[RSantangelo]

So I had the pleasure to my my first hickory golf today -- great stuff.

One thought I wanted to share with the GCA group was how the hickory game brought alive for me strategic elements of architecture. Positions that would enable scoring with length, height and spin control were bad spots with hickory equipment and balls.  Approaches were in play. 

Really enjoyable to experience my holes I have played so many times from a completely different and more nuanced perspective.

Welcome comments from others who have a perspective to share

Best

[David_Madison]

Absolutely dead on. Hickories when played on the right courses in the right conditions bring those courses to life. From a studying of the architecture perspective, you see so much more of the course than you do playing aerial powerball with modern clubs. You have to read so much more of the course than you do with modern equipment. You have to play smarter, allow more room for the comparative random nature of the shotmaking, and be more creative in your shot planning. And when you do pull off a shot as you planned, it's so much sweeter. Hickory birdies are rare, but so much more satisfying because you've really accomplished something.

[John Kavanaugh]

I played hickories when I was young, now I just play like I'm playing hickories.

[Matthew Mollica]

Surveying a green, looking for upslopes to land into, and the sides of knolls and valleys to curve a ground ball towards a flag. Realising why some bunkers are where they are (on a pre-1930 course). All great fun and so much more important with a slow spin ball and hickory iron in hand.

[John Kavanaugh]

Surveying a green, looking for upslopes to land into, and the sides of knolls and valleys to curve a ground ball towards a flag. Realising why some bunkers are where they are (on a pre-1930 course). All great fun and so much more important with a slow spin ball and hickory iron in hand.

If you are not doing that already you don't understand how to play the game. Or the people in charge of preparing your course don't. Something is wrong.

[Thomas Dai]

So I had the pleasure to my my first hickory golf today -- great stuff.
One thought I wanted to share with the GCA group was how the hickory game brought alive for me strategic elements of architecture. Positions that would enable scoring with length, height and spin control were bad spots with hickory equipment and balls.  Approaches were in play. 
Really enjoyable to experience my holes I have played so many times from a completely different and more nuanced perspective.
Welcome comments from others who have a perspective to share
Best

RS,


Glad you enjoyed your introduction to playing hickories. Your comments coincide with mine when I first started playing them.


There are a few GCAers who are hickory players - see - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,57418.0.html


Playing with hickories is a great way to appreciate numerous aspects and intricacies of the evolution of the game, not only equipment wise but also course management, swing technique, architecture, construction, maintenance etc etc.


atb

[Jay Mickle]

Rob,
Welcome to the world of Hickory golf. Glad that you enjoyed your first outing with your new sticks. When playing with the hickories overtime my mindset begins to change from one that looks for ground approaches rather than ariel approaches expanding stratigic options and increasingthe fun quotient.

[A.G._Crockett]

I played hickories when I was young, now I just play like I'm playing hickories.

That's correct; for those who wish to fully interact with the GCA and not invest in hickories, just keep playing until you get old.  When you can no longer hit it out of your shadow, think to yourself, "So THIS is what it was like..."

[Kyle Harris]

I am reasonably certain that a person who grew into the game with hickories would say the same things about trying today's equipment.

Novelty does not imply quality.

[John Kavanaugh]

I got turned off from the whole scene when my caddie at Pinehurst, in between giving me yardages from his golf watch, couldn't shut up about his 270 yd drives with with his replica hickories. 100 years ago I would have taken a hickory switch to him.

[Tom_Doak]

I played hickories when I was young, now I just play like I'm playing hickories.

Exactly.  There are lots of older gents [and nearly all women] who interface with the architecture even with present-day equipment.  That's why I keep building holes that have strategy, in spite of the young guys who insist it doesn't matter.

[RSantangelo]

I played hickories when I was young, now I just play like I'm playing hickories.

Exactly.  There are lots of older gents [and nearly all women] who interface with the architecture even with present-day equipment.  That's why I keep building holes that have strategy, in spite of the young guys who insist it doesn't matter.

As a guy who with modern equipment has managed to more or less keep my distance, both comments above are very enlightening

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