Best Traditions of the Game

[Brent Hutto]

Paul G,

Exactly.

[Garland Bayley]

Yeah but that's not the point of the thread. It's to celebrate these traditions - traditions you yourself have access to (and I dare say enjoy) - you're exaggerating massively in your claim of it being rarified air. Enjoy it and buy into it - you seem to be resisting something that should be cherished.

"that doesn't cost much - 20 quid for the lunch and a few extra for the bottle of wine"

$34 for what you deem an inexpensive lunch and you don't think it's rarified air? And what kind of swill are you drinking in that extra cost for wine so that you can keep the price down?


If hat handling is the "best" tradition of the game, why are you guys playing and patronizing this website?

Is taking you hat off in church, one of the best traditions of being religious?

IMO the best traditions of the game is playing over natural ground with quirks like blindness, steep slopes, unusual obstacles inherent in the location. The ruination is the homogenization of golf courses for medal play. The best tradition is match play, where blowups due to such quirks cost you 1/18th of the game instead of perhaps 90%

Yes, but Garland you really don't understand much of what's going on here, so go ahead with your little post that totally misses the point of the thread - blind shots are a tradition? Steep slopes are a tradition? Quirks of an individual site are a tradition? Come on - this is embarrassing even for you...

Brian,

When I understand the inexpensive $34 lunch, then I'll understand what's going on here? 

Seems you missed the entire point of the post. Traditionally built courses are far more valuable to golf than courses homogenized for medal play. In case your wondering, that's is not original with me, but comes from as far back as Dr. MacKenzie if not further back.

What one does with ones hat is really trivial in the scheme of things.

Brent wrote "It only has value to the minority of golfers who choose to play in rarefied circles." Why don't you go yell at him for awhile? 

[BCowan]

Brent, Brian et al,

Reading through this thread I ended up concluded that you're all right.....and wrong.

Different people in different environments have different traditions. Surely that's not too hard to understand.

If Brian considers his amuse bouche, starter, sorbet, main, trou normand, cheese, dessert and an apparently cheap and cheeky little Chateau Lafite '45 to be his definition of tradition, good for him. That doesn't diminish or contradict somebody else's tradition of playing in the medal on Saturday and returning to the bar for a pint of cheap Australian lager and pained analysis of the afternoon's football results.

Jees kids, vivre la vie.

Paul, you aren't getting it.  What Brent is saying is that only tradition and manners are at Country Clubs, that is a bunch of BS!  Many wealthy people prefer burgers and beer!  He is stereotyping in his continued cynical way!  I know most muni's that don't allow 5 somes, and many CC's that do because it is the new trend (not arguing right or wrong)!

[Michael Blake]

More 'rule' than 'tradition' but I think it'd be fun to play with stymie's.

Bring 'em back!

[Ronald Montesano]

Oh, good...another thread where we regress to apedom. #thinkbeforeyouclickpost #takeadeepbreath

[Mike_Young]

Oh, good...another thread where we regress to apedom. #thinkbeforeyouclickpost #takeadeepbreath

For some of us  apedom is progress not regress...

[Mike Sweeney]

Once again, this group conflate "rich-guy country club" with "golf". They are not the same.

Au contraire.

Some in this group choose golf clubs over country clubs. My past or or present golf clubs include:

• Yale
• Enniscrone

• Stone Harbor, a Doak 0

• Nyackers
• Sag Harbor (screw Goat Hill  )
• Kabul GC

I have blasphemed with fancy country clubs too, but the reality of life is my favorite "golf club" is/are the lunatics that hang out on GCA.com. There is one member that clearly likes my wife more than me, and I am okay with that!

Off to Maine for July 4th, the Home of "Semi-Private Golf Clubs in the USA". In the words of Sean Arble (who I would vote out at Kabul Golf Club):

Ciao

[/list][/list]

[Mike Sweeney]

Oh, good...another thread where we regress to apedom. #thinkbeforeyouclickpost #takeadeepbreath

I have even donated to freakin guys who shaved their heads. This is the perfect golf club!

[Jud_T]

Can't really understand the consternation over doffing caps at the end of a match.  It's a sign of respect for one's opponent.  A rather nice tradition IMHO, particularly after you just dusted him 6 & 5 and relieved him of a huge wad of cash in the process.

[Mike Sweeney]

and relieved him of a huge wad of cash in the process.

Please define "a huge wad of cash". Anything over $2 is huge to me.

[Jud_T]

Well,

I used to work with some guys who regularly played for a dollar a yard; i.e. a 150 yard hole was for $150 etc.  Nasty bit of business, particularly with automatics, but it's all relative.

[Brent Hutto]

Jud,

Where I normally play, it's the same two dozens guys playing day after day week after week with the same $10 ante thrown into the pot ($6 on weekdays). Everyone knows who does and doesn't respect whom and we'll all be back tomorrow or next weekend to do it again. I daresay nobody feels disrespected by the fact most guys' hats stay on until we make it into the dining room for lunch.

Some places have local norms to pull off hats before leaving the green. Others don't. Neither place has any moral high ground compared to the other.

Years ago I played with a regular group where a number of guys were pretty straight-laced when it came to anything beyond occasional very mild profanity. Some of those guys played in blue jeans, though. Now I'm at a Country Club where everyone dresses pretty well but some of us curse a blue streak on occasion.

None of this stuff is a tradition of "the game" but almost anything you can think of is probably a tradition of some particular club or group of golfers somewhere. It's all highly specific to a given place, time and cohort.

[Mike Sweeney]

Jud,

Where I normally play, it's the same two dozens guys playing day after day week after week with the same $10 ante thrown into the pot ($6 on weekdays).

You and Jud would be Big Money guys at Yale. Ray knows to put you guys off first 

[Ryan McLaughlin]

Best tradition...establishing the game of the day on the first tee....and then settling up over a few cold ones after the round.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Once again, this group conflate "rich-guy country club" with "golf". They are not the same.

Au contraire.

Some in this group choose golf clubs over country clubs. My past or or present golf clubs include:

• Yale
• Enniscrone

• Stone Harbor, a Doak 0

• Nyackers
• Sag Harbor (screw Goat Hill  )
• Kabul GC

I have blasphemed with fancy country clubs too, but the reality of life is my favorite "golf club" is/are the lunatics that hang out on GCA.com.


There is one member that clearly likes my wife more than me, and I am okay with that!

Mike,

I find it hard to believe, if not impossible, that JUST ONE GUY LIKES YOUR WIFE MORE THAN YOU.
I would tend to think it would almost be universal.

Off to Maine for July 4th, the Home of "Semi-Private Golf Clubs in the USA". In the words of Sean Arble (who I would vote out at Kabul Golf Club):

Ciao

[/list][/list]

[Patrick_Mucci]

More 'rule' than 'tradition' but I think it'd be fun to play with stymie's.

Bring 'em back!

Michael,

I've been advocating for the return of the "Stymie" for more than a decade.

Golf could use a little "defense"

[Patrick_Mucci]

I like the "ringing of the bell" tradition at NGLA and Old Marsh.

I like the "winner" buying drinks tradition.

I like the "honor" on the tee tradition.

Come to think of it, there's not much I don't like about golf.

[Jason Kang]

Speaking of, Ray at Yale is most definitely a morning tradition. 

Jud,
Where I normally play, it's the same two dozens guys playing day after day week after week with the same $10 ante thrown into the pot ($6 on weekdays).

You and Jud would be Big Money guys at Yale. Ray knows to put you guys off first 

[Tony_Muldoon]

There used to be a great tradition at Dornoch in the Carnegie Shield (their top Open competition), where players who lost in match play rounds would caddie for the person who beat them in the next round.  It was never a universal tradition, but and great one for those of us who followed it when appropriate.

This is the most interesting suggestion here. I presume this revovled round the Carnegie Shield? If you were planning to be around the next day then there's no excuse. Would provide extrea motivation when playing and a touch of humility when caddying, all the time building club bonds. Sad to hear it's fading away.

[Josh Stevens]

Is pissing in the bushes a tradition, or do I risk being crass.

Not sure if it was every intentional, but from memory, I have taken a lash in the bushes of every single course I have ever played over 40 years of golfing.  This includes a few open links where bushes were few and far between.

[Sean_A]

I do find it amusing that folks somehow think it is respectful to remove your cap before entering a building.  For me, I don't like to wear a hat so I take it off when it no longer serves a purpose - much the same as a coat.  It has nothing to do with respect (unless I am in a religous building cuz those cathedrals are cold!) and if I am cold, I leave my coat and hat on - common sense - no?  After a match, I think its more habitual than anything to take the hat off.  I find it hard to believe that most of the guys I play with care where my hat is when shaking hands.  So okay, its a golf tradition, but I could care less about its observance just like I could care less if a guy wants to wear cargo shorts.  You wanna wear your hat when you shake my hand, you gotta right brutha.  Because I do things a certain way doesn't mean I expect others to do so.  As always, live and let live.  

Ciao

[Mark Chaplin]

Paul - not sure what you consider golf food to be but seafood starter, roast and pudding is hardly as you describe.

Brian - no danger of two ball play disappearing, it's a niche market and like London clubs and public schools the market is strong enough to survive.

[Josh Stevens]

I do find it amusing that folks somehow think it is respectful to remove your cap before entering a building.  For me, I don't like to wear a hat so I take it off when it no longer serves a purpose - much the same as a coat.  It has nothing to do with respect (unless I am in a religous building cuz those cathedrals are cold!) and if I am cold, I leave my coat and hat on - common sense - no?  After a match, I think its more habitual than anything to take the hat off.  I find it hard to believe that most of the guys I play with care where my hat is when shaking hands.  So okay, its a golf tradition, but I could care less about its observance just like I could care less if a guy wants to wear cargo shorts.  You wanna wear your hat when you shake my hand, you gotta right brutha.  Because I do things a certain way doesn't mean I expect others to do so.  As always, live and let live.  

Ciao

Its a cultural thing, nothing to do with respect.  Removing your hat indoors is just something you do.  No idea why or where it came from, its just manners and so cant be explained.

On the other hand, removing your hat to shake hands is indeed a recent American affectation, but I rather like it, even though we don't do it here.  Although it is sometimes funny to see some heads like Stuart Cink

[Tom_Doak]

Wasn't it Tiger Woods who started the tradition of removing his cap to shake hands at the end of the round?  I don't remember it being such a show until Tiger started winning -- of course, in those days, Tiger was winning so often that everything seemed attributable to him. 

I agree that it's become a bit of overkill while you wait for the 15-handicaps in front of you on the 18th.

For me, traditions are only important to the extent that they further perpetuate the game:  being responsible for one's own score, fixing your ball marks and divots, going to the 19th hole to relive the round, etc.  From that perspective, father-and-son/daughter golf and caddie programs that engage youngsters are probably the most important traditions.

I also think it's wonderful for a golf club to have one competition a year where outsiders can participate and everything is done to give the event a character of its own.  There are so many examples in Britain:  the President's Putter, the Worplesdon Foursomes, the Sunningdale Foursomes, the Halford Hewitt, the Carnegie Shield, etc.

One tradition I enjoyed in Scotland was signing the Visitors' Book ... at Dornoch I signed the same book that Pete Dye and Herb Wind had signed 40 years before me.

[Rich Goodale]

Where is "here" for you Josh?  My first 30-40 years of golf were in the USA.  The first time I ever saw the "doff your hats on the 18th green" thingy was when I stared playing golf in the UK.  I think it is a silly affectation, but do it per the "when in Rome..." Rule.