How do distance measuring devices change perception of architecture?

[Brent Hutto]

I'll reiterate my answer to the thread's original question:  minimally.  All the rest are side issues that the Flat Earth Society members continually trot out.

My own answer is a slight elaboration on this.

For someone seeing a course for the first and perhaps only time, not having a distance measuring device could possibly lead to a few moments of uncertainty or surprise. But only very occasionally.

Once that first round has been played, no difference at all.

[Ed Brzezowski]

I always wondered if the invention and wide use of prescription glasses changed the game long ago?
How did semi blind folks like me play the game? Did you get a caddy with good eyesight? Lose alot of featheries?

Did the invention of corrective lenses have any impact upon the game? Did it make the game easier? Did it open the game up to those who had poor eyesight and could finally afford or have access to this new technology? Was it viewed as a " new tech" thing?

Dumb question but I always wondered.

[Brent Hutto]

As usual, the USGA dropped the ball on this.  What part of artificial device do those folks not get?  Electronics have no place in Golf.  Never did.  Still don't.  Gauging distance is every bit as much a skill of the game as getting your clubface squared at impact.  

Again, does that outlaw pacing off distance? Caddies? Yardage books? Sprinkler heads? Asking your partner who's a member of the course?

In future, when this topic comes up every four months or so, I'm just going to make one comment.

In a game where your caddie is allowed to:

1) give you distances
2) make your club selection
3) give you wind
4) tell you about slopes
5) read putts
6) carry your bag
7) basically do everything short of swinging a club or wiping your ass for you

Then OF COURSE using a laser to see how far it is to the flag should be allowed. A rangefinder isn't 10% as much a "aid" as a PGA Tour caddie. So why not go off and tilt at that windmill instead.

[Sean_A]

I'll reiterate my answer to the thread's original question:  minimally.  All the rest are side issues that the Flat Earth Society members continually trot out.

My own answer is a slight elaboration on this.

For someone seeing a course for the first and perhaps only time, not having a distance measuring device could possibly lead to a few moments of uncertainty or surprise. But only very occasionally.

Once that first round has been played, no difference at all.

Disagree.  Its always beneficial to have another person in the camp validating your best guess....and that is what a YG provides.  Why else use a YD if not for confidence? 

AG

Well, I don't have a response for you if you don't believe YGs make it easier (and therefore mitigate the advantage of experience) to deal with yardage questions and therefore architectural questions.  We see it differently, but I know I am right 

Ciao

[A.G._Crockett]

I'll reiterate my answer to the thread's original question:  minimally.  All the rest are side issues that the Flat Earth Society members continually trot out.

My own answer is a slight elaboration on this.

For someone seeing a course for the first and perhaps only time, not having a distance measuring device could possibly lead to a few moments of uncertainty or surprise. But only very occasionally.

Once that first round has been played, no difference at all.

Disagree.  Its always beneficial to have another person in the camp validating your best guess....and that is what a YG provides.  Why else use a YD if not for confidence? 

AG

Well, I don't have a response for you if you don't believe YGs make it easier (and therefore mitigate the advantage of experience) to deal with yardage questions and therefore architectural questions.  We see it differently, but I know I am right 

Ciao

Sean,
I agree 100% that a device makes it easier to determine yardage; that's why I have one!  I'm not sure where experience comes in to the equation when we're comparing devices to yardage books, sprinkler head, etc., though.    I can manage rudimentary math and get the correct answer without a calculator, but it takes me a LOT longer and to no benefit.  I can read a sundial as opposed to my wristwatch, but it takes me a lot longer and to no great benefit.  I could go on, but it would take a lot longer and to no great benefit...

But in any event, none of this has the least bit of impact on the perception of architecture, does it?  Whether or not one should know accurate yardage before playing a shot is one question.  HOW one acquires that information is a second question.  The third question is the one at hand, and for the life of me I just cannot see how they are directly related EXCEPT, perhaps, on the first few plays of a particular golf course.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Jack Fleck used to memorize every feature of a hole's landscape, something he learned from Ben Hogan. Unlike Hogan, Fleck would also pace off his own yardages and compile notebooks for the courses he played, or so says James Dodson in his Hogan book.

We wouldn't care much about knowing yardage if we were playing on courses where the ground and the greens were firm, the wind had a tendency to blow, many of the green sites were approachable via the ground as well as the air, and our 'sets' were still made up of 10 or so clubs that only had spoon, cleek, mashie, mid-mashie, niblick, etc. stamped on their soles instead of a number...


...but we don't.  

[JMEvensky]

BTW, in school, I always hated open book tests for the same reason.    If you're too lazy to learn the stuff, then you should pay the price. 
 

You know the USGA's Rules of Golf test is open book? Figured I toss you a batting practice fastball to start the new year.

[Doug Siebert]

What I don't understand though is why it took so long for that to become universal.  If, as you argue, camouflage is ineffective after a few plays and local knowledge makes things obvious, then why did it take a hundred years for knowing the yardage to become commonplace?  

Could it be that up until recently, most people didn't have such big egos about their own ability to hit a shot precise distances?

No, I think it took so long because equipment had to become standardized before distances were.  I remember reading that back in Nicklaus' day a dozen balls might have one or two 'hot' balls and one or two 'dead' balls, and only a couple of the balls in the dozen might be properly round and centered.  Going back further, there was no such thing as a standard set of irons, so if you broke one you couldn't get an exact replacement.  The more precise your equipment, the greater the chance that a "good swing" will have a reduced standard deviation of distance.

I don't think people have big egos about being able to hit their shots a precise distance, but maybe they do about being able to hit their good shots a precise distance.  I have a pretty good idea how far I hit all my clubs with a good swing.  Whether it actually travels that far depends on the quality of swing I actually make.  My own (possibly flawed) assessment of the likelihood of making a quality swing enters into my decision making on what club to take.  i.e., if I'm aiming at a green that has ordinary fairway in front of it I'm more likely to take the club that depends on a good shot than if there's water in front of the green and short grass behind the green.  If I'm playing well that day and my confidence is high, I'll take that 'right' club even hitting over water.  Made a hole in one that way once, so it isn't always a terrible strategy for us inconsistent amateurs