Is Golf A Sport Or A Game?

[TEPaul]

Forrest:

The only time I heard airplane/tower communication was on that wonderful commuter service they had about thirty years ago in California (forget the name of that really good company). One time from LA to San Fran the pilot put the communication on for the passengers for entertainment and I was amazed how casual and nontechnical it was. The pilot and the San Fran tower had just started to communicate  a couple of minutes previous when the tower told the pilot to turn right at the San Jose resevoir and the pilot told the tower;

"I passed straight over that about three minutes ago",

and the tower shot back;

"YOU DID WHAT???"

The next second the pilot turned off the communication to the passengers and there were more than a few odd expressions back there amongst those passengers!

[ForkaB]

As usual, Bob Huntley has been prescient.

Today's Times has an article entitled:

"Players ruled out as ping-pong becomes a contact sport"

The gist is that the Chinese authorities have sacked several of their Olympic development team for engaging in hanky-panky.  They said:

"'Dating' is not against the law or regulations, but as professional players, they only have a few years to train and compete.  They cannot spend it too much on 'dating'"

This makes me wonder.....

Do top golfing "sportsmen" abstain from "dating" prior to significant competitions?  Should they?  And, if they do and should not, does that mean that golf is a game after all and not a sport?  What would Max Behr do, or say......??

[Tom_Ross]

Rich,

Behr might say something along these lines...

"A sportsman's preparation, while a separate act from the engagement in the challenge of the sport, nevertheless forces the player to comprehend the taxation that a hankerious act would impose on his impending encoutner with not only nature but his ability to focus their concentration on the options with which they will be faced.  Should this act consume not only an element of their physical stamina but also their mental capabilities of higher reasoning, then the player will be faced with yet another plane of question in his mind when faced with decision of strategy vs. penology during the sport which they are about to undertake."

[ForkaB]

Thanks, Tom

That's what I thought too.

It also goes a long way towards showing why Tom Paul is such an accomplished golfer........

[A_Clay_Man]

Rihc- I made an extensive study on the subject your interject.  

My conclusions have not quite concluded and I will be trying again as often as possible. SO far, the answer is similar to Dr. J's response when asked a similar Q. If I had to publish my results right now, I'd say that the ACT, is keeping with the game, in that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Best to just Do IT ! and suffer the slings and arrows of the bad day. Heck, you'll have to suffer anyway, sometime, so at least thius way your head will be clearer.

[TEPaul]

Rich:

There's really no question what Max Behr would say about that. Dating prior to "sport" is of no real negative consequence. Actually both intense dating and intense carousing prior to entering the field of sport is almost the ideal? Why? Simply because it tends to test the entire sportsman in a whole life sense. But the key words and idea for you to focus on here is "prior to".

Intense dating and carousing PRIOR TO sport tends to test the sportsman's stamina better.

The essence of the true sportsman is to do nothing to take an unfair advantage of his quarry--The true sportsman actually wished to tip the balance of the competition IN FAVOR of his quarry. The true sportsman would prefer to go after his fish with a 4lb test instead of a 6lb test. The reason being a true sportsman intuitively understands that by tipping the balance in favor of the quarry he's actually bringing nature's part of the balance more into play in his competition.

Clearly this serves to exentuate the true skill of the sportsman should the competition somehow result in his favor. It follows then that the true sportsman will almost always return the fish to the water when the competition is done! It is even said that the true sportsman golfer feels both exhileration combined with a twinge of guilt when his birdie or particularly his eagle putt tumbles into the cup.

But it's completely antithetical that the true sportsman would ever think to actual date (or carouse) during sport! Such things are unthinkable to the true sportsman. Some things are simply not done.

This is precisely why Henry VIII was completely immersed in the field of sport when word came to him that Anne Boleyn had lost her head at Traitor's Gate! As Behr mentioned (and MacKenzie reconfirmed) sport is the very thing to release Man from the everyday confining cares of the world and take him back into raw Nature from which he once emerged eons ago! Unfortunately word that Anne had been separated from her head was the sign to Henry that the time had come to return to the more ordinary and mundane requirements of life!

[Norbert P]

 A game is playing to set guidelines and rules for the desired outcome of winning.

 Sport is the act of participation in competition and the unknown.

 Golf just happens to be one of those games where sport is important to find more interesting fates.
 

[TEPaul]

Tom Ross:

All these years of studying Behr I've absolutely never known him to say something like a "hankerious act". I've seen him refer to the "satyr play" of the sportsman preceding his entry into the raw and natural field of sport but "hankerious act"?----never! That must have been something from the later works of Arnold Haultain when he unsuccessfully tried to imitate Max Behr's essays!

[Tom_Ross]

TEPaul,

I was trying to think of how I might Behr'ize the phrase, "take her for a shag before the round" and at the time "hankerous act" sounded close.  But you're right, it fits more into the Haultain mold.  I've been reading both Behr and Haultain lately and while Behr makes your head hurt the first few times, Haultain makes you think that maybe you got a copy of a book that had half the pages torn out.  Once you start to get past Behr's constant misuse of commas, it begins to open up for the reader.  But Haultain....  

[TEPaul]

TomR:

Furthermore, you'll need to review Behr's essays a few hundred times more. Behr never talked about the sportsman's decision between strategy vs penology when the true golfing sportsman took to the natural playing fields found in the "Natural School of Golf Architecture." Penology was only relevant to that 'still-born inventive genius of the Penal School' that concerned itself only with human error (fault) and joying in the punishment thereof!  

So the reason is simple. Penology only pertains to those moralizing Mrs Grundys and their "game mind" nursegirl fellow travelers.

Behr had a different view of the hazard feature and the concept of its penalty in golf and golf architecture. Behr viewed the hazard feature and its potential penalty in a "glass half full" way that served the purpose of encouraging and tempting the golfer to do his best and 'shoot the bones for the whole works' instead of the "glass half empty" perception of penalty of 'joying' in punishing a golfer's faults of those moralizing Mrs Grundys and their nursegirl fellow travelers.

Behr's "Natural Architecture" view was a positive approach to golf and architecture. The penology view of the "Penal School of Architecture" was, in his opinion, a negative approach to golf and architecture if there ever was one!

[Norbert P]

That must have been something from the later works of Arnold Haultain when he unsuccessfully tried to imitate Max Behr's essays!

 You are kidding, right? Don't forget chronology, Tom, when you are educating the pupils.  Or did Behr have the powers of Nostradamus?

[TEPaul]

TomR:

Possibly you didn't realize it but Max did spend a good deal of time in Europe, particularly Scotland and in and around St Andrews.

It's true his style of writing on golf architecture was exceedingly grandiloquent but not necessarily so on other subjects. I know he never said anything like "hankerious acts" but I have run across one of his little ditties entitled "Extraneous Thoughts on Sexuality and the Sportsman Golfer" in which he did say if the sportsman golfer wished to further test his stamina in the heat of golfing sport he should 'take her for 3 or 4 shags before the round'.

However, it was absolutely never done to admit any of this to his friends, opponents or fellow competitors! Furthermore, during the heat of his competition and sport if it occured to him that Mother Nature with her random chance, luck and unpredicatibility was taking excessive advantage of him it was permitted that he could wink at Mother Nature and that she might then understand and go easy on him with his diminished stamina.

But if the bad breaks, poor luck and misfortune continued it was then considered a powerful sign that perhaps he should not have shagged his opponent's or his partner's wife 3 or 4 times before the round.

You see it's pretty sad that these uninformed golf architecture modernists like Goodale and Ward who do not acknowledge Nature's part in golf and architecture, or even acknowledge Max Behr, will never be able to communicate with Nature and understand these important things!

[TEPaul]

Norbert:

Don't jump at any conclusions about Behr and Haultain. Behr was not only a genius but perhaps one of the greatest child prodigies the world has ever known. All his writing, all his philosophic essays, had their dates fudged by him. Behr was born in 1884 and by the opening of St. Andrews in Yonkers in 1988 Behr had written everything he ever produced and his golf architectural philosophy was complete. But of course at age four he was a tad chary about publishing it---for obvious reasons of course!

The irony is he shouldn't have waited because they either didn't believe him or understand him anyway. They still don't. How long will it take to understand this man holds the key to the salvation of golf and its architecture?

[TEPaul]

"Haultain makes you think that maybe you got a copy of a book that had half the pages torn out."

Tom Ross:

That's beautiful--that's hilarious--I'm still laughing. Rich Goodale idolizes Arnold Haultain, but all Rich is capable of consuming is a bunch of colorful images (Haultain). Haultain throws a lot of vivid paint on the page but there's not much else there--other than to induce one's imagination run wild with Arnold starting you off on a journey of images. Arnold is the baby's wading end of the pool to the deep end of Max Behr.

Rich is a-scared to venture beyond the wading pool though--he must think he'll get a headache or drown. Rich is still on pabulum in an architectural sense. He still thinks great architecture is as easy to make and as interesting to consume as macaroni and cheese.

But Norbert of Oregon! Wait until he really gets into Max Behr's writing. He'll be a regular whirling dervish!

[Norbert P]

 Tommy, so Max was the shagmeister.  A few in-outs before a round would take off the edge from the morning coffee. Better than a guzzle of ginger beer, that's for sure.

  I'd be converted to Maxism if I wasn't already an interested pupil.  I admire both Arnold Haultain and Max Behr but I haven't got into your constant bantering and trashtalking about them because I believe that if they sat down and cut open the haggis, they would be the best of friends with the most fascinating of discussions.  I don't think they would disagree on much at all.  And I do believe the barmaid would be kept quite busy.  Oh, to be Darwin or Longhurst, sitting at the next table, unnoticed, with pad and pencil in hand.  

  Norbert of the Arctic

[TEPaul]

Norbert:

It would seem very odd to me indeed if Behr did not first get the idea of time and space in architecture from Haultain. Whether he did or didn't it's just that Behr developed the subject so much more than Haultain did. And when one considers the idea of how Behr developed the idea and how it evolved in various recreations, and certainly in golf, it's completely fascinating to me.