Americans don't get it about golf in England

[NAF]

Darren/Rich,

The grass is always greener but that can go for anything in life (including marriage!).  Sure there are many people in the US who go to Scotland and play St. Andrews with the rain coming sideways and they survive it and tell stories in their grille rooms for the next 50 years about their trip to the home of golf, but how many seek out a place like Tain or Machrihanish.  Not many and when you get to England most have never even heard of a place like Rye or Deal not to mention St. Enodoc or Pennard.

As per Scots coming and loving lets say Florida golf with all of its water and greenery, that is fine for a change (sort of like dating a redhead) but golf in the UK is such a fabric of life for a lot of people that I think that novelty would wear off quickly and they would yearn for the mottled landscape of the links.  Perhaps I am just really railing on the country club atmosphere here in the U.S.  For example I am going to go to a greens committee meeting tommorrow and support our greens chair in a massive tree cutting program that as usual will prove to be a firestorm.  If I hear one more member tell me that tree can't come down because it is the strategy of the hole, I might just quit my club.

Over in the U.S. I find a lot is symbolism over substance.  I find the opposite to be true in the U.K. and that is why I think Americans don't get it.

By the way after a trip to Australia last year, I think they get it but the buggy craze at some places down there was a bit scary.  Then again Oz is a heck of a lot hotter than the UK.

[Evan Fleisher]

TEP,

Thanks for your clarification, and I agree with your points 100%

[ForkaB]

Noel

I think you are dreaming.  It's a nice dream, mind you, but a dream, nevertheless........

20 years ago, Brits used to take their golfing holidays in places like Machrihanish, Dornoch, Elie, St, Andrews, etc.  IN the summertime, in those days, 90% of the visitors would be British.  Today, only 10% are.  Why?  Well.......

Outside of Florida or Myrtle Beach there are Spain and Portugal and etc., all of which have things which Britain will never have (at least in such quantities), namely:

--sunshine, sangria and s*x
--green grass and bronzed cart girls
--golf carts and twofer happy hours in the clubhouse
--did I say sunshine, sangria and s*x already.....?

Sure it's "symbolism" but so are wind and rain and fast and firm and warm beer and gnarly rough and even gnarlier caddies and B&B's where you have to go down the corridor when you wake up in the middle of the night needing a pee.....  There's "substance" in both experiences, too, if you look closely enough.

[Jeff Johnson]

I am a big fan of the British Open.  I is great to see those conditions and how the golfers need to adjust their games.  It is not target golf like the U.S.  I would love to get our course to that condition but our types of grasses do not allow us to just turn off the water.  The Poa annua would be gone very quickly and many supts. would be out of a job.  Unfortunately we need to baby our turf.   And if we were to try for brown, it would take some time to bring it down to that condition.  I would love to back off on all of the labor and inputs that go into maintaining fairways.

[TEPaul]

Noel:

I'm not completely sure what Rich Goodale means when he says your dreaming (although a nice dream).

But when anyone uses the term "don't get it" about golf architecture I think they need to be very careful about what they're saying.

I think the so-called architectural purists who advocate that all golf and architecture should be firm and fast and without much use of trees "don't get it" to about the same extent that others "don't get it" who advocate that all golf and architecture should be the over-irrigated, tree lined type courses of the USA and elsewhere.

The Americans who go to Europe and appreciate that style of golf although also appreciating the best of another style golf and architecture at home do get it, just as Europeans who like to come here now and then and see a style of golf unlike what they're normally used to do get it!

The ones who really "don't get it" in any part of the world are those who advocate just one type exclusively with no tolerance for any other type, in my opinion.

The real deal is in the differences! That's basically the heart and soul of golf and its architecture--eg the differences!

Remember;

"Golf and its architecture is a great big thing and there really is room in it for everyone."

[Darren_Kilfara]

When you get right down to it, Noel, I think the better way of explaining this issue is that links golf at its best is a cerebral experience, in a way that parkland golf at its best isn't. Only certain types of golfers are going to enjoy/experience links golf to the point where they fully "get it", simply because the majority of golfers (from all countries) either aren't cerebral enough to make the necessary conclusions or won't wish to waste the ol' gray matter during their own leisure time. The same conclusion can be drawn, of course, about other leisure activities - sangria and shagging are activities which can be enjoyed by everyone, whereas chess and poetry reading really aren't. I hope I'm not being judgmental; I don't think there's anything wrong per se with people who wish to turn their brains mostly off during their downtime. But that is a rather tall mountain to scale when you're trying to explain the glories of links golf to, say, the average US television viewer...

There is another category of golfer, of course: the Brit who grows up playing links golf and comes to prefer links golf because parkland golf is an alien concept. For the golfer growing up and living in a small village or town in  coastal Britain or Ireland, the wide world of target golf and overwatered greens may never become a reality. But then, I believe it's infinitely easier to "get" parkland golf when you come from a links background than to "get" links golf when you come from a parkland background, simply because there's much less about target golf to "get". And from personal experience, I can't help but be appalled in one sense by every friend I have at Machrihanish who has gone to Spain/Portugal on holiday, played golf there and said that they loved the type of golf on offer, without any qualifications. I want to grab them by the shoulders, shake them and yell, "You belong to Machrihanish! This is just about as good as golf gets! It's a hell of a lot better than ANYTHING in Spain or Portugal!"

Cheers,
Darren

[TEPaul]

Pepper:

Basically there's a good amount of very good modern aerial oriented designs in this world--since the entire "Modern Age" of golf architecture was designed basically in that general style. And there's a lot of good classic/strategic style of architecture in this world too that was designed sometimes primarily with the ground game in mind.

One needs to make the necessary distinctions between the two (or the many styles of architecture) and EXACTLY what they (any of them) were designed for---their "design intent".

Consequently, it'd be as foolhardy to take all the trees off some modern architecture and to firm those courses up to the extent we saw at RSG as it would be to tree up and over-irrigate the links style course such as RSG!

[Darren_Kilfara]

Tom Paul - I'm pretty sure that the type of golfer Noel, Rich and I are describing/deriding is the type who thinks that parkland golf is "real" golf, and links golf is "goofy" golf. Those are the people who "don't get it". I'm pretty sure that nobody involved in this discussion dislikes parkland golf as such or thinks that there's only one legitimate type of golf (i.e. firm-and-fast). I, for one, after a steady diet of links golf over the past year or so, do long for the chance to play a few rounds on a (well-designed!) parkland course with lush greens and little wind. But it's the "well-designed!" bit that matters to me...

My above comments about golf in Spain and Portugal has to do with the fact that there is, by most accounts, no exceptional golf course architecture in either country, just as there is very little exceptional golf course architecture (or land to work with) in Florida. Wouldn't you agree that it's sad in some sense for a person to prefer a boring, lush golf course in Florida or Spain over an interesting, exciting links golf course in Scotland, simply because the idea of a lush, parkland golf course is novel to him or her? Sure, the "real deal is in the differences," but surely when you say that you're talking about golf courses of considerable merit, aren't you? Because being given the choice of playing two good links courses or playing one good links course and one poor parkland course isn't much of a choice, in my opinion.

Cheers,
Darren

[TEPaul]

"Only certain types of golfers are going to enjoy/experience links golf to the point where they fully "get it", simply because the majority of golfers (from all countries) either aren't cerebral enough to make the necessary conclusions or won't wish to waste the ol' gray matter during their own leisure time."

Darren:

A remark like that looks suspiciously like a gross generalization to me! That's a bit like implying that only golfers from one part of the world possess "gray matter" when it comes to golf. I hardly think that's the case. It's obviously more a matter of what one is used to, perhaps more particularly what one grows up with!

Otherwise it would be sort of hard to explain how many Americans and such come to love links style golf once that certain amount of time has been taken to experience it and understand it just as many links style golfers appear to like  the style that we generally have over here once they've gotten to know it. Contrary to a certain prevalent opinion that seems to reside sometimes on this website it really is possible to understand and enjoy both or even many different styles.

In my experience most golfers anywhere don't get something or are clueless simply because they're unaware of it--have never experienced it--not because they lack the 'ol gray matter to understand it and enjoy it once given the chance!

There're exceptions, of course, but that's true on both sides! To say otherwise, and to imply that the only real style of golf and architecture is the linksland style isn't much different than the old linksmen of decades past who refused to acknowledge golf or architecture once it first started migrating away from the linksland. Certainly the entire evolution of golf architecture since it migrated out of the linkland well over a century ago has proven that quaint idea to be untrue.

[NAF]

Maybe I am dreaming.  I can't argue the Spain analogy because golf, cheap beer and lovely senoritas isnt bad especially for a sun starved and horny Brit.  But after they turn lobster red and have taxed their liver perhaps they will long for the roll and pitch and windswept landscape of home.  Perhaps that is why the Aussies have it best on the Sandbelt because they get all the good attributes in a good climate.  It is a sad state of affairs then if the younger members at some of the courses in GB&I don't realize what they have but I think they still do.

There is nothing wrong with Parkland golf, I play it every weekend but I don't dream about playing it like I do when I open up Donald Steel's book or read Darwin's prose.  Rich Goodale once wrote a thread I believe about being a luddite, and perhaps I am a luddite for as Geoff Shack said in one of his books, the Revolution never happened.  Golf Architecture with some exceptions has not improved and I long for the state of the game as it is overseas.  Parkland golf has its own benefits, it is a walk unto itself, and can be incredibly fun.  But like I said earlier there are many Americans who won't play when the wind blows hard and the weather is iffy.  And I hate that attitude. Why play the game when nature challenges you?  Thats what I think they think.  They don't get it.  Of course this is a sweeping generalization but I'm sick of fighting the good fight when I explain to people that golf as it was at the British Open on Thursday in the wind and rain is how it has always been.

[Matt_Ward]

NAF:

Why worry what mormons think?

Noel -- do yourself a big favor -- forget playing the role of the missionary who is seeking to convert the "unconverted."

Look, most people (Americans) want the following:

1). A big cart to carry all the accessories which shall include a 64 ounce big gulp drink of their choice.

2). Green grass that is watered to the put where nothing will EVER bounce.

3). Tree lined fairways that engulf all the visibility.

4). Bunkers that are nothing more than cat-traps and pose little, if any real peril.

And on and on and on it goes ...

Noel, think of it this way -- the less people really understand links golf the better. This will mean more spaces and openings for people like you, me and others who understand that what you see with the BO in most cases IS what golf should be about.

Wasting time on why people don't get it is simply a waste of time. People used to ask me the same question on why I would go each and every weekend in the 80's to play Bethpage Black instead of the local public ones in North Jersey. The answer is straightforward to any real golfer as it is with links golf and it's real meaning to the game of golf.

[Forrest Richardson]

Yes, Darren, I agree: Many Brits visit and enjoy our American courses. But...take them to bandon Dunes and you may have some scratching their heads...as it does not fit their notion of American golf. Personally, I love Bandon and feel it is a tremendous duet of courses. But I'd be disappointing my friends from the UK if I took them there too often. It simply "turns them off" as it is not what they expect to find when they visit...any more, I might add, than we expect to find (over there) a lush aerial layout with landscaping and a crew of 30.

[NAF]

Matt Ward- Forgive me but you know me well enough that I have to fall on the sword for the umpteenth time because it is what I believe in. Just as I will battle with my greens committee on Tuesday except our chairman.  Perhaps I battle because I was inspired out of what I saw by Ken Bakst, when someone has a vision and they have the mastery to go through with it and fight for it.  So am I dreaming, yes!  And I plan to keep telling the members at Alpine or people I think are uninformed on just how great links golf or golf in Britain is.

Forrest, you made me think of where I stand on desert golf.  I've played in Scottsdale on several occasions and in the ultimate paradox, I view it as a breath of fresh air but after a few days (just like a quick jaunt to LA) I can't wait to get out of there.  While I love the scenery and the green grass contrasted against the mountains and desert, I just get my fill of that target based game.  So what of a place like Pine Valley then?  Again, life is a paradox enveloped in a metaphor constrained by an enigma.  But I view a place like PV as a heathland design in NJ.

[Matt_Ward]

NAF:

My good friend -- remember this -- most people play golf -- few are golfers. Those who respect the grand tradition and legacy of the game need no further convincing about the merits of the argument you've made.

The only thing you will encounter with the folks you try to convince is this -- the continued desire to live in ignorance. Without the right team of people making the daily decisions on how a course should look and play the result will be the same -- a general dislike for what they don't understand.

Yes, it's a pity -- but time is short and wasting it on people who don't get it simply takes away the time you can have playing it with people who do.  

[Darren_Kilfara]

Matt, I was tempted to write a post like yours but decided against it, simply because I don't buy the argument you're making even from a fundamentally selfish perspective. As fewer and fewer people appreciate links golf, possibly even to the point where certain links golf courses might start overwatering their greens in order to attract more (desperately needed) tourist revenues, it becomes less and less likely that the great features of links golf will be preserved. In a similar vein (and radically simplifying a complex issue), if more people understood what was so great about the aesthetics of the pre-renovation Merion bunkers, the Merion renovation job would have been done much differently (and more satisfactorily, to some). Ditto the Riviera renovation job, and countless other hot-button issues here at GCA.com - sure, it's easy to go all cynical and say that the public is full of idiots who will never understand what great architecture is. But ultimately, unless at least some of the public is made to understand and appreciate, who is going to keep great architecture in its present state? Golf courses, unlike other great works of art, are always subject to change...

Noel, I'm afraid you are dreaming. But it's a nice and noble dream, and having met you I'm pretty certain that you're as good an evangelist on this subject as anyone. And where there are preachers, there inevitably come disciples...

Forrest, you may be right about Bandon, but then I can't see many British golfers traveling thousands of miles to Bandon and back to pay through the nose (relatively speaking) for the type of golf course experience that they can get back home. You don't really get British golfers "doing America" in the same sense that Americans "do Scotland" or "do Ireland", for reasons (such as distance and expense) that I would imagine are obvious. There's a phenomenon about Americans pilgrimaging to the home of golf which simply doesn't exist in reverse; Britons who go on vacation to America very, very rarely go exclusively for the golf. (They're more likely to go for fun and sun and squeeze in a round or two on the side.) So there's an aspect of your argument that doesn't quite resonate with reality, at least as far as I'm familiar with it.

Tom, I think you've missed (or at least misunderstood) my point. Of course it's possible to enjoy and understand both links and parkland styles of golf. But have you been paying attention to this thread? We're talking about the type of golfer Noel describes in the first paragraph of his opening post, or that Patrick describes calling into WFAN in Reply #2 in this thread. There are more golfers like that in the world, I think, that golfers who would genuinely embrace links golf upon a first or second exposure to it...

Cheers,
Darren

[Forrest Richardson]

My British friends (many of them) have been far more interested in the drink cart girls than the courses here — but, of course, those who love golf have enjoyed the courses, too.

[Matt_Ward]

Darren:

Don't buy what you're saying even for a nano-second!

I grew up in ignorance playing public ocurses in North Jersey that were / are pastures. I took it upon myself to read more and more about the game and expose myself to what golf is really about. Other can do likewise or settle for the junk they play.

Too many people who play golf are really not interested in the quality of the design it's mainly for the social networking or social climbing up the corporate ladder.

The folks that Noel is talking about are people who gather to play "country club" golf and nothing more. They certainly have the $$ to travel and see what all the hoopla is about concerning links golf. They choose to live in ignorance because they want their golf to be what it is -- mainly overwatered -- tree lined and with bunkers / hazards that are primarily for show than for purpose.

Darren -- the top clubs -- the ones that get it right -- I will let you in on a secret -- they are going to maintain their clubs in the correct manner. The movement to remove trees is gaining steam at many clubs throughout the USA and there is a desire to inclue the "boucne" of the ball into the equation as well.

Will there be clubs that follow the path of say a Riviera? Sure -- but you know what -- these clubs will soon find out that what they have done flies in the face of their history and what golf is about. In many cases -- they pay the price and go back and correct the errors.

[Darren_Kilfara]

Darren -- the top clubs -- the ones that get it right -- I will let you in on a secret -- they are going to maintain their clubs in the correct manner. The movement to remove trees is gaining steam at many clubs throughout the USA and there is a desire to inclue the "bounce" of the ball into the equation as well.

But this is precisely my point, isn't it? Where did "the movement to remove trees" come from, if not evangelism of some sort by people with strong opinions? Such ideas do not exist in vacuums. Sure, there are many people who don't want to be led, or informed. But today's "country club golfer" worthy of derision might be tomorrow's greens committee chairman of a highly-rated golf course - seems just as likely a transformation as yours from an ignorant muni golfer to a knowledgeable sage of architecture, doesn't it? And wouldn't it be nice to at least attempt to get through to such a person at a more impressionable stage of his golfing life?

Cheers,
Darren

[NAF]

What Darren talks about..the average country club golfer who becomes greens chair is exactly the problem we have had at my club in the past.. Past Greens chairs did stuff without doing any of the groundwork about the architects orginal intent or history of the course.  These guys just want everything to be green or have it play like a course does for the pros.  It is these guys who I worry about.

[Matt_Ward]

Darren:

Yes, education does matter but let's not forget that many people who play golf could give a rats ass about who designed the course or other connected items. If you told them that carts can't be taken and that the beer is not available then you would certainly get their attention.

When you say that if this pattern should continue it will then have some long term effect on the game and transform the remaining great courses that are available --- I have to say rubbish!

Darren -- some people will NEVER get it -- end of story. Spending inordinate amount of time trying to convince them of something they simply resist is proof positive that stupidity rules in many places. In the case of Noel's wonderful effort at his home club he is attempting years and years of stupid choices that were made. He is also attempting to point out how important it is to have a Superintendent who truly knows how the game of golf is linked to the maintenance of the course and not the other way around.

Believe me -- convincing the pagans that there is a God was far easier!

[A_Clay_Man]

WHat's obvious to me is that a great course is one that can be played day in day out and never ever bores. What adds most to this excitment is the bounce of the ball. If there be no bounce, there probably be no mystery.

For the most part American golf has evolved into what it is and has basically failed to follow that truism. It's evident in the middle of the road clubs. Those that are dying for new members.   Or, The over hyped CCFAD thats trying to go semi-private or whatever.

It's also being followed, by a few, who either understand what golf should be about or just don't want to follow the lemmings.

Original thinking is the only way out of the abyss of standardized mediocritry.

[TEPaul]

Darren:

No, I don't think I've missed or misunderstood your point and yes I have read this whole thread and have been paying attention to it. And yes I do understand what Naf means when he talks about his frustration with the opinions and attitudes of certain members of his club. I've been going through the exact same thing at my club for the last five years but now the light at the end of the tunnel is shinning brightly.

So to me the far more important question is why is that, what made it happen that way?

But again, on reading through some of your latest posts on this thread I may not be all that sure what your point really is. So what is it?

I must say the implication or tenor of one of your statements sort of rubbed me the wrong way, and this one certainly at least contains a word or thought that rubs me the wrong way;

"Tom Paul - I'm pretty sure that the type of golfer Noel, Rich and I are describing/deriding is the type who thinks that parkland golf is "real" golf, and links golf is "goofy" golf. Those are the people who "don't get it"."

Darren, that very well may be the case, but to do something about it effectively the best course of action, in my opinion, is to ask ourselves why? The reasons you give (ie "they just don't get it") without better reasons why is not something I accept as you appear to state them. And the idea of both derision of memberships and such as well as implying some kind of ultimate responsibility of so-called evangelists such as those on here doesn't sit all that well. If one really wants to get something done, in fact, at golf clubs today and take some form of responsibility for it too they have to do both more and better than just that.

Darren:

I have much more to say on this but unfortunately the electricity went out here a few times and I'll finish my thoughts on this at some point late tomorrow or the next day.

[Forrest Richardson]

That remote electric switch that Tommy N. and I managed to install on Paul's house sure has worked out well. Thank goodness for modern technology.

[Mike_Sweeney]

It is nice to always hear when I play in the England that we don't get many Americans around here often.  I guess some Americans will never learn.  Scott Hoch's wisdom wins over here although not in this forum.  

Noel,

Shhhh, let's keep it that way too !! The last thing I want to see too much of, is a bunch of New Yorkers on a trip to Northwest Ireland, unless of course it is you and I.  

I once played with the former Captain of Enniscrone at Enniscrone, who attends most Ryder Cups. His favorite US course was Oak Hill, a polar opposite to Enniscrone, and his favorite destinations were Myrtle Beach and South Africa. A living tribute to the fact that variety is the spice of life.

[NAF]

Mike,

Perhaps the Brits don't know what they have.. A few hundred quid a year to play mainly in unpretentious places on wonderful historical designs with their dogs at their sides and their friends waiting at the clubhouse bar.  Perhaps they don't value having history on their side, the great fun of playing foursomes (which members at my club look at me strange when I mention the game to them) and a general place to play that is not politically correct.  I'm sure they rather pay the $$$$ in fees to join a club here and then the further fees to keep their clubs nice and soft and green and for the lovely flowerbeds just like Augusta.  Then they'd love the 4-5hr rounds and all of the carts etc.  Now I realize there are plenty of exceptions to this all around but it amazes me sometimes.

I will say this, the minute I see a Perry Golf bus in England at a place like Deal or St. Enodoc, I'm going home for good..i.e. to Australia and see if my ex-inlaws will have me.