[Jud_T]

Mark,

I believe the main reason that all the tour events are contested at medal play is due to the fact that a huge percentage of their purses come from television.  A network that pays millions of dollars wants to know that the event will end very close to 6 PM EST and that the big names are likely to be in contention, or at least playing.  Match play is clearly a superior game and spectator sport, but it's very unpredictability has been it's demise.  I contend that if the PGA Championship reverted to Match Play that it would be one of the most anticipated spectator events of the year rather than the poor stepchild afterthought of a major that it has become...I quit playing in my prior clubs' big member/guest event because at Medal play it became such a grind.  

[Mike Wagner]

Why is match play "clearly a superior game?"  I love all forms of golf.  Please don't let this thread turn into "the purest form of golf is..."

For those of you who don't keep score, how do you play a match in equity?  I hope there are no strokes involved.  Is it fun to shoot 100 against someone shooting 70?

For the record, I love match play (and play it a lot with buddies), but if there's a huge discrepancy in ability, how do you have fun with no strokes?

[JMEvensky]

As a self-appointed president of the Card and Pencil Society, those who can play medal and keep score; those who can't put the ball in their pockets and wax poetically about design intent, the highest order of strategy, and how they're just having fun playing a few holes decently while not finishing several of the others.  

I'll volunteer for your Vice Chairman.Sometimes I think "architecture appreciation" is the last refuge for the hack on the website.

If you're not keeping score,you're just out for a walk in the park.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Stroke play is just fine every now and then in my view. It's just that the vast supermajority of golf played in the world (about 99.9 percent in my back of the envelope guess) would be better off without it.

The problem is that stroke play slows the game down - drastically!  Concessions speed the game up.   That's just an unavoidable fact...one that stroke play advocates seem to ignore.

To me, once a man has beaten you on a hole, you congratulate him, pick up, flush the loss in your mind,  and move to the next challenge. Everything else is just practice. I mean that: except on rare occasions against large fields, any stroke played that does not directly affect winning or losing against a known opponent is nothing more than practice.

Shivas:

Without stroke-play, how can one have an accuate handicap? Without an accurate handicap, how can you have a fair match? It's the chicken and egg story.

Slow play is caused by golfers that,

- are day dreaming when they should be getting ready to play their shot.
- leave their golf bag at the front of the green, when the next tee is off towards the back of the green.
- talk too much.
- walk too slow.
- take too may practice swings.
- line up their putts from all angles.

and golf courses that are becoming too long!!

Concessions speed up the game a bit, but if a putt is conceded, chances are that it isn't more than two feet. Cleaning up a two foot putt doesn't take that long anyway.

Dónal.

[Martin Toal]

Donal,

I am a crap 9 handicap player and all I care about is winning the hole.  Seriously, I do not care what I score as long as win the hole!

I am an average 8, and all I care about is getting my handicap down, so I only play in competitions, hardly ever play causal rounds at my club, and have't played matchplay in years. My inconsistency and disregard for the other player's game made me sometimes good at it, though.

[Sean_A]

While I am not bothered if I ever again hold a pencil and card, I can understand the die hards wanting to "test" themselves now and again.  A few times a year is reasonable as an indicator of how "one's game is doing". Though for the life of me I don't know why folks can't figure this out without writing it down.  I know if I played well or not and it doesn't require an offcial score to determine this.  

My main problem with medal is that the game is lot slower and it has slowly infilltrated into match play.  I watch guys playing out who are out of the hole.  Which is fine, if NOBODY is waiting for them because they are no longer playing the game - very annoying that is.  

I am with Brent - if we have to have big fields - use Stableford for nearly all of it and save the medal play for the one or two of the top events in a club which is focused on the best players and where naturally there are no handicaps.

Ciao

[Mike McGuire]

Donal

In the US we are required to post all scores, even when playing match play, for handicap purposes.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

While I am not bothered if I ever again hold a pencil and card, I can understand the die hards wanting to "test" themselves now and again.  A few times a year is reasonable as an indicator of how "one's game is doing". Though for the life of me I don't know why folks can't figure this out without writing it down.  I know if I played well or not and it doesn't require an offcial score to determine this. 

My main problem with medal is that the game is lot slower and it has slowly infilltrated into match play.  I watch guys playing out who are out of the hole.  Which is fine, if NOBODY is waiting for them because they are no longer playing the game - very annoying that is. 

I am with Brent - if we have to have big fields - use Stableford for nearly all of it and save the medal play for the one or two of the top events in a club which is focused on the best players and where naturally there are no handicaps.

Ciao

Sean:

Match-play is "testing" yourself, but your opponent isn't a fixed standard. Why should "testing" yourself in medal-play be frowned upon by so many, yet testing yourself in matchplay is deemed acceptable?

I just don't get it. I accept when you say that you're not so bothered about keeping a score, but to me, it's a way of keeping track of my progress. I might like to think I'm a 3-4 handicapper, but my handicap cert tells the truth.

I think the contribution "holing out" has on slow play is overestimated. When I'm stuck behing a slow group, it's usually because they're dithering and not paying attention.

Maybe the majority of stroke competitions should be confined to lower handicap golfers.

Donal

In the US we are required to post all scores, even when playing match play, for handicap purposes.

Mike:

I didn't know that!

So the pencil & scorecard is needed in match-play as well. I presume you're speaking of match-play competitions and not a friendly 4 ball match between friends?

Dónal.

[Mike McGuire]

Donal

Everytime you play in the US you post your score. In fact if you have to quit after 13 holes you post an 18 hole score giving yourself a bogey on any hole that has the same handicap, or lower, than yours.

So you do need a pencil for this but also to keep track of points for proxies, birdies, blitzs, nassau's, highs, lows and other action.

[Bob_Huntley]

Mike,

You wrote :

"Donal

In the US we are required to post all scores, even when playing match play, for handicap purposes.:


That is the reason why the USGA hasn't a clue. To see some hack miss a three foot putt, mark his ball, replace his ball but ensuring that his cheater line is just so, is a farce. If I was the Czar I would make continuous putting mandatory.


Bob

 
 

 

[Tim Gavrich]

By yourself, the only way is to keep score.  That's why a single has no standing on the golf course - because it ain't golf.

With 3 buddies, play teams at match play.

Shivas--

Is it not true, though, that in order to have a fair and competitive match, all players concerned must have a pretty goof idea of their relative skill levels?  How else can those skill levels be determined other than by having the players play honest stroke-play rounds and establishing a handicap?  I like keeping score during most of my rounds but I am also a big fan of match play, and wish we played more of it in college events.  However, if I end up in a big-money match at some point agains people I don't know too well, I want them to have accurate handicaps.  That would necessitate them playing stroke play rounds.  So, it seems that for match play to work, stroke play is also pretty important.

--Tim

[Sean_A]

While I am not bothered if I ever again hold a pencil and card, I can understand the die hards wanting to "test" themselves now and again.  A few times a year is reasonable as an indicator of how "one's game is doing". Though for the life of me I don't know why folks can't figure this out without writing it down.  I know if I played well or not and it doesn't require an offcial score to determine this. 

My main problem with medal is that the game is lot slower and it has slowly infilltrated into match play.  I watch guys playing out who are out of the hole.  Which is fine, if NOBODY is waiting for them because they are no longer playing the game - very annoying that is. 

I am with Brent - if we have to have big fields - use Stableford for nearly all of it and save the medal play for the one or two of the top events in a club which is focused on the best players and where naturally there are no handicaps.

Ciao

Sean:

Match-play is "testing" yourself, but your opponent isn't a fixed standard. Why should "testing" yourself in medal-play be frowned upon by so many, yet testing yourself in matchplay is deemed acceptable?

I just don't get it. I accept when you say that you're not so bothered about keeping a score, but to me, it's a way of keeping track of my progress. I might like to think I'm a 3-4 handicapper, but my handicap cert tells the truth.

I think the contribution "holing out" has on slow play is overestimated. When I'm stuck behing a slow group, it's usually because they're dithering and not paying attention.

Maybe the majority of stroke competitions should be confined to lower handicap golfers.

Donal

In the US we are required to post all scores, even when playing match play, for handicap purposes.

Mike:

I didn't know that!

So the pencil & scorecard is needed in match-play as well. I presume you're speaking of match-play competitions and not a friendly 4 ball match between friends?

Dónal.

Donal

A 4ball holing out can take an exra hour.  That is why the standard accpetable time for a game of golf has gone from something like 3.5 hours to something closer to 5 hours rather than 4.  There isn't much room for debate on this so far as I am concerned.  I have seen it over and over and over again over a great a many years. 

Ciao

[Mike McGuire]

Played a fourball at Muirfield once, took 5 hours.

The afternoon foursomes took 3 hours and was a lot more fun.

I wish we played foursomes around here. Be  nice to walk into the grill room and someone asks "how was the match" instead of "what did you shoot"

[Kyle Harris]

There is something inherently beautiful about someone that can derive happiness and satisfaction solely from himself without placing the burden upon others.

It seems a bit trite to blame bad golf habits that cause slow play on stroke play or playing the ball all the way to the hole - they are two inherently different things.

It seems equally hypocritical to say that one format is more pure than the other - especially when the match play format lends itself to not finishing all holes.

There is no problem with pencil and scorecard. Score away.

[Mark Pearce]

Shivas,

I always thought you were a robust debater, with a thick skin and a sense of humour.

My apologies if I offended you, it was not my intention.

Like all British golfers, the vast majority of casual golf I play is match play.  The vast majority of competitive golf (probably 3/4 a month during the season) is medal or stableford.  5 hour rounds are not caused by match play but by inexcusable slow play. 

[Lynn_Shackelford]

From a GCA perspective, the downside of the medal-play mentality is that a hole or a course will inevitably be judged not only for its merit as a challenge to the player or as a venue for a (match-play) game to be played but for its implications on a stroke-play score. It leads to so-called "fairness" being called into question if under certain conditions or for certain players it will potentially result in an unreasonable score (eight or more strokes) or even be difficult to complete.

It's not that much of a stretch to imagine a short-hitting bogey golfer having a certain forced carry barely within his limitations on an otherwise very desirable course. From a (proper IMO) match-play mentality, if it's a great and fun course that just happens to require my very best shot on the 16th hole (imagine Cypress Point if there were no layup opportunity to the left) that's no big deal. I play the first fifteen holes, give it my best shot once or twice on the 16th and then if I can't make the carry I move on and enjoy the last two holes. The card-and-pencil mentality would incline me toward the idea that for my level of player such a hole "ruins the whole round' which is nonsense
More generally, American golfers tend to be so fundamentally oriented toward stroke play (in part by their stupid handicap system) that we judge shots or holes as much by the possibility they offer for "disaster" as by the possibilities they offer for fun or for a rare outstanding shot or score. That's the pity of it.

It is only Friday but I give this the award for the best post for Thanksgiving weekend.

[JR Potts]

Whether I fit into the American golfer stereotype that has apparently ruined golf by trying to keep a score (on every hole unless I'm totally about of it) or not, one fact remains true.  When discussing skill levels at golf, if someone said they played Augusta and shot 80, it would mean a whole lot more to me than if the guy said he won 6 and 5.  In fact, the latter would mean absolutely nothing to me.

I should start a new thread, it is only hackers who continue to push match play as the only way to play the game....or should I substitute hackers with "those with ADD"?   

[Dale Jackson]

Whether I fit into the American golfer stereotype that has apparently ruined golf by trying to keep a score (on every hole unless I'm totally about of it) or not, one fact remains true.  When discussing skill levels at golf, if someone said they played Augusta and shot 80, it would mean a whole lot more to me than if the guy said he won 6 and 5.  In fact, the latter would mean absolutely nothing to me.

But at least with 6 and 5 I would be interested to hear how the key holes were decided, and not bored by a description of each of those 80 strokes.

[Mike McGuire]

 When discussing skill levels at golf, if someone said they played Augusta and shot 80, it would mean a whole lot more to me than if the guy said he won 6 and 5.  In fact, the latter would mean absolutely nothing to me.

If you want to know someones skill level you could ask what their handicap is..... but then you might get an answer like this.

Well my index is 5.8 which makes me a 6 unless the slope is 130 then I am a 7.

Sheeesh - When did our handicap process turn into the Dewey decimal system? Is there an app for that?

[JR Potts]

Whether I fit into the American golfer stereotype that has apparently ruined golf by trying to keep a score (on every hole unless I'm totally about of it) or not, one fact remains true.  When discussing skill levels at golf, if someone said they played Augusta and shot 80, it would mean a whole lot more to me than if the guy said he won 6 and 5.  In fact, the latter would mean absolutely nothing to me.

But at least with 6 and 5 I would be interested to hear how the key holes were decided, and not bored by a description of each of those 80 strokes.

"And then I won the hole by tapping in for a 9 on 11 to go 4 up."

Yep, way more interesting........

[Rob Rigg]

The only downside to keeping score I see is people who get so obsessed with it that they cannot enjoy their round if they have one or two bad holes.

"Oh I'll never break 80 now" or "Oh I'll never break 100 now" - who cares?

Did you hit some good shots? What was right with your round? Did you have fun with your mates? Did you enjoy being outside for a few hours?

There is nothing wrong with keeping score, a handicap, stroke play tournaments, etc. but it is very possible to enjoy a round without caring about score at all.

The score does not make the game what it is and too many golfers forget that.

[Lou_Duran]

Shivas,

My stance has nothing to do with morality.  I just prefer to putt my ball into the hole in most cases and jot a score down.  Most who have played a match against me would likely say that I was a generous opponent.  Hopefully, not too many would say that I slowed things down.  Please know that the burr up my arse eminating from how others enjoy their golf is infinitesimal in size compared to the one residing in yours regarding the misrepresented "cheater line".  I enjoy the occasional hit-and-giggle, but mostly I like to play the best I can.  And here lately I've been taking two cards, but I forgo the pencil in favor of my own felt-tip pen.  

Rob,

Some of my more satisfying rounds have come after an abysmal start. I shot a 47-39 recently that gave me some hope (only to be dashed shortly thereafter by a round of 50-42, but at least the company was good!).  One of the beautiful things about golf is that it can be greatly enjoyed in a variety of ways:  on foot and in carts; posting a medal score as a single or playing a loose match with one of your buds.  

[Rob Rigg]

Lou,

Your 47-39 is a great example of what happens to a lot of people after they forget about focusing on score. They have a crappy front and play lights out on the back because they relax and just play.

This may not have been the case in this situation but I have seen it happen often (and I have certainly experienced it as well).

I agree with your final statement completely - it is what makes golf different from any other game that i can think of. There is no right way to play, every golfer has a choice.

[Tom_Doak]

Mike McGuire:

That is a great quote from John Low.

Bill M. had a quote from Dr. MacKenzie railing against the "card and pencil" spirit, but attributed it to The Spirit of St. Andrews.  A different quote about the "card and pencil" spirit was actually in his first book in 1920.  I had always thought it was the first quote on the subject, and didn't realize that John Low had beaten him to it, although not with the exact verbiage.

[Mike McGuire]

John L. Low (1903) thought foursomes (2 vs 2- alternate shot - in match play) was the highest form of golf. He makes a good case.




link to read the entire book on google books - http://bit.ly/5B3XJw

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