[Brian Potash]

After another frustrating session at the driving range I was thinking-

I have been on the site for approx 3 years and one thing I REALLY love is that even though people write about all sorts of topics, including many off and way off topic, no one ever seems to write about-

The mechanics of actually playing golf
swing tips, different types of clubs
putting advice
how to cure hooks, slices, etc.

And I love this lack of fundamental information/instruction.  You would think that every so often one of these threads would appear but it never seems to happen.

And if you think about this it really makes sense because what I and so many others on this site love about the game doesn't really translate into the score we are shooting.  Of course we would all want to be better golfers but there is so much abut this game that we love to talk about, read abut, and write about that has nothing to do with our swing/score.

I wonder if others have ever thought about this.

Brian

[Anthony Gray]

  Brain,

  If you ever attend a King's Putter or a Dixie Cup the reason why nobody writes about the fundamentals of golf will be very evident.

  Anthony

[jonathan_becker]

Brian,

The vast majority of golf websites talk only about:

The mechanics of actually playing golf
swing tips, different types of clubs
putting advice
how to cure hooks, slices, etc.

I know more than enough about the shit bolded above and it gets so redundant if you pay too much attention to it.  I'm still trying to learn about golf course architecture and this website has been an invaluable resource to me.  I just hope that the achitects, supers, and know-it-alls that post here don't ever stop because I've learned so much in my 2 years on GCA.

[Bill_McBride]

I could tell the joke about the guy whose new bride confessed on their wedding night that she was a hooker, and he said.....

[Mark Bourgeois]

I have thought about this absence, too.

Discussion of mechanical aspects of golf falls under the category of kink -- it purports to enhance the playing experience, without altering the base reality that is the experience of playing the game. In contrast, discussion of golf course architecture is fetishistic: it replaces the playing experience with a different experience, and in so doing alters one's reality of the game.  Golf course architecture as a topic can be discussed or otherwise pursued independently of playing the game.  (This is not to say golf course architecture as a design field is independent of playing the game -- the opposite, in fact -- just that one does not have to play golf to discuss GCA.)

Being fetishistic, GCA.com is unable to nourish threads of kink, which Michener-be-damned set below the Page 1 horizon with alacrity.  Close study of the longest threads reveal intrinsic fetish: they replace the experience of playing the game with a reality that is changed, changed utterly.  Some will cast a cold eye on these Brobdingnagian displays but such critics are stuck in the wrong (fetishistic) experience from which to understand the separate fetishistic experience on offer.  They're in the wrong monad, as it were.  It happens.

Of course, Classicists frame the lack of "golf mechanical" discussion as revelatory of the Attic gorgon mytheme, with Mucci cum Perseus taking a machete to mechanical threads' figurative Medusa head.  Springing from the attendant neck-blood gusher?  GMBF.

Hope this helps.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Brian

If you want to talk about and get hints on

The mechanics of actually playing golf
swing tips, different types of clubs
putting advice
how to cure hooks, slices, etc.

Then go to the pro shop and pay for the lessons instead of thinking we are going to give you free advice - A  Scotsman and his game, yet you expect free advice. Never.

Melvyn

[John Moore II]

Swing mechanics and stuff are talked about a little bit, I talk about them some, when asked. But for the most part, there are too many ways to go about swinging the golf club to really talk about on a board like this. Plus, there are not many golf instructors on this site to really go at it back and forth like we do about architecture. Usually stuff about instruction just goes on for a post or two and then dies.

[Phil McDade]

Brian:

It's also because swing mechanics, I've long thought, are so highly individualistic that a general discussion board devoted to them would quickly devolve into something like, "Well, it worked for me, but maybe it won't for you." In other words, one thing (swing planes, for instance) doesn't necessarily lead to logical and rationale observations about ball striking, or curing the slice. It's hard for me to look at the swings of five pretty accomplished golfers -- Furyk, Trevino, Floyd, Nicklaus, and Couples -- and think anything other than: "Well, it worked for them."

But in golf architecture, one of the things I've learned from this site is that much of what looks different oftentimes has common virtues or traits. Two pretty well-thought-of courses -- Cypress Point and Merion East -- could not look more dissimilar. Yet they are both highly regarded as some of the best work in golf architecture. That's because they share, I think, several common traits.

[Dan Herrmann]

Phil - good post...

So - what traits do they share? 

[Mike Cirba]

Did someone say "swing mechanics"? 


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[Phil McDade]

Phil - good post...

So - what traits do they share? 

For starters, ingenious routing.

[Tony Weiler]

  Brain,

  If you ever attend a King's Putter or a Dixie Cup the reason why nobody writes about the fundamentals of golf will be very evident.

  Anthony

Anthony, I've never been to one, but that's some funny stuff right there, I don't care who you are!!   Anthony

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