

B&I experimentation and improvements have been part of the game since there was a game.  They've been part of the fabric and spirit of the game -- forever!

So have the Rules.

That's why the long putter is A-OK and Okey Dokey - it's within the fabric and spirit of the game to play any damn club your mind can invent - as long as it's legal.

Cheater lines and range finders are another story, however.

The problem with the cheater line is that it is in direct contravention of Rule 8-2(b).  (It's also an artificial aid, but that's neither here nor there.)

And range finders are not permitted under the Rules.  They're relegated to the "Local Rules", which is the redheaded stepchild/bastion of bastardizations such as winter rules, rake and roll, lift clean & cheat, drop areas, OB played as lateral, provisional balls for water hazards, changing stones in hazards from loose impediments to movable obstructions, and all the other ACQUIESENCES AND ACCOMODATIONS TO THE LAZINESS OF GOLFERS THAT ARE NOT TRUE GOLF.

I'll let Melvyn speak to this, but I'll bet that Old Tom would have experimented with the long putter and had no reservations at all about it.  I'll also bet that he'd have been appauled by cheater lines and range finders.

DSchmidt,

The original question dealt with rangefinders saving time.  It is my strong opinion that they do.

In terms of the propriety of their use with respect to the spirit of the game, I am conflicted.  Philosophically, they appear to be in violation.   But from a practical standpoint, given all the markings and means to artificially assess distances, I think the argument is tipped in their favor.

Your argument about the long putter- and I don't have an issue with its use either- versus the cheater line and the rangefinder brings to mind the line used by Shakespeare "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" (yes, I am aware that the intended meaning is the opposite of how the quote is often referenced).  Yours is a distinction without a difference.  The USGA has "approved" the long putter, the "cheater line", and the rangefinder (for limited use such as rounds for computing a handicap, under local rules, but not in its tournaments).  I can live with that.

I disagree with Huckaby, Morrow, and others who would like a world absent of all distance references.  Golf is a difficult enough game as it is, and it is one of the few healthy sports that we can play well into old age when sight generally declines.  With all due respect to the idealists out there, golf the business is tightly intertwined with golf the game or sport.  In an urbanized, highly regulated society such as ours, golf is bound to be expensive.  It needs a good volume of players for revenues to cover the courses' high fixed costs.  Making the game more difficult, slower- you are wrong about that too, that the speed of play is a red herring- and restrictive to some highly subjective standard of what "real golf" is, will only drive off people who might otherwise enjoy beating the ball around and paying a green fee.  That, in my humble opinion, is highly elitist, undemocratic, and mostly counterproductive.

[Tom Huckaby]

WILL YOU GUYS STOP - YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT I MAY OR MAY BE THINKING, DOING, LET ALONE SAYING

Tom, I would have no problems playing with you, or with Brent (although I do not think he would feel worthy to play me). However take out a Range finder and it will not be me seeking the higher softer ground to sit on. We will see if these things can see in the dark and get an accurate reading from your ass to your tonsils

Vlad II The Impaler (AKA Melvyn)

Love it.  Well done.

But Melvyn.. I can only go by your words here.. which would sure seem to suggest we play two different games, in two different worlds.  Given you advocate refusal to play with those who use rangefinders, well... I am just unsure what else I'd do to make you refuse to play with me.

I'm also just having fun with this.

 

Lou:  please understand as I have said many times, I see a perfect world where we have no distances.  I do not advocate making that world happen, changing from what we have now - for exactly the reasons you state.  It would be hugely impractical, it would make the game too hard for those who have never played with anything but distance markings, it would drive people away, etc.  I am with you, my friend.  I just wish we could rather start over... or should I say, put me in a time machine and I go back to the proper time and find a way to stop distance markings from STARTING.

TH

[Melvyn Morrow]

Lou

I have always believed that Golf was first a challenge, which generated fun, pleasure, entertainment and enjoyment. Easy has never been a part of the game until recently. Easy is not necessary fun or enjoyable just plain boring and easy. If it is easy why rise to the easy challenge, its just too easy and would it be worth the effort. Easy is not the answer for the future of Golf IMHO.

Melvyn

[Rich Goodale]

While it is possible to speculate about situations where distance finders could lose time (e.g. novice users who struggle with the technology, skilled players who try to get distances to and beyond every significant feature in front of them, techno geeks that just cant say NO!, etc., etc.) in my growing experience of playing with guys who use distance-finders the answer to the question above is a resounding "Yes."

All these arguments about purity are irrelevant to the question asked and naive in the extreme in that the cat will never be put back in the box, even if it is (or is not) Schroedinger's cat, no matter what some of us might want.......

Rich