[Kyle Harris]

I think, as a general statement in this discussion group, we care more about aesthetics than we are willing to admit.


And our opinions on aesthetics are far more toward the average than we’d like to admit.


There are plenty of courses I play that I label “The Kind of Course the Average GolfClubAtlas contributor Thinks They Like But Will Never Go To.”


Talk to me when you’ve played St. Leo’s Abbey Course.

[MCirba]

I think, as a general statement in this discussion group, we care more about aesthetics than we are willing to admit.


And our opinions on aesthetics are far more toward the average than we’d like to admit.


There are plenty of courses I play that I label “The Kind of Course the Average GolfClubAtlas contributor Thinks They Like But Will Never Go To.”


Talk to me when you’ve played St. Leo’s Abbey Course.

Talk to me when you play the 3-hole course on Harris Hill in Elmira, NY with artificial turf greens and total card yardage of about 675 yards that I'm planning on visiting when we go to see the kids and grandkids next weekend.   I also already researched the archie and consensus here is that he's a doppelganger for Ran, likely proving some form of reincarnation is factual.   

[Matt Schoolfield]

Matt,


Please excuse the ass-shining, but many of your posts have made me glad that I re-engaged here. I’m growing so tired of the binary debates about golf. Maybe social media drives us that way. Anyway, thanks for being thoughtful and interesting.


My first experience in Scotland, besides an Irn Bru and sausage roll at House of Bruar, was to spend a little time with Tom and Clyde at Cabot Highlands. I can’t help myself, in those situations I seem to open my mouth and betray my own interest and intellect. But I tried to listen to them work with each other. The lesson was that none of this shit is binary. Conversely, being confident and resolved in your principles *is* important. Simple to say but hard to do.

I genuinely appreciate these kind words. I occasionally feel like a bit of an interloper, as high-handicapper with little knowledge of the golf industry and even less of the private golf world.

Generally my background in philosophy has made even slightest loose thread in a generally convincing argument something I feel compelled to just pull on. The type of propositional thinking Mark is putting forward is very reminiscent of Wittgenstein (much of it I totally agree with), and propositional steps to theory is effective, but extremely difficult. It's just much easier to snipe at an argument (especially when your background is exactly that) than to come up with one's own.

I find the biggest shortcomings in my own ideas on golf is exactly how to explain the popular phenomena that Mark describes. Professional golf seems strange and alien to me, yet it's both extraordinarily popular, and my own experience at the Open Championship (2007, when I happened to be in the area) was a fantastic one. So, I really can see what Mark is getting at, and I know there are plenty of people (most people) that see it that way, and I just can't square it with how I experience the game. I guess that's why I just treat aesthetics as an exercise in humility. As much as I try to find and underlying structure in the things I like, I mostly find a hedonic treadmill, much less an objective standard.

I like wind though... that really seems to be the theme in golf I keep coming back to.

[Charlie Goerges]

Nae wind, nae golf.

[David Kelly]

Talk to me when you’ve played St. Leo’s Abbey Course.

I've played it and I get your point but it wouldn't kill them to put SOME money into the place.

[Mark_Fine]

Matt,
I do have to ask why you think I was referring to aesthetics when I was talking about great golf courses needing to be studied to be learned?  This goes way beyond aesthetics.  That said, I do believe that there are very few great golf holes that are not aesthetically pleasing to look at.  But there is a difference between just being pretty and have interest and strategic substance as well.  Most great courses have both but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Some will say the course they are playing The Open this week is not pretty (when I first played it almost 40 years ago I was not impressed).  However, the more I played it, the more it grew on me and not just the aesthetics, but the interest and quality of the design. 

[Matt Schoolfield]

Matt,
I do have to ask why you think I was referring to aesthetics when I was talking about great golf courses needing to be studied to be learned?  This goes way beyond aesthetics.  That said, I do believe that there are very few great golf holes that are not aesthetically pleasing to look at.  But there is a difference between just being pretty and have interest and strategic substance as well.  Most great courses have both but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Some will say the course they are playing The Open this week is not pretty (when I first played it almost 40 years ago I was not impressed).  However, the more I played it, the more it grew on me and not just the aesthetics, but the interest and quality of the design.

When I say aesthetics, I don't mean conditioning or beauty. I actually just mean preferences. It's a long discussion, but the "interest and strategic substance" are, for my purposes here, effectively no different than the course being pretty. By that I just mean that, while some people have a preference for thoughtful strategy in golf (I certainly do), other's may not (my hit-it-long-and-straight friends complaining about "penalizing the better shot"). Spirited debate on which preferences are "better" is always a good time, but ultimately I think it's tilting at windmills, because (with a few exceptions) peoples' preferences are accidental.

Granted, this goes against the entire ethos of high-culture (e.g. top 100 lists), but I just reject those in general. Again, it's a long conversation and I take the concept very seriously (survivorship bias especially as a marker of quality), but ultimately I think (most) preferences are generally arbitrary, constantly in flux, and typically have a limited shelf life. 

[Ira Fishman]

Matt,


I agree that preferences are subjective but not that they are arbitrary.


As to long shelf life, as Peter Pallotta used to say, the answer to every question is TOC.


Ira

[Matt Schoolfield]

I agree that preferences are subjective but not that they are arbitrary.

I pretty much mean subjective when I say arbitrary. My point is only that the sort of way you get to the point in your life where you have a subjective opinion can be thought of as essentially arbitrary.

For example, I grew up in Texas which has left me with a general displeasure of hot weather (that's putting it lightly). This is why I write this from a chilly summer day in San Francisco. Now, my preference for chilly weather isn't random, it's because I lived through 18 brutal summers in Texas where I had to lather up in sun screen to simply go for a walk, and you even had to be careful on some days not to accidentally brand yourself with your seat belt.

If I had grown up near the North Sea (as my heritage would suggest), I would likely have a fondness for warm weather. My point though, is that my preference for chilly weather ultimately is a bit random, because the fact that I was born in Texas... well... is effectively random. I mean, I could have been born anywhere else (or not at all) if the world had been different, but it wasn't different.

I would now like to formally apologize to everyone in this thread for turning a perfectly pleasant conversation about golf theory into an semi-ridiculous discussion of the implication of determinism on aesthetics. There are counter-arguments to my view that are well respected, and I would refer anyone interested to the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, where they have about 30 entries on the subject. 

Also, I should probably point out that by "preferences are accidental" I just mean that they are not essential qualities.

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