Personally, I was a little surprised at many things Ran said. I teach, and so the golfers I teach often care quite a bit about scoring, for example. They have goals and playing better is one of the many ways they enjoy the game of golf. So his comments, Ran's comments, on keeping score or entering your scores into GHIN struck me as odd, and mildly off-putting. Cool if it works for him. Completely. No problem at all here with how HE chooses to play golf, or enjoy golf. But shouldn't we stop shy of telling others how to enjoy golf? Others enjoy betting with their buddies. Keeping score. Improving. Practicing.
I just listened to this podcast on my evening run. As much as I agreed with Ran on many of his points (particularly the aspects of the old school UK clubs that ought to be embraced more in the US), I too came away somewhat irked by his dismissive attitude toward the kind of golfers that Erik describes above.
In my junior and college golf days, I played tons of tournaments, spent hours a day on the range, and never played a hole without keeping score. I loved golf architecture and frequently perused GCA.com, but I had not been exposed to the type of golf regularly touted on this site until my year at Oxford. The UK opened my eyes to a new side of the game: quirky links courses, foursomes, 2.5 hour rounds, dogs, etc. I quickly fell back in love.
Though I am a more well-rounded golfer for my time at Oxford, I still remember fondly the days when my enjoyment of the game was tied primarily to my quest to get better. There's something unbelievably satisfying about spending long hours on the practice tee, taking it to a difficult golf course, and performing well under pressure. In fact, for many people in the golf world,
this endless grind to become better is the essence of what makes golf fun. Though we have never met, I have tremendous respect for Ran by virtue of his work on this site. He probably did not mean any ill-will toward the "grinders" of the world, and I think he made clear that he was expressing
his perspective on what makes the game fun. But his dismissiveness did echo a narrative that I frequently encounter on this site: that the game of golf is cleanly bifurcated between the Doak-loving, match-play-oriented purists and the Fazio-loving, metal-play-oriented cart-ballers.
The reality is that I (along with, I assume, many others) am sometimes pulled in both directions. Most of my golfing day-dreams are filled with images of a crisp autumn morning at Rye, a casual match with a few friends, no scorecard in sight. But occasionally I'll dream of the 18th green at your run-of-the-mill tournament course, long iron in hand, par needed to secure a top 5 finish.
In fact, probably the most fun round of my life came last summer in the first round of the Boyd Quaich college tournament at the Old Course. It was the first time I had ever set foot on TOC. Of course, I had read so much about the course that I knew every hole by rote. Fortunately, I played well and ended up with level par 72. Having never been there, I relied heavily on my yardage guide to scout out the hidden bunkers scattered about the fairways and devise the ideal angle to get at certain pins. I had never spent so much brainpower on a golf course in my life. But that was the fun of it. Plotting my way around such an ingenious course was the thrill of a lifetime.
Anyway...my point is that the purist/grinder divide is not as wide as we tend to think. And if we purists really want to win the war of ideas, we ought not be so dismissive of the other side. It just serves to confirm that we're all a bunch of elitist snobs. I'll shut up now.