Robin
Thanks for your post. As for the skiing, chair lifts just get you to the starting, as cars get us to the golf club (or is it Cart ball Club). I am not against how you get to the course be it skiing or golfing, but I am keen that the games are played as they have traditionally been for centuries and on the appropriate course. Would a skier dream of using a chair lift to travel down the course or would he prefer to ski, I believe the latter as it generates that basic fundamental feeling that lets you know who is in control, who is performing each and every action, the skier, so in golf throw away the toys, the burdens that detract the player from golfing.
As for my language, it has always been fairly clean, yet on occasion I have let my guard down and fallen to the poor standards of others, usually after being provoked.
Golf is indeed golf and for over five and a half to six centuries it has been a walking game, how at a stroke the governing body can allow the player to suddenly rest between shots instead of undertaken the exertion of also conquering the course by walking it. How can carting, cartballing, riding a cart all be considered as golfing, because riding eliminates a major core of the physical component of the game.
Also its not stopped there, it has defaced many a golf course, forcing a long walk between Greens and Tees, requires a considerable extra input regards maintenance be it on the fairways or cart tracks. All that after the physical and mental effect on the player – yes mental as the players line of vision are compromised as the cart may only be allowed on parts or paths on the course thus effecting his/her obtaining the same input as a Walker.
As for hardcore, no I am just staying loyal to the game. I see others not just drifting but running scared from the game be it because they consider courses too penal having only been introduced to the game that uses a cart. They cannot see let alone rise to the challenge, which is understandable if all you have known is carting.
Golf requires the Golfer to take on the challenge, not just of walking but facing the Designers efforts to throw him off kilter while navigating the design, hopefully linked closely with that done by Nature. Am I a purist, no, just a middle of the road golfer wanting to play on golf courses using Gods gifts to improve my skill and game levels. The satisfaction of achieving a fair to good round unaided rewards the real golfer in only the way he can understand, right Robin.
My views are perhaps acquired in a different way to most on this site. From a young age I had TOC at the bottom of the garden, my father being a good golfer and full of information on our family history and golfing connection. The constant reminders be it in The R&A club house, the town, the old cathedral or the many golf courses in Fife and GB that had the hand of not just one but many great designers that I have a bloodline too. All this was wonder and glitter to a young boy being taught the game by great uncles who remember many of the greats from their times up to the second world war.
It should not surprise anyone why my feeling for golf are as they are, the game is living through many generation of my family going back to a ball maker in old St Andrews town called Robertson who marries a Morris in 1720. Hardcore, no just a passion that the game should be played as it has come down to use, by that I mean walking the golf courses.
Melvyn