Matchplay: great quotes that help explain the allure

[Brett_Morrissy]

Guys,
...anyone care to post any of their favourite quotes that help explain the allure of the great game of Matchplay.

I would like to try and explain it to those that are new to the game, or that have never played it before (always played stroke of comp golf), or to those that believe the only way to play golf is like "the pros do on telly".

bm

[Michael Goldstein]

Simple Brett: 'it's faster'

PS good to see you the other day.

 

[michael damico]

it's PURE.

Simply put: it's you and me in the ring, standing toe to toe for 18 rounds.

It offers a recovery option in each 'round', allowing for the 'underdog' a chance to strike back at his foe, directly.

It's just more fun.




Funny side note, two weeks ago I was told that I need to get a USGA Handicap so that I may play in specific tournaments; I laughed and said that's ridiculous...I have always played match play, no need to have a handi. To which, I was retorted with "well, how do I receive strokes then if you have nothing to measure your abilities to mine?". I responded, "play the tee you would normally play, I will too and let's duke it out for my paycheck"

Reminds me of a little movie we all know and love:

What'd you shoot Ty?  -  I don't keep score Judge   -  Well how do you measure yourself against other players?   -   by height!

[JESII]

Michael,

How would you handle a second match with a person you really enjoyed playing with but was several degrees better a player than you? Assume the first match cost you that paycheck and it's clear this person will beat you heads up 99 out of 100 times...but they were good company.

[Brent Hutto]

Reminds me of a little movie we all know and love:

What'd you shoot Ty?  -  I don't keep score Judge   -  Well how do you measure yourself against other players?   -   by height!

Yeah but didn't we all see Ty a little later sneaking a peek while standing at the urinal? I think he was lying.

[Garland Bayley]

What do you want? One long drawn out drama leading to a final dramatic result. Or, as many as 18 mini-dramas leading to the final dramatic result.

[Dan Kelly]

X bad holes can't ruin (18 minus x) good ones.

[Eric Smith]

Press.

[Bob_Huntley]

it's PURE.

Simply put: it's you and me in the ring, standing toe to toe for 18 rounds.

It offers a recovery option in each 'round', allowing for the 'underdog' a chance to strike back at his foe, directly.

It's just more fun.




Funny side note, two weeks ago I was told that I need to get a USGA Handicap so that I may play in specific tournaments; I laughed and said that's ridiculous...I have always played match play, no need to have a handi. To which, I was retorted with "well, how do I receive strokes then if you have nothing to measure your abilities to mine?". I responded, "play the tee you would normally play, I will too and let's duke it out for my paycheck"

Reminds me of a little movie we all know and love:

What'd you shoot Ty?  -  I don't keep score Judge   -  Well how do you measure yourself against other players?   -   by height!

Michael,

You are putting us on, aren't you? If not you must be naive or have a professional game. If its the latter then good luck to you, if it's the former I would love to have played against you when I was younger.What size is your paycheck?

Bob

[Tom_Doak]

Bob:

Michael was an intern for me a few months back ... I have not seen him play, but you can afford to find out!

[michael damico]

Bob....I am nothing close to scratch, just not enough time to establish any consistency. And I stand all of about 5'4", so according to that guy spotted at the urinal, I am not too good.

[Mike McGuire]

From Concerning Golf by John Low


“The natural egotism of men and nations joining in the game made popular, however, for a long time the single form of the sport. The beginner wished to know his own worth as a player day by day, and conceived the plan of writing his autobiography on small pieces of paper planned for the purpose. Golf became for him of interest only so far as his own total of hits and misses was concerned. The battle proper was of small account; even victory and defeat were terms of mild comparison. The one and only interest lay in the daily attempts to reduce the total strokes which were required to compass a given number of holes. In this selfish struggle it is little wonder that the position and very life of the game was for a time assailed. It became no longer a friendly affair of the skill of one man as compared to another, or of two men compared to two, but rather an individual attempt to perform some feat irrespective of rivalry or contest. “

[Adam Lawrence]

Henry Longhurst:

"While stroke-play at golf is held to be the more certain test of skill, knock-out play is the real test of moral fibre. If you finish fourth in the Open you do not say, 'I was beaten by Smith, Jones and Robinson': you say with some pride, 'I finished fourth.' In match-play you have to admit that you were beaten by So-and-so, and maybe had to pack your bag after the first round at that. For this reason I always maintained, and still do, that match-play is the true essence of golf and that these 'round and round and round again tournaments', as Bernard Darwin called them, are but a substitute for the real thing. You never have the Great Fear in stroke-play: 'What am I going to say if this fellow beats me?'

[BCrosby]

Mike - A wonderful quote from John Low. He had lots to say about the issue.

I can't put my hands on Low's book at the moment, but he thought match play was real golf and medal play was not.  

Bob

[Dan Kelly]

Henry Longhurst:

"While stroke-play at golf is held to be the more certain test of skill, knock-out play is the real test of moral fibre...."

Moral fibre? Really?

Whose beard is being pulled here?

Reminds me of all the inane references to "courage" on the golf course....

[Jud_T]

“A golf course exists primarily for match play, which is a sport, as distinguished from stroke play, which more resembles rifle shooting than a sport in that it lacks the joy of personal contact with an opponent" - Freddy Tait

“Stroke play is a better test of golf, but match play is a better test of character.”- Joe Carr

“They were real golfers, for real golf is a thing of the spirit, not of mere mechanical excellence of stroke.” - P.G. Wodehouse

“Match play is so much more fun than stroke play.”- Sergio Garcia

[Peter Pallotta]

Dan - I know what you mean, but I remember that when as a young teen I'd failed at something, my grandfather would say in Italian "have courage"...which translated more accurately as "take heart".  

Mike, Bob - that Low quote is interesting to me for the same reason many of Behr's quotes are.  I may be misreading them, but they so often seem to me to have (and intend to have) a 'religious' resonance.  In this case, it is as if I hear in the background Low urging us not to pridefully obess over our personal sins or worry only about our own salvation but instead to give ourselves fully to the game of life, participating with our brothers and sisters moment by moment with a joyful and un-selfconscious attention.

I'll go away now - my beard needs trimming.

Peter

[Peter Pallotta]

Beard trimmed,  I can continue.

The good thing (the only good thing perhaps) about such a 'reading' of the text is that it goes some way in explaining the history/development of golf course architecture, i.e. what happens to architecture when it caters or tries to cater to the professional game, a game populated by 'egoists' who care only (or at least most of all) about their own 'personal salvation'.   Torrey and Congressional, for example, serve that end admirably.

Peter

[BCrosby]

 - that Low quote is interesting to me for the same reason many of Behr's quotes are.  I may be misreading them, but they so often seem to me to have (and intend to have) a 'religious' resonance.  In this case, it is as if I hear in the background Low urging us not to pridefully obess over our personal sins or worry only about our own salvation but instead to give ourselves fully to the game of life, participating with our brothers and sisters moment by moment with a joyful and un-selfconscious attention.

I'll go away now - my beard needs trimming.

Peter -

C'est la barbe, non?

Your instincts about the Low quote are on the money. For Low, like Behr, the match/medal play distinction was very important. The distinction represented two very different relationships with with game. One that challenged, enhanced character versus another in which a player retreated into a self referential world all about his physical skills.

The distinction had ramifications for gca. Good strategic holes would appeal most to the match play mentality. The medal play mentality - let Crane be the placeholder here, though there were others - might find the same hole 'unfair' or not sufficiently testing, and so forth. Two different mindsets that saw the same hole very differently. Something that has not changed much in the decades since, btw.

The distinction comes up often in in the literature of the GA. It's laced all through MacK's SofSA, for example. Us moderns tend to skip over those passages. But MacK, like Low, Simpson, Behr and others thought the distincton went to the very heart of things. I think they were right.

Bob

 

[Dan Kelly]

Dan - I know what you mean, but I remember that when as a young teen I'd failed at something, my grandfather would say in Italian "have courage"...which translated more accurately as "take heart".  

"Courage" and "heart" arise from the same Latin root -- so I do see the connection. But I don't guess that most of the beard=pulling references to "courage" have the wisdom of your Italian grandfather.

Mike, Bob - that Low quote is interesting to me for the same reason many of Behr's quotes are.  I may be misreading them, but they so often seem to me to have (and intend to have) a 'religious' resonance.

Well, of course they do. Surely you've heard of "Low church"?