Masters Yardage Book

[Melvyn Morrow]

Free means free, seems you have not read Tim's little jest, thats just for a start.

[Dan King]

I guess I'll jump in here and side with Melvyn. I think the yardage devices are an aberration and should be uttlerly cryed downe, and not be sued.

Golf has always been this game that combines both a physical and a mental test. For most of its history this balance was split fairly evenly. Perhaps a bit too much luck involved early on, but over the last 100 years or so there has been a movement to reduce if not eliminate the mental part of the game. The physical part can be taught, the mental part had to be learned. It takes many years of playing the game for most of us to ever understand the mental game. Americans, with their preference for instant gratification, never bought in to the mental part of the game and have pushed in rules, architecture, maintenance and equipment to make the game less of a mental test and more of a physical test.

I can live with tee markers, yardage guides, 150 yard markers and caddies, but have a real problem with GPS. All the other methods of getting a yardage can still leave the golfer with doubt. You may be standing next to the 150 yard marker, but still your eyes tell you it is much less than 150. Do you believe the bush or your eyes? Cool doubt. With a GPS device you are going to use all the time a trust will be developed. The golfer eventually will figure out not to trust his eyes and always trust the yardage on the device. We lost the cool doubt and one more nail gets put into the coffin of golf as a mental game.

It probably isn't the final nail just yet, but it is getting pretty damn close. It's an argument I have made in the past: why play golf out of doors? Wouldn't it make sense with the new American game to move the game indoors, where even more unfairness in the game can be controlled? Is it really fair that players who are competing in the same tournament face such different conditions? To be fair every competitor should face the exact same crosswind on the long fourth, or face the exact same amount of rain. It would be possible to turn golf in to only a physical test by moving the game indoors. Leave the outdoor courses to those of us who still enjoy the mental tests inherent in the outdoor game.

Cheers,
Dan King

On the golf course, a man may be the dogged victim of inexorable fate, be struck down by an appalling stroke of tragedy, become the hero of unbelievable melodrama, or the clown in a side-splitting comedy.
  --Robert Jones

[Kalen Braley]

Dan,

While there are several interesting things you hit on in your last post, perhaps the most ironic of them all is the GPS one.

While they are pretty accurate of late, for most of thier existence they have actually been less accurate than yardage markers based on the limited nature of the software used and the accuracy of the tri-angulation calculated in the chips. 

As for the rest of the changes that have made the game easier?  Average handicaps haven't dropped in several decades, so exactly how is the game any less of a challenge?

[Kalen Braley]

P.S.  Melvyn, the gig is up.

All this talk about Old Tom this and Old Tom that...lets look at some facts and set the record straight:



It was actually Old Tom who:

Was one of the first to use the new guttie ball...making the game much easier for the masses!
Was one of the first to offer lessons/instructions to the average joe...making the game much easier for the masses!
Was in fact the father of modern greens keeping....making the game much easier for the masses!
He introduced the procedure of top-dressing greens to make them smoother...making the game much easier for the masses!
He introduced the concept of actually maintaining hazards, instead of just letting them be....making the game much easier for the masses!
Was the first to use real mowers on greens...making the game much easier for the masses!
Was one of the 1st to widen fairways.....making the game much easier for the masses!

So Melvyn you can keep on selling those crap-cakes, and whinging, and crying, about what you would like him to be in your revisionist, old, and crusty mind of yours, but no one is buying.  All the facts suggest that Old Tom was a true forward thinking innovator in his day and had plenty of enemies who were old cranks and luddites just like you Melvvn.

If we could resurrect him today, he would get a big grin on his face and be happily astonished at all the innovations they've continued to add to the game.  And then he would take your computer and keyboard away and tell you to go to your room!

[SL_Solow]

Kalen;  I have made it clear that I am in general disagreement with Melvyn.  However I note a fallacy with respect to an argument advanced by you and several others overtime.  You suggest that the game is not any easier by reason of the equipment changes and cite as evidence the statistic that haverage handicaps have remained about the same.  The problem with this analysis is that it assumes that equipment has changed but everything else has remained static.  By your reasoning, the clubs are not more forgiving, the balls are not more consistent, the shafts aren't lighter and better etc.  Anyone who has played the game through the transitions of the last 35 years or so knows that isn't true.  Why are handicaps relatively static?  In part because courses have been lengthened, greens have been sped up, rough has been grown, trees have been planted, hazards have been added etc  Much of this has been done to maintain the challenge in light of equipment improvement and has led to a more expensive game.  The trick is to decide when a sport has "matured" and to try and hold the line.  I would not draw the line in the 19th century a la Melvyn and I fear we cannot turn back the clock to a more reasonable time.  Distance measuring devices are an insignificant part of the problem.

[Dan King]

Kalen Braley writes:
While they are pretty accurate of late, for most of thier existence they have actually been less accurate than yardage markers based on the limited nature of the software used and the accuracy of the tri-angulation calculated in the chips.

I would not have the same problem with GPS if they were only say 75 percent accurate. The fact is they are getting better and more accurate all the time. Through repeated use, golfers are going to end up trusting these devices over their own eyes. I think this hurts the mental test of the game of golf.

As for the rest of the changes that have made the game easier?  Average handicaps haven't dropped in several decades, so exactly how is the game any less of a challenge?

I don't believe I ever said the game is easier. The game has changed. All these attempts to eliminate good and bad luck from the game has changed it into more of a physical game, hurting one of the things that has traditionally made the game great. I don't see what that has to do with handicaps.

Cheers,
Dan King

Many play golf, and one odd effect of that pursuit is that they return to work manifestly stupider than they were. It is, I think, the company of other golfers.
 --G.W. Lyttleton

[Bill_McBride]

Bill

My post was tongue in cheek. I should have added some smileys.

I like yours about the brothels though, but how did you know that?

Hey, I said "maybe!".

[Melvyn Morrow]

Kalen

P.S.  Melvyn, the gig is up.

All this talk about Old Tom this and Old Tom that...lets look at some facts and set the record straight:



It was actually Old Tom who:

Was one of the first to use the new guttie ball...making the game much easier for the masses!
Was one of the first to offer lessons/instructions to the average joe...making the game much easier for the masses!
Was in fact the father of modern greens keeping....making the game much easier for the masses!
He introduced the procedure of top-dressing greens to make them smoother...making the game much easier for the masses!
He introduced the concept of actually maintaining hazards, instead of just letting them be....making the game much easier for the masses!
Was the first to use real mowers on greens...making the game much easier for the masses!
Was one of the 1st to widen fairways.....making the game much easier for the masses!

So Melvyn you can keep on selling those crap-cakes, and whinging, and crying, about what you would like him to be in your revisionist, old, and crusty mind of yours, but no one is buying.  All the facts suggest that Old Tom was a true forward thinking innovator in his day and had plenty of enemies who were old cranks and luddites just like you Melvvn.

If we could resurrect him today, he would get a big grin on his face and be happily astonished at all the innovations they've continued to add to the game.  And then he would take your computer and keyboard away and tell you to go to your room!

What the Fuck are you talking about?

Melvyn

[Kalen Braley]

Yo Mel,

[Melvyn Morrow]

Yo Mel,

Kalen

Yet again you even get that wrong – I would have thought that you would have known the logo for DISTANCE AIDS R 4 US with its motto that ‘There is not place where measurement cannot reach’.

As usual you make an asshole of yourself, tell me what are you doing in the photo looking for the next bit of crap to come sprouting from you, or is it trying to find that itch?

Melvyn

PS Kalen if that is indeed a photo of yourself, then you may find yourself a prime candidate for a senior job at The R&A – they keep searching for inward looking people, apparently they do not threaten the top team.

[Tim Bert]

"Rather than moan, call me names or a liar, why not try playing with no aids for a week or two, then honestly tell us your experiences. Because that is the only way of really judging the matter."

Melvyn - the same can be said for the other side of the argument. If you haven't played rounds with distance aids, carts, or any of the other stuff you trash on a regular basis, how can you judge the matter?  It really does work both ways.

I play 95% of my rounds without a cart and I have played rounds in the past without distance aids.  I never use a GPS or a laser yardage finder, and I rarely consult a yardage book.  I love walking and I have a blast without distance aids.  But I am not going to walk away from the game Iove because the occasional host or course dictates a cart. And I am not going to quit because someone put some numbers on a sprinkler head.

My point is that I agree with a good portion of your points.  You and I would probably get along just fine.  I think the real issue many here have is with your "cram it down everyone's throat" approach to the argument. You see no middle ground in a world that has plenty if room for shades of gray.  If you were sincere about reaching your audience and making productive change you would learn to compromise on occasion and to speak in a manner that led the opposition to thoughtfully consider your points.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Michael - With all due respect... it isn't cheating; it just isn't Golf.  All these distance aides dumb down the game and make it too easy for everyone.  That's why we are all breaking par with such regularity and so bored with this game.  There is no challenge left.  I mean someone has obviously crossed the line of easiness when I can take 6 weeks off from the game and still shoot a nice, neat 95 with no trouble at all!  Damned be the distance aides like 150 markers.  I don't understand why it is so hard for you to understand why those of us that rarely (or in some cases never) play the game shouldn't impose our will upon the game for the greater good.  Golf has become a video game only easier.

Kindest regards,

Tim

Tim

I try things out before generally making a comment be it +/- .  I see your position on this matter and if that’s your way then, that’s your way.

As a private individual I have no authority or power to change anything re golf. So I submit on an internet blog sit my opinions some strongly held, some just thoughts and opinions.

How readers take my comments is down to each reader, however if I had power to change things I can see why many would react, but for Christ sake its an online chat forum, not the writing of the Ten Commandments

But back to carts, aids, technology, I have tried my hand with some over the years and can honestly say it changes the game for me. It’s not the golf I know, or knew, nor to be honest is it the golf I want to play.

I walk because it gives me the feeling of the course and time to see and take in the environment hope that I have spotted my way forward, help me navigate to the hole to the Green. Riding dulls the senses, take you away from the contact which with its built in time allowance to the next shot.

I do not use distance aids as they are meaningless to me. My shot is governed by that last look at my target as I take my swing, all previous information is superfluous  and would have been purged from my brain thanks to that last look when my body takes over automatically, utilising eyes, mind and body. Add to that if my shot is good I have achieved it on my own, unaided and that gives me the kick and one reason for enjoying the game so much.

As for technology, it’s a good thing but must be controlled, it should improve consistency in the equipment but not give length or be allowed to improve one’s score. The down side being we are hurting the game and making it more expensive by not maintaining our courses at sensible distances. If we had to stop using carts (for whatever reason) these long courses would quickly die or fade away as time is still an important issue and needs to be considered.

Why have we not increased our football pitches on say the same ratio as we seem to do with golf courses. The modern football ball is lighter and goes further and is by far better that those when I was a youth, but their governing bodies has maintained the sizes of the football or rugby pitches while technology has improved their equipment. Perhaps it’s because they are governed.

So yes I have looked into many a thing that I have comment upon on this site, seem only reasonable otherwise how could I have an opinion that I know I am not keen on their use. Sorry Tim, I do not fire first then ask question later.

Melvyn