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Sam Morrow

Old Tom Believed in Technology
« on: May 14, 2012, 12:19:28 AM »
Like most 29 year old guys I'm having a normal Sunday night. I'm doing laundry and watching a documentary on Lucky Luciano. I'm also surfing GCA and reading golf history. Well I just read a tidbit that gives me a warm feeling inside.

So Old Tom worked for Allan Robertson until 1851. Why did Allan Robertson fire him? Well ole Al caught him playing the new guttie(the ProV1 if it's time). Al didn't like this because he made money off the featherie. Why would Old Tom Morris play the guttie? Also did anyone know that Old Tom came up with the idea of yardage markers?

All very interesting.

David Ober

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2012, 01:13:05 AM »
Go get 'em, Sam!!!

Garland Bayley

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2012, 01:22:08 AM »
Go get 'em, Sam!!!

Really David? You're cheering for someone who's tag line is "I'm the funny guy."?

Sam,

Have you not been paying attention? Melvyn can set you straight how and when technology is acceptable, and how and when not technology is acceptable. ;)
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

Jon Wiggett

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2012, 02:59:51 AM »
Sam,

if memory serves me right I think he also was the first to line the hole thus inventing the cupliner and to revet bunker faces.

Jon

Colin Macqueen

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2012, 04:15:51 AM »
Sam,

As Scott Macpherson says

"Robertson finally accepted the new infidel ball when he realised he was fighting the tide and that he could make and paint as many gutties in an hour as he could make featheries in one day!"

so Old Tom was vindicated in dumping his former employer, embracing the new wave of technology and reaching for the stars!

There is an extant jumping gene theory by Barbara McClintock!

Cheers Colin
"Golf, thou art a gentle sprite, I owe thee much"
The Hielander

Rich Goodale

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2012, 04:25:05 AM »
Old Tom Morris so believed that the Old Course was not fit for the purpose of golf that he erected flood barriers to drain the 1st and 18th fairways (a la Pete Dye at TPC Sawgrass), built a new 18th green on top of a saacred burial site, and told his henchman, Honeyman to bury the 12th green in sand, thereby forever banning its natural heathery surface to a permanent grave.  Traditionalsit?  My arse!
Life is good.

Any afterlife is unlikely and/or dodgy.

Jean-Paul Parodi

Bradley Anderson

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #6 on: May 14, 2012, 06:37:48 AM »
He was the first to practice regular sand topdressing of greens.

Didn't he also come up with putting dimples on the gutties?

Melvyn Morrow

Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2012, 07:51:40 AM »


Sam

As usual your grasp on golfing history and that of my family is somewhat wanting. But if it makes you happy - good for you. Just one thing why did Old Tom & Allan continue to play together in matches after their split? And why usr gutty ball, could it be he ran out of old featheries andto finish a game with friends used one of their new ball, then not made by Allan. He did not do it to improve his score but out of a simple action of finishing his round with friends. And yes Allan did not like it.

Garland

You know technology is only useful up to until you achieve a level of consistency otherwise you change the very thing you have grown to love and enjoy.

Old Tom was not a traditionalist, there was no such thing in his day. He was producing what we have come to expect on a modern golf course, good green well maintained sustainable covering to a level of consistency that allowed the game to achieve its goals. As for TOC as I said before it was his design based upon the original skeleton centuries old.


Sam Morrow

Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #8 on: May 14, 2012, 12:33:33 PM »


Sam

As usual your grasp on golfing history and that of my family is somewhat wanting. But if it makes you happy - good for you. Just one thing why did Old Tom & Allan continue to play together in matches after their split? And why usr gutty ball, could it be he ran out of old featheries andto finish a game with friends used one of their new ball, then not made by Allan. He did not do it to improve his score but out of a simple action of finishing his round with friends. And yes Allan did not like it.

Garland

You know technology is only useful up to until you achieve a level of consistency otherwise you change the very thing you have grown to love and enjoy.

Old Tom was not a traditionalist, there was no such thing in his day. He was producing what we have come to expect on a modern golf course, good green well maintained sustainable covering to a level of consistency that allowed the game to achieve its goals. As for TOC as I said before it was his design based upon the original skeleton centuries old.



Melvyn I think you're missing the boat. I think what you're saying to Garland and me is the opposite. Old Tom was seeing the game evolve, it seems like he recognized that and embraced it. He knew that golf like everything in our world changes, he was okay with that, it didn't scare him. Old Tom was improving the game, I really believe that. Would Old Tom have ridden in a cart, nobody knows but I'm sure he would have been in one sometimes. Would he have used a laser to get yardages, probably if he came up with the idea of yardage markers.

Ed Brzezowski

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2012, 01:31:47 PM »
Good Lord this has the foundations for an epic thread!!!! 

As inventive and intelligent as the Scots are I find it difficult to believe someone was not selling a yardage book on the fourth hole at some point in the 1800"s. If they had refreshments on the course why not a yardage book or some form of course information?

Tradition only goes so far, if there was a shilling or two to be made my guess is someone was fulfilling the need back then, just as today. Yardage information came about during the age of the field cannon, my guess is some of those officers were intelligent enough to draw a parallel to golf and figure it out. The Old Towns burial area has a fair amount of artillery officers taking a nap there. Bet a ginger beer some of them had a book.
We have a pool and a pond, the pond would be good for you.

Melvyn Morrow

Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #10 on: May 14, 2012, 01:40:38 PM »

Sam

My dear friend, please do not judge people on the weakness of your own resolve.

What Old Tom faced back then was a game in flux, balls that were expensive and prone to destruction by splitting its seams. Clubs that were basic and limited, but then at that time only 30 odd clubs existed some sharing the same course. Equipment was limited and did not allow players any form of consistency. It was not until the gutty appeared on the scene that it gave some 60 years for the gutty to establish itself as the first reliable ball unaffected by wet or damp conditions. The cost of the gutty was 6 to 8 times cheaper than the featherie and when you read of reports of the average loss of the ball per round on TOC was around 6 at 2 shilling 6 pence each  compared to 6 pence for the gutty, a round could be expensive. However the cheaper ball allowed more to play, interest grew and clubs started to mature in to effective clubs that offered golfer options. All this was the development of golf into a playable game for the majority of people with leisure hours on their side.

By the turn of the 20th Century ball and clubs were consistent for the game as well as being more affordable for those with leisure time upon their hands. A consistency in ball and clubs and at an affordable price. The real problem is it did not stop there, instead of maintaining the quality of the tools for the game the R&A allowed the ball and clubs to keep on developing, not for consistency of the equipment but to reduce scores.

Technology is good, I think most of us agree on that point, I just think that development needs tight controls. Improve the equipment with modern materials but not at the cost of allowing it to reduce scores. The consequences of this error is the slow destruction of many of our great courses and worst still great Holes designed by some of the greatest legends in our game. Golf does not need to be played over 7,700 or 8500 or 10,000 yard courses, we can achieve as much fun and skill on 5-6000yards courses if only the equipment would match the courses as they were circa 1900-1930.
With the current thinking courses will just get longer and longer, but for very little extra return for the golfer apart from more time and money required to play maintain and build these long courses. Also 36 Holes in a day is a satisfactory, certainly for this player with a stopover for lunch.

I do not see the sense in longer courses, what are they achieving, apart as I said above overall expense and the destruction of some of our great Holes.

For me working to a constant state is far more valuable for the quality of the game and its future and this is all Old Tom and the Morris family ever wanted. AS for aids, carts, range finders, distance aids I fear would have been defined as cheating in Old Tom eyes and you would be removed off his courses with or without the approval of the R&A.

Sam, we have a different mind-set today vs. the guys event back the 1950’s. Values were different and behaviour was important. What we might value today would not have been tolerated in their day, remember this was the time for us when titled people had great influence and a word from them could finish you both at work and socially.

There is nothing wrong with technology, its knowing how to use it and containing its wilder options, something that IMHO our governing bodies have not understood.

Melvyn 


Ed
Stop thinking in the 21st Century when looking at the game in the 19th Century. Put on your 19th Century hat on and you may understand.

Niall C

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #11 on: May 14, 2012, 01:45:32 PM »
Ed

When you're hitting the ball less than 200 yards and even then only for the good player, why would you need to know the yardage when it can be readily assessed with the naked eye ? Also, with the kind of equipment being used and the varied lies that they got, the wind, the run of the "ball" etc, the precise yardage would be neither here nor there. Its not as though you would be flying the ball set distances with graded clubs which didn't come into vogue until after Old Tom's heyday.

There was also reports that he tried the rubber ball on more than one occasion.

Niall

Melvyn Morrow

Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #12 on: May 14, 2012, 03:16:34 PM »

Old Tom had a firm belief in what he considered was right or wrong. He would react well before the R&A even realised there was a problem. It got him in trouble many times, but the Members as a whole supported his decision, generally over the Greens Committee. Because we are talking clubs does not automatically mean that he would have supported it.

As for the Cheating, what else would it have been before they were allowed? If energy was saved and proved to be assisting a player then those guys considered it unfair, but somehow they became legal. Sorry unless you are in need of aids it helps a player that that in my book is one step past unfair.


Ed Brzezowski

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #13 on: May 14, 2012, 03:25:46 PM »
Hello Niall,
I appreciate your point but must diasagree, shocking eh? I believe the thirst for knowledge and the want to do better is a basis of the human spirit.

My pyramid is bigger than his, I can get across the Atlantic quicker than anyone, who's first to the moon. You will never be able to tell me golfers back then did not want better clubs,  golf balls and information. People want to do better, yes some illegally and that is a shame, but some within the confines of the rules.

I had a look inside the R and A and the golf museum last year. They are filled with experiments of folks trying to perfect a way to hit a ball a long way with a better mousetrap.

While I appreciate your viewpoint and Melvyns I just cannot jump onto that way of thinking. Old Tom had a better way to make greens and grow grass and a host of other things. He seems to have promoted these ideas and they have set the standard for some aspects of golf worldwide. I cannot fathom that folks back then did not have a record of how far it was from a march stone to a bunker or green.

ED
We have a pool and a pond, the pond would be good for you.

Ed Brzezowski

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #14 on: May 14, 2012, 03:27:35 PM »
Ed

When you're hitting the ball less than 200 yards and even then only for the good player, why would you need to know the yardage when it can be readily assessed with the naked eye ? Also, with the kind of equipment being used and the varied lies that they got, the wind, the run of the "ball" etc, the precise yardage would be neither here nor there. Its not as though you would be flying the ball set distances with graded clubs which didn't come into vogue until after Old Tom's heyday.

There was also reports that he tried the rubber ball on more than one occasion.

Niall

Are prescription galsses allowed, otherwise i cannot see  a thing with the naked eye.
We have a pool and a pond, the pond would be good for you.

Melvyn Morrow

Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #15 on: May 14, 2012, 03:59:05 PM »
Ed

Sorry mate, not allowed the eyes must be naked otherwise where is the challenge? 8) ;)

Melvyn

Jon Wiggett

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #16 on: May 14, 2012, 04:01:01 PM »
Ed,

the ball was not consistent in flight or distance or bounce. Matched sets did not exist and the ground conditions were very different to those of today making the idea of yardages less important IMHO. On top of this most players played the same course 99% of the time so local knowledge trumped the yardage. Finally most courses were links and so effected by a wind making yardages useless especially when playing with the lighter feathery.

Jon

Ed Brzezowski

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #17 on: May 14, 2012, 04:10:58 PM »
Jon,
Believe me I fully understand, I have a few old wooden shafted clubs and I get it, I really do. But I think any group that had  the wisdom to do on course beverages had some basic knowledge of distances. Do you believe they didn't know the difference between how long a club would go upwind v downwind??

I am not taking the " it's 156.5" nonsense that we have today, they must of had some rudimentary ideas as to distance.

Melvyn , you don't want to see anything I have naked.
 8)
We have a pool and a pond, the pond would be good for you.

Dan Kelly

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #18 on: May 14, 2012, 05:22:39 PM »
I think that Old Tom the guardian of the game saw a player drawing a line on his ball to show him the line, he'd have had a conniption on the spot...

I wonder what he'd have thought of this:

One player in last week's NCAA Division 3 Women's Nationals laid a club down on the ground, to align her feet, before every shot! Having assumed her stance, she leaned down and tossed the club aside before making the shot.

Seems to me (and everyone else who commented on it) that aligning oneself without aid (including from a caddie, which the college players were not allowed) is one of the essential skills of the game -- certainly more essential than marking one's ball w/o incident. (One of the contenders was penalized for dropping her ball on her ball-marker, moving it -- a la Brandt Snedeker at the Torrey Pines U.S. Open in 2008.)
« Last Edit: May 14, 2012, 05:28:36 PM by Dan Kelly »
"There's no money in doing less." -- Joe Hancock, 11/25/2010
"Rankings are silly and subjective..." -- Tom Doak, 3/12/2016

Melvyn Morrow

Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #19 on: May 14, 2012, 05:37:05 PM »

Cheating is a very emotive word, to some it’s just of little consequence, but to golfers it’s a heinous word placing doubt upon ones performance, actions and basic credibility. Yet it also covers ignorance of the game, which may or may not be forgiven. In a law court ignorance is no defence yet in golf it could and perhaps should be.

However, there is also another view that being a golfer should be prominent in all who aspire to being golfers that is the moral question. Is it right or wrong? By using this or that am I actually obtaining an fair or unfair advantage over other golfers? Guys it does matter, it really matters.

The Rules allow for the player hitting a problem and as a definition but what it and the R&A have failed to do is act fast enough to resolve the problem. Rulings are not happy things for our Masters, it means that a decision is required and history dictates that this may take many years of dithering before any possibility of an answer being forthcoming. So in light of that lets just call a cheat a cheat until the R&A decide otherwise, basing our opinions on a moral code, is the said item giving the player a fair or unfair advantage – if it is then ops off with their heads (by that I mean cut the heads off the offending club). As for distance aids, carts etc program Timbuktu into their GPS on their cart and wave goodbye.

The real problem is that unfairness/advantage over another has never been looked at or resolved by the R&A since they took over being Masters of the Universe – that’s the single issue that they have never nor do I believe will ever to resolve. I feel it will spoil their peaceful existence and they can’t afford that because then their days would be numbered.

Trust that makes sense ;)

Melvyn   

Melvyn Morrow

Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #20 on: May 14, 2012, 05:48:13 PM »

Dan

The Rules do not cover such things but the moral issue does. It’s piss poor performance and if a player need’s help by 'align her feet' then there is no place for her on the course. Its morally wrong, its time wasting and could be regarded as showing disrespect to others on the course, so at the very least she should be told to stop or remove herself from the course.

Dan, golf a great game a great leveller but I firmly believe that the golfer has also a duty of care to the game, course and other players. This individual has crossed the line by her actions which are not Gentlemanly or Ladylike seeking unfair advantage over others.

My judgement, a warning with the threat of being removed from the course if she continues based upon using consideration to other player under the Etiquette Rules.

Melvyn

Bill_McBride

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #21 on: May 14, 2012, 07:48:34 PM »


As for the Cheating, what else would it have been before they were allowed?



One of the most interesting things I have ever heard on this site is when Tom Paul explained to me that the rules of golf really don't contemplate cheating - ie, that there are penalties for certain actions or inactions, regardless of intent or the lack thereof. If you kick your ball in the rough, it doesn't matter if it was an "accident" or whether you were "cheating"... The penalty is the same. I found that fascinating because I, like you, always thought of certain rules violations as "cheating". In certain respects, I still do. But the Rules don't...

So to answer your question, what it would have been was a penalty.

But there are consequences.  It's a stroke if you trip over your ball in the rough, but could be loss of your regular weekly game if you're spotted executing a foot mashie. 

David Harshbarger

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #22 on: May 14, 2012, 08:00:28 PM »

However, there is also another view that being a golfer should be prominent in all who aspire to being golfers that is the moral question. Is it right or wrong? By using this or that am I actually obtaining an fair or unfair advantage over other golfers? Guys it does matter, it really matters.


True dat. The way you put that struck a chord.  It is so true, that being a golfer, not a player, demands much of us, more than sometimes we can give.  Important to keep top of mind, though.
The trouble with modern equipment and distance—and I don't see anyone pointing this out—is that it robs from the player's experience. - Mickey Wright

Sam Morrow

Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #23 on: May 14, 2012, 08:20:48 PM »
Melvyn if the clubs and balls became more consistent then wouldn't the lowering of scores probably go hand in hand?

Garland Bayley

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Re: Old Tom Believed in Technology
« Reply #24 on: May 14, 2012, 09:59:16 PM »
Melvyn if the clubs and balls became more consistent then wouldn't the lowering of scores probably go hand in hand?

If they did, the lowering would be so small you would hardly be able to measure it. Remember a few years back one of the ball companies was advertising the first truly consistently round ball. How did that affect the game, and the scores? However, when they invent ways to circumvent the natural way a solid ball reacts to being struck by a club, we get enormous changes in the game, and measurable changes in scores.
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

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