Don't be that guy....Part Deux

[David Ober]

Looks more like 18-inches to me.... ;-)

[John Kirk]

Why are they crowding around the players?  That's rude.  I'd have to back off and re-read my putt, while requesting a little more personal space.

 

[Sam Morrow]

Dude on the right obviously is using a cheater line.

[David_Elvins]

Why are they crowding around the players?  That's rude.  I'd have to back off and re-read my putt, while requesting a little more personal space.

 

Ettiquette was almost non-existent back then from what I have read.  Lots of temper tantrums, players walking off courses in the middle of matches, dirty tricks, stymies, etc.

[Rich Goodale]

Haven't those two jokers in the picture above heard of the "gimmie?!"  No wonder golfers are so slow--it was part of the fabric of the game even in ye olde St. Andrews......

[Colin Macqueen]

Gimmes! Gimmes! There's many a slip twixt cup and lip.

Cheers Colin

[Melvyn Morrow]

Brent

Very clever, but perhaps you can answer the real question do distance aids work?   Does the information gained by the aid overrule that human action of looking at the target for that final time. When the eyes take that final look and the brain/body goes into automatic mode and the swing starts, is it information from the aids or eyes/brain that takes over controlling the shot?

I believe it’s the eyes/brain/body that ultimately controls the whole series of events over that last fraction of a second and that previous input is overruled by the eyes/brain at that moment of final look and check of the target.

My points are (A) Golfers do not need aids as our final actions are controlled through that last look at the target before the swing starts. (B) That being the case all previous information is just a distraction to the game and has IMHO taken away some of the real pleasure of playing golf thanks to pointless distractions. (C) This belief that because we today need a crutch to help play the game does not mean that those pre WW2 did the same. There so far is no written record that I have found to confirm the existence of distance aids in the early part of the 20th Century let alone the whole of the 19th Century.

My comments are based upon trying to get modern golfers to embrace the game with all its rewards by playing it in the time honoured fashion, that being unaided using one’s eyes and mind only.

What I certainly do not understand is why take up a sport or in truth a way of life, then start trying to make it easier. A golfer, I believe relishes the tests and challenges of the game, its courses and the genius of a clever testing designs, so why seek to make things easy. Yes I refer to carts but in this case aids, distance aids in all their forms, why, where is the challenge in getting information from a third source, particular if in the final moment its discarded in preference from what the eyes tell the brain.

Call me names, accuse me of whatever, but my intention is to show golfer that there is far more to the game that than seeking and trying to use aids. Letting our senses run freely, developing that freedom to the point that skills start to surface in their various forms is what the game is all about. The flowering of the inner spirit, remember the moment when you first achieved a Par on a Hole, then your first Birdie, and to those who have achieved a Hole in One. Many made it without the need of toys, they did it under their own steam, sweeting the feeling even more.

The game for this golfer is in feeling the atmosphere as I walk the course, the mood it creates and that great de-stressing feeling. My game uncluttered by distractions, the goal to navigate the course, to pick my way through the terrain and hazards placed before me by my God and Man. The knowledge that I achieved it unaided, naked of any gadgets makes it far more enjoyable. I just hope others will see what golf was and really is no matter what current level of skill you have achieved.

Purest, yes but not in the way many today use that word, purest in the overall feeling the game achieved, well did when I last played. If I am wrong why are more and more people turning to Hickory? Because it is the true inheritor of the game of golf, thanks to the contamination eroding the real pleasure of the modern game – AIDS (just as vile as the AIDS that surfaced in humans in the 1980’s).

Brent, what we learn is down to the quality of each individual or in this case the greed and weakness of each individual. Those who grab at straws to try and tweak their game, because his opponent used this or that aid he/she too must also use it just in case it does generate an advantage. This seeking to win by any means, just portrays one’s real character, a true outward display of pure desperation and weakness.  Is this the image you wish to seek when you view golf, well we have it now and unless we make noises to the contrary it is indeed here to stay.

However, it all depends what game your play, is it golf or one of the modern variation on the real game, the ones coming from the result of the weak whimpering’s of a flawed Governing Body.

Melvyn         

Sam
Weak players will do anything to try to justify their need for aids, the sickest is to use the names of ODG who never (according to the current records) used distance in the format many modern players use today.

[John Kavanaugh]

Every decision I have made about using advances in technology have come down to affordability.  Just speaking for myself I never bought a laser because I found them too expensive and easy to misplace.  I have also not bought a Segway or motorized push cart for the same reason of high cost.  I never put graphite shafts in my irons back when it was believed to be a good thing.

That is the way the world is, people who hate new tech are most likely those too cheap to buy it.

note:  I played my first round this weekend with a GPS golf watch: http://gigaom.com/mobile/motorola-puts-a-gps-golf-caddie-on-your-wrist/ It was "free" because Amazon accepts AMEx points and I can't lose it because it is on my wrist.  It speeds up play over a laser or device that is hand held, no doubt about it.

[Jud_T]

Here's a classic....Ben Crane, he of the 6 hour round, advocating lasers on tour to speed play:

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7909639&categoryid=2630020

[Brent Hutto]

Melvyn,

If knowing the distance to the target, as opposed to guessing it, were not an advantage it's hard to believe that virtually every single elite golfer in the world would play by yardages. If it were of no benefit, surely at least one in ten or one in twenty of the top-level players would do without simply from pure contrariness if nothing else. Even the ultimate "feel" player Bubba Watson of whom it's been said he never hits the same shot twice will still have his caddie give him a yardage number on practically every shot. And Watson does not strike me as the sort of fellow who does technical, number-based things when there's no need.

I play a lot of rounds by eyeball. I play an equal number of rounds by reference to various types of yardage information. The "eyeball" rounds are indeed faster, more relaxing and less encumbered by external concerns. However, the reason those rounds are more relaxed is because I'm not keeping score or playing a game against anyone. If I don't give a damn what my score is, of course I don't bother confirming yardages. I also don't bother taking strictly legal drops by measuring out two club lengths and I putt with the flagstick still in the hole. All very unencumbered and refreshing.

But if I'm genuinely trying to score as well as I can within the limits of my own game, pretty much any shot outside of 40-50 yards I'm going to know plus or minus a couple of yards if possible how far I need to hit the ball. It's the most basic question in golf, overcoming distance while achieving precision is the very nature of the game.

There are two ways to overcome distance while achieving precision:

1) Your "time honored" method. Guess correctly how far you need to hit the ball then hit the ball correctly the distance you guessed.

2) The modern method. Know exactly how far you need to hit the ball then hit the ball correctly the distance you know.

Mystical claims aside, nobody guesses or "eyeballs" distances are consistently correct as they can be measured by a surveyor (and written  in a yardage book or printed on a sprinkler head) or measured by a laser rangefinder. So it is an absolute truth that what I'm referring to as the modern method is at worst just as precise and is quite frequently more precise than guessing. Any time a golfer can eliminate one of two sources of possible error in a shot, he's going to take it if he genuinely wants to score his best.

The only exception is if he has some mental or emotional hang-up by which the very fact of knowing a certain distance renders him incapable of executing a proper shot. That's a disabling habit of mind, not a morally or ethically superior outlook. We all have our demons to fight. I can't seem to follow a couple of bad shots with a good one because I'm too busy being angry. You can't make a decent swing if someone has told you the exact distance. The only difference is I don't pretend that angry self-talk is a good thing.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Jud

I do not know about you, but seeing guys with talent using aids to calculate their distance, is just so sad. It comes across to me that he just does not know that it is of the most basic parts of the game and he trying to bypass it by using an outside aid. While watching others walk or pace of distance. Christ for me it’s just so desperately sad that a fundamental part of the game as well as its enjoyment is being discarded and worst still future generations have come to believe that golfers are no longer responsible or perhaps I should say able to judge what was once and for centuries their natural instinct that gave birth to generating and understanding skill.

I wonder when an aid is going to be invented to take the swing for us to make the game that little bit more easier?

I have to wonder what modern golfers and golf is actually losing when it seems so natural to get outside help to ultimately just select the right club. Young, gifted yet totally reliant on aids, sad.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the great names of the past are more than a match for our modern heroes as their game is incomplete; they have lost a big chunk over the years to the detriment of the modern players.  Sad is indeed the word as it gives me no pleasure in seeing modern guys missing out on parts of the game that actually makes the game golf. A little loss of the real spirit of the game too.

So my voice from the wilderness will continue, I just wish others who believe the same would also speak out more often in the hope of persuading others not to cut out a great part of the game in the hope of obtaining an imaginary advantage.   

[Carl Nichols]

Back to Joe's original post, if someone carrying a laser looks like he's about to give me *my* distance, am I allowed to preempt him by telling him what I think it is? 

[Bill Seitz]

Some consider estimation - and the uncertainty that goes along trying to estimate - to be integral parts of the game.   Just as the perfect swing is a skill and reading a putt is a skill, so is estimating distance.   The laser distance finder (and gps) seem to take out these elements, at least for this part of the game.

I understand such devices are legal and don't knock you for playing by the rules, but I'd rather that such devices were not legal.    I realize it is a slippery slope with plates in the fairway, sprinkler heads, front-middle-back yardages, yardage books, caddies, etc., but there is something particularly bothersome about lasers and gps.   Probably because it is the direct substitution of a machine.  It seems to take the human element completely out of the process.  

1) On a general note (and not really related to the quoted language above), I've found the advantage that range finders provide isn't necessarily accurate data to the pin.  I'm not good enough for a yard or two to make a difference, so yardage markers are probably good enough.  But what they DO provide is accurate yardage data to hazzards and other targets.  A lot of the time, it's a lot more important to know the distance to carry a trap or a lake than it is to know the distance to the pin. 

2) Estimation and uncertainty with regard to yardage haven't really been part of the game at the professional level for decades.  Unless you make the rules read that the golfers themselves, and not the caddies, must create their own yardage books, I don't see it as a big issue.

3) Anyone who thinks the human element is completely removed from the process when one uses a range finder has never seen me drill one 15 yards over the green because I inadvertently shot the trees behind the flag and not the flag itself.   

[Melvyn Morrow]

Brent
The difference and it’s not a flaw in either of our games or outlook on golf. It is simply interoperation that distance in yards feet or inches has a meaning that can be translated into accurate shot. My view is that distance as measured in modern terms is just collateral damage to the mind, it’s what the eyes actually see and equate into the swing that matters. The modern golfer sees metres or yards feet inches, others just see a void, a distance they need to hit the ball to reach their goal. Instinct through the eyes having already selected my club, all that is required are for my eyes and brain to co-ordinate my body thus swing to accommodate the environment and course design. This same process is undertaken by all, the only difference is that many modern golfers need further confusing information (IMHO) before fixing eyes to the target and taking the shot. In short I see no distance in measured units be they feet, inches or bake bean cans. 

Knowing distance is, I believe totally pointless, because the exercise in front of you is to hit the target or as close to it as possible. Distance is not two notches back on my swing but a totally complicated procedure of thousands of signals being sent from eyes to brain to brain and eyes before instructing muscles into action. Hence why some even with aids still miss the target, overshoot or are short, irrespective of the course and its hazards.

Just over a year ago at St Andrews on the West Sand car park area a few old friends conducted a simple test using electronic aid. Most of us think they are useless but one had been persuaded to buy one. So another friend said OK lets test the theory.  Instead of a course with set targets he wanted to prove distance to most mortals is meaningless certainly for anything over 20-30 feet. So the test was based upon no target just define by measurements. The figure of 120, 150, 160 170 & 180 yards were the distance chosen but not played in that order. To those who know the long car park of the West Sands may remember is open green between the sea on one side and the big dunes to the other and circa 50 yards wide plus/minus plus featureless. So 120 yard being the figure. They all Tee up together with no Tees but the idea of hitting their balls more or less the same time so that no distance could be judged from another’s shot. I watched due to my back. The balls travel to different positions. Even with Mike getting a fix of 120 yrds he was way off. None got close not even within 10 yards. This was tried until all distances suggested were played before they gave up. Even the two guys not using aids found it hard to hit a distances shouted out at random. All said they missed the actual visual site of a shot to the Pin. The fact of the Green feature and flag gave them the depth of focus that they need to judge distance. Afterwards with a few pints we talked it through the afternoons fun and the general coconscious being that the final swing, that final look needs the focal point to get close to the target. Mike although he identified the various distances marks never once got close which surprised him as he thought he had a target. He like the rest of us believed that the body/eyes/brain goes into auto mode and the swing, its strength is all culminating from that final look.

Right not a scientific test in anyway real way but opens out the opportunity to undertake really discuss if the knowledge of distance is meaningful. I think they are not and its in the end the eyes overruling the other information. Don’t agree then may I suggest you  undertake a similar tests.

So I again believe that distance knowledge in irrelevant in that the eyes need to focus on a target to get a mark to aim at which overrules all previous inputs from other sources.

Mystical, nice way of trying to negate another’s opinion, but then if you work on or use measured distance then perhaps the Devil has you hooked believing you need info when you do not. It’s all right in front of your, eyes just waiting for you to open them.


Why is there no records of distance as we use it today in all the old articles and even articles of the second Golden Age Guys, perhaps because it’s a new concept. You do not need to know yardage, your eyes will do their job, as yes as we get old all our function slow down but is that a reason to betray a lifelong way of playing Golf?

Brent, history, and the centuries of history of the game are against you, because yardage was never the issue, you played to the challenge, your senses being good enough for centuries of golfers who did not fall for questionable information as it was then and still is to this day questionable. I think mystical should be targeted at the distance aid, in that it has the mystical powers of squat.

[Garland Bayley]

Stick to commenting about golf courses you've never seen, Melvyn.

Perhaps you should stick to banking. Seems you fellers can't even get that right these days.

[David_Elvins]

Jud

I do not know about you, but seeing guys with talent using aids to calculate their distance, is just so sad.

melvyn,

With the greatest respect, you are full of it.

The commonly accepted theory is that man does not have the ability in his brain or eyesight to estimate distance at an accuracy of greater than +/- 5%.  That is factual and based on scientific research.  It is a best case scenario.  Any golfer that wants greater than +/- 5% accuracy must use some sort of distance aid. 

You might be happy with an accuracy of this, but anyone with any decent talent won't be because they can hit the golf ball with accuracy of better than +/- 5%.

Stop pretending that the human brain and eyes can do something that scientific research has shown they can't. 

[John Kirk]

I agree David, and that's why I like sprinkler head yardages, where we can quickly and quietly figure it out.  I think I can do it faster than a guy with a laser.

[Scott Warren]

Garland,

I had bowed out of participating in this thread, but you've piqued my interest.

Perhaps you should stick to banking. Seems you fellers can't even get that right these days.

What on earth are you referring to?

[Melvyn Morrow]

David

You said “With the greatest respect, you are full of it.”, well do not worry it’s a problem all humans suffer from but at least you did not call me a liar.

Having shown me the courtesy let me return it by saying with all due respect have you been involved in watching golfers testing their ability to judge, let alone to hit a distance picked out of the air.

If what you say is indeed true then every golfer or perhaps just the elite can shot after shot hit their ball to within a few feet of the target distance. Now that may be correct but has any scientific research been done to that effect and if so was it undertaken in an open area with no markings to confuse the mind or eyes. I would like to see a real study of this mad little experiment Mike and my friends did last year on the car park at the West Sands St Andrews. From what I observed distance in yards, feet and inches was meaningless, without a focus point the results seem totally erratic and never came close to the distance specified. No, ours was not a bone fide scientific study but certainly enough to cast doubts on yardage being as important as many claim.

I for my sins still believe that the brain goes into automatic mode and discards all previous information as the swing starts, meaning that the outside distance information is irrelevant.

Distance information has become addictive, its sweeping golf faster than Tiger spitting or throw his clubs, its rampant, yet your own argument is defeated surely by the fact that although your distance aid hits a figure (as you say is difficult for the eyes to judge), then pray tell me how the golfer using a distance figure can hit that distance if he can’t see it clearly. Because whichever way you look at it the point is that your “eyes” have to look at it, so your brain will recalculate the distance to activate the swing.

It’s so sad that golfers believe in distance yardage help from outside sources, it’s even sadder that they can’t equate it to being a modern trend, no sorry crutch is more appropriate.  It shows a major flaw in the modern game that golfers feel they can no longer accept the challenge without the aid of external distance information.

You have an electronic aid, go out onto an open area of grassland with no visual distractions, get a friend to shout out distances, you double check that distance with you laser then play a shot to that distance with no marks. Then check said distance to the ball repeat each distance 3 times and see if the laser helped. Then try without laser. Finally place a flag or stick in the ground at the distance stated and see how close you get to that stick. My understanding is that with the visual aid of the stick will assist more than your electronic aid. The please tell me I’m full of it once you have conducted said trials. When using the laser do not mark the distance just view its location with no visible marker to aim at or distract you from achieving the distance specified.

My whole point is that the brain will always compensate at the last second from the input from our senses in this case the eyes. It will overrule all other information focusing on what it can see, that being the flag. It will even try to compensate for an obscure image. However the above test will see if the golfer understands distance in the form of a measured unit or actually focusing onto an image (working in the same principal as radar).

If I am as you and others believe wrong, but it will not hurt me, as I still believe it immoral to use outside aids, being against the very principles or even the spirit of the game – but hey that’s my beef.

Are you up to it, you think it is a load of S@*t, so prove me full of it, but if its inconclusive or errs towards my point of view all I ask is that you play without yardage for 6 games (2-4 to get accustomed to not using distance and the last 2-3 in seeing if the game is more enjoyable and see if the game comes to you more naturally). It will require you to concentrate more on your game and the GCA of the course or should I say it will give you more time to concentrate on your game and the GCA of the course.

From a guy apparently full of it – ‘it’ is waiting to be defined by you subject to your distance studies. What do you say?

Melvyn

[Phil McDade]

I'm struck, in reading this thread and in particular those defending range finders, of the desire of some to add certainty to a game that is the most arbitrary of all. In no other game is the field of play as random and uncertain as golf, and that for me is one of its best assets. To take some of that out of the game -- via exact yardages to this pin or that hazard -- seems to take some of the joy of discovery out of the game.

[Mike Hendren]

I find rangefinders amusing.  Nothing more - nothing less.

I'm too cheap to buy one and won't mind at all if you use one in my presence.  Whatever.

Mike

[Brent Hutto]

If you experience flying the ball past the hole and into the back bunker because you thought it was 150 yards and it was really 142 as "discovery" then I can see why you'd cover your ears when someone says the yardage. For me that's no discovery, it's a wasted stroke.

The first time I play a course there's a discovery waiting over every hill. And even a course I've played several times can have a discovery waiting when I finally figure out that I end up closer to hole landing short and bouncing on than I do flying it to the hole. But any basic information that I can obtain by simply walking from my ball to the hole and counting my paces just doesn't tickle my "discovery" meter.

Obviously I'm missing out on a childlike sense of wonder that seems to offer some of you guys great pleasure. Different strokes and all that. I'm not fond of cigars or single-malt Scotch either but I can see that some people really dig it.

And to repeat an earlier comment, I play lots of rounds where "discovering" what happens when I just pull a club and wale away without worrying about a particular strategy or distance or plan for the shot. But that approach is not compatible with scorekeeping or competition. If I'm purposely bringing silly wasted shots into play just for the hell of it then I'm not making a credible effort at scoring as well as possible. And that's what deliberately ignoring yardage information amounts to, letting strokes go to waste because you don't care (or to be more charitable because you care more about other things than you do about your score or the results of the game you're engaged in).

[Sean_A]

It would be interesting to know many laser freaks also insist on replay technology being utilized for sport.  Perhaps we have the true two sorts of people identified.  Those that accept human error as part of sport and those who try to eliminate human error as much as is technologically possible. To me, technology can easily become an added and unnecessary layer between the participants and the game/sport; something which at least to some degree, is what we are trying to  escape when we take up games and sport to .  BUT, I am not a purist so I won't join an anti-laser or anti-distance campaign.  It just peeves me when guys get all hot and bothered about dull architecture and how far the ball goes all while standing in line to buy the products which help create these scenarios.  I have no time for that sort of double dutch logic.

Ciao   

[John Kavanaugh]

Professional golf already uses replay technology for making calls.  But they don't allow lasers.

[Brent Hutto]

Sean,

Not to be argumentative but...well, OK I am being argumentative...anyway a case could be made that one element of "dull architecture" is that whatever Discovery or Surprise is offered by the course dissipates after you've played it two or three times. I mean, if knowing whether your next shot is 142 yards versus 150 yards results in it being a dull, boring shot to execute that's not exactly an exemplar of riveting architectural subtlety. Especially if it's on ones home course that will be played hundreds of times, long after one has the required distance down cold.

Even my rather straightforward club course has a few greens where both characteristics are present. For example on the fourth hole you absolutely, positively don't want to be over the green. Now if you land two yards from the back fringe the ball will work forward or to the side and you won't typically bounce into trouble long. But land in the fringe or over the fringe and, well you don't want to do that. So if you aren't in a familiar spot for your approach, shooting the distance or finding a sprinkler head is in your best interest because you can nail down that "Don't go past there" distance.

But with that distance number in hand you're only half way there. There's a ridge "vertically" running through the green and depending on where the hole is, you need the ball to bounce and roll either left or right. And you need a pretty good guess about how hard it will bounce and whether it will spin hard. And so forth, with the tougher hole locations it's a very subtle green. To my mind, knowing the back-of-green distance makes it practical for a high handicapper to attempt to use some of the subtlety that those certain pin positions offer. If I were uncertain by, say, plus or minus 8-10 yards about that back-of-green distance (and if I'm keeping score) then I would absolutely, positively take a lesser club and just play for the (false) front of the green. Better to chip up the hill and over the ridge than try to play a shot from the rough over the green, a shot which will run forever and probably into trouble.

Now to a certain extent that's an artificial example in that I've played the hole 300 times or so and no longer ever need the laser unless I'm 100 yards right in the fairway of another hole or something. But that's typical of when I want enough distance information to make the "interesting" shot not be a "stupid" shot.