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Jason Thurman

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #25 on: October 25, 2016, 12:16:17 PM »
Someone will eventually develop an app that tells a player what the smart play is on every shot. If you followed the app's recommendations, you'd almost certainly score better. But would you enjoy the game as much?


Peter mentioned Ulysses in another thread - maybe golf is better experienced when lotus eating from a strategy app. If nothing else, there's certainly a disconnect between strategic architecture and the mental quietude that the best players can turn on when playing. Is the secret to playing well on strategic courses simply a matter of ignoring their strategic conundrums and seeing clarity and commitment where an architect tried to introduce indecision?
"There will always be haters. That’s just the way it is. Hating dudes marry hating women and have hating ass kids." - Evan Turner

Some of y'all have never been called out in bold green font and it really shows.

Thomas Dai

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #26 on: October 25, 2016, 12:36:40 PM »
Someone will eventually develop an app that tells a player what the smart play is on every shot. If you followed the app's recommendations, you'd almost certainly score better. But would you enjoy the game as much?


Years ago I recall a TV commentator saying something akin to "I'd rather watch Seve score 68 from the scrub and bushes and rough and bunkers that watch anyone else score 68 from the centre of every fairway."


Atb

JC Urbina

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #27 on: October 26, 2016, 10:05:07 AM »
Jason,


In the book "The Architectural Side Of Golf"  Herbert Warren Wind describes the golfer in this fashion "enthuisiats were cognizant that it was unique among games, it was not played on a level foor or field with set dimensions but over natural terrain"


The book goes on to talk about in chapter 2,  Attack and Defense (one of my favorite reads)  how strategy affects the player,  I think the game of golf can be as SMART as the architect wants it to be.  Going back to Pete Dye and his deisgn philosphy, I felt mentally tired when I was done playing the Brickyard Crossing golf course, Pete used every trick in the book, as an average golfer skill level wise the course wasn't a lot of fun, but I know a very skilled player would have had a blast, especially if he scored well that day, he beat the course and conquered all of the architects design dilemmas.

Jeff_Brauer

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #28 on: October 26, 2016, 11:23:10 AM »
If we are talking specifics, I heard Pete explain how he started to build up slopes in the fairways at 285-300 yards (or whatever he then deemed carry distances to be) to limit roll of long hitters.
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Steve Lang

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #29 on: October 26, 2016, 08:03:47 PM »
 8)  Lest we forget, how smart does one have to be to knock a ball into a gopher hole for a sport!


 https://youtu.be/pcnFbCCgTo4







Inverness (Toledo, OH) cathedral clock inscription: "God measures men by what they are. Not what they in wealth possess.  That vibrant message chimes afar.
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archie_struthers

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #30 on: October 27, 2016, 07:43:11 AM »
 8)




Intelligence is not necessarily a keynote to good golf , yet discipline is critical .  Many of the most talented golfers I caddied for were regularly beaten by players with less ability . Why , it's rather simple . Talent usually can vary the day , its Brett Farve or Joe Montana improvising on a pass play for a touchdown . Pele or Messi making an incredible finish resulting in a goal.  N


Golf though rewards hitting the same shot with boring regularity.  Nicklaus was both brilliant and disciplined , an anomaly in humans . He could hit any shot but resisted the urge.  He hit the shot that would result in the most practical result , not the optimal one.   Most of us can't resist the lure of the great shot , even though our skills are nowhere near those of Nicklaus. 


Tiiger and perhaps Hagen , who even I'm not old enough to have  seen play come to mind as potential outliers to this theory , but there aren't many examples.




Jeff_Brauer

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #31 on: October 28, 2016, 08:46:48 AM »
Archie,

In addition to skill, smarts and discipline, perhaps confidence is the real key to a good golf shot.  Which is what Pete Dye was really trying to attack with his designs aimed at pros, which hardly seems strategic at all!

I have worked with tour pros, and learned that only a few really work the ball both directions, high, low, etc.  If you are consistent and long enough, most pros end up figuring out that playing the same shot is more consistently rewarding than playing a different one to fit the situation.  Its sort of like making your go to dish when having friends over for dinner, rather than trying something new and exotic, which might be better, but.......

According to the pros I know/knew, the only real great player who would hit a variety of shots was Faldo.  Most others hit the draw or fade almost consistently.

Notah Begay III and Jim Colbert both felt they had to hit the shot that fit the circumstance to up their chances of success, because they were less physically gifted than Norman, etc.  That said, on really critical shots,  they said they went with the shot that worked best for them.

Lanny Wadkins related a similar tale - when he was playing well he would hit any shot he felt required.  Once, he took me hole by hole through how he played Riviera in his prime, and it included what he said was the widest variety of shot requirements he had ever known.  But, when not playing well, he went to the go to shot.

Strategic choice is developed not standing on the tee or looking at the yardage book, but over the long term, and even short term (i.e., how well up did while warming up)  It is as much confidence and talent related as architecture related. 

All of that makes it very hard for an architect to assume almost anything when trying to design strategy!
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Carl Rogers

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #32 on: October 28, 2016, 08:31:26 PM »
The smartest people I have ever met know what they know, but also know what they do not know.
I decline to accept the end of man. ... William Faulkner

Jim Nugent

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #33 on: October 29, 2016, 10:18:26 AM »

Is golf really a mental game?

I think golf is mental in several ways.  You have to make numerous decisions about nearly every shot -- and you have tons of time to think those decisions over.  In a 4 hour round, e.g., you might spend only a minute or two actually hitting/stroking the ball.  The other 3 hours and 59 or so minutes you're alone with your thoughts.  That time tests your ability to think clearly, and also opens the door for more doubts/questions to creep in.

So while thinking and temperament matter in every sport, golf puts a premium on them.  I doubt, btw, that a standard I.Q. test would give us any insight into golfing intelligence.   

Dave August

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #34 on: October 29, 2016, 12:56:22 PM »
Could it be that the "smart" golfer knows to turn his/her brain off and let their ability come thru? Not sure there is any inherent intelligence in that skill, but I could be wrong...


I am thinking along the lines of "Unconscious Putting" and that players discuss "The Zone" when they are shooting great rounds.

David_Tepper

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #35 on: November 01, 2016, 08:52:12 AM »
To quote Walter Simpson:

"Excessive golfing dwarfs the intellect. Nor is this to be wondered at when you consider that the more fatuously vacant the mind is, the better for play. It has been observed that absolute idiots play the steadiest."

Kalen Braley

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Re: Just how "smart" a game is golf, anyways?
« Reply #36 on: November 01, 2016, 03:37:28 PM »
Tom already stole my thunder here...


They don't have to be with a caddy on the bag to do all the mental work.  They just get told which club and where to aim....

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