[TEPaul]

.....how important are they to the health and future of the sport?

How well would you say golf's administrative entities have preserved golf's history and traditions? Have they done a better job with this than any other sport? If not, what would be your suggestions?

[wsmorrison]

Of course not, Tom.  But thankfully, that appears to be changing just in time and the result might be extraordinary.

I think in America it is beyond a doubt that Baseball has preserved its history and traditions better than any other sport, probably by a very wide margin.  Baseball has always been a popular game enjoyed by all classes of citizens.  The numbers (which many of us know by heart or have reference guides nearby), memorabilia, and traditions were constant for nearly all of its existence.  Too bad today with too many teams (diluted pitching), steroids, cocaine and speed before that, a juiced ball and smaller areas of play there has been a disconnect to many of the records in the past.  But the Hall of Fame and the thousands of collectors and preservers of the games history have done an outstanding job of administering the history and traditions of the sport.

The one area where Baseball fails miserably is in the players themselves.  For the most part they have no sense of history or the events leading up to their pampered lifestyle where a .230 utility infielder makes more in one season than many post WWII Hall of Famers made in their lifetime.  If you polled every African-American major leaguer, I don't think 20% would know who Jackie Robinson was.  My father-in-law told me this.  Remember when Nike had a commercial celebrating the 50th anniversary of Robinson's entry into the majors, there was only one white ballplayer in the commercial--Whitey himself (Rich Ashburn) because he was one of the few stars that honestly welcomed him into the league even though the Phillies were the worst National League team as far as the way they treated Robinson.  They were the last National League team to have a black ballplayer while the Boston Red Sox were last in the majors.

Rich was interviewing Mookie Wilson of the Mets one year.  Mookie also wore number 1 so my father-in-law asked him about history, Jackie Robinson (he had no idea who he was) and if he knew who the first Met was to wear number 1.  Mookie said no, he didn't.  Rich went on to say this player got the first hit for the Mets organization and batting over .300 was the team MVP.  Mookie said he had no idea.  Well Rich said, "It was me."  Mookie Wison's response was "Who be you?"

Now, I'm sure an equal number of white and latino ballplayers don't know anything about the history of the game either.  But given that people of color were excluded from the game for so long and they had to have their own league, you'd think some of the black players might recognize the trailblazers that paved the way before them.  At least the Hall of Fame has devoted a wing to the history of the Negro Leagues and the story is preserved even if the players don't care.  I've had the good fortune of getting to know Buck O'Neil over the years and it is fascinating to listen to that gentle man talk about the game and the terrific players that did not get to play under the bright lights of MLB but had careers and lives to be remembered by many.

[TEPaul]

Wayne:

A story like that one about Mookie sure doesn't seem to show that baaasball has done much of a job of preserving its history and tradition. I doubt there're many golfers of note on this earth who've never even heard of Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus!  

[wsmorrison]

I know what you mean Tom.  I revised my post a bit.  At least the history is preserved and available to those that care to learn or remember.  You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

[Craig_Rokke]

I'm sure the spectacle of Mssrs Palmeiro, McGwire, Sosa and
Canseco is not the kind of tradition that the old school baseball players had in mind.

Golf, to me, is sort of an eye of the storm, in whats become a morass
of ethics scandals in modern day sports. You can even reach down into kid's sports and find parents attacking each other, 14 year olds pitching in the LL World Series, steriod use, coaches calling for beanings, and sports psychologists making a tidy sum.

Golf remains pretty much as it has been: a healthy respect for its heritage, sportsmanship, a sense of decorum, and good , clean competition.

[wsmorrison]

Craig,

Again, in baseball it is the players that have failed the most to uphold traditions and history.  I certainly have plenty of blame for the executives of baseball that allowed steroids, speed, etc to taint the sport and included is astroturf, domes and the designated hitter for that matter.  If I knew players were taking performance enhancing substances 20 years ago, then that idiot Selig and the other owners sure as heck did.  They did nothing about it to boost revenue due to their own ineptitude that allowed the game to sink in popularity.

The sport of golf is far better attuned to the history and traditions.  The notion that players are self regulating is amazing in this day and age.  There's no blaring music (modern music really stinks) or stupid mascots at golf tournaments and there never will.  I can't stand these distractions at a baseball game.  It is an indictment on our youth that teams think they need to do this to get fans in the seats.

But where golf till now has failed is not among the players or on the playing fields but in the preservation and dissemination of that integral component of the sport, the architecural histories of the playing fields.  A central data base and linkage infrastructure to preserve and disseminate the architectural histories of the golf courses is essential.  The players and the courses are the draw in the game, maybe not equally but unlike most other sports.  Yes, there's Wrigley Field and Fenway Park but the stadiums and arenas of other sports are not as integral to the game as the courses are to golf.  

There is a growing momentum to do something about this and many of us feel the time is ripe to get something done and the obligation to see it done.

[Craig_Rokke]

Well said, Wayne. You are so right about the ballpark experience.
If there is even 15 seconds of "down time" during a game, maybe a guy is coming in from the bullpen or whatever, management feels compelled  to crank the latest hip hop or heavy metal in order
to restrain throngs of attention-deficit fans from vacating the park.
I don't need all my senses stimulated every second for three hours straight in order to enjoy myself!!

[Craig Sweet]

It's not just baseball that feels the need to flood the fans with "gimmicks" to hold their attention during down time...

Personally, I hate 95% of all mascots...and 100% of all "dance squads"...give me traditional cheerleaders!

I despise the loud and meaningless music they play constantly.
I have no idea what all the sound affects are for after every foul ball....and at the local minor league ballpark, whats with all the stupid fan involvement games between innings?

[TEPaul]

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink."

Wayne:

Oh yeah? Well, then just watch me. I'm gonna get that golf horse not only to the water but if he doesn't drink I'm gonna jump on his neck, push his head into the water and make him drink unless he wants to get half drowned first!  

[TEPaul]

"The sport of golf is far better attuned to the history and traditions.  The notion that players are self regulating is amazing in this day and age."

Wayne:

And why do you think that is? Do you think that may be because so much about golf world-wide is still basically run by two amateur organizations? One has to start to appreciate how unusual that really is in this day and age in any sport. Maybe some don't think they (USGA/R&A) are doing a great job in some aspects of the game but what other sport in this world is still run by two organizations like that---that some call "Hide-bound" (fixated on things old and traditional)?  

[Kyle Harris]

The hip-hop at every possible moment has seeped into College Football as well, drowning out traditional marching bands and stadium cheers that have gone on for years.

The first game this season at PSU had this problem and a deluge of alumni and student letters hit the athletic office and by the second game, a reasonable compromise had been reached. I was among the letters. An over-zealous stadium music controller drowned out stadium cheers ("We are.... Penn State....") at two different times and also wasn't paying attention when the Blue Band started their pregame routine. Also, hearing the same five pieces over and over again got on my nerves when a perfectly good marching band sat idle in the stands not playing original fight songs and other stand songs that I had heard since my childhood. An article appeared in the campus newspaper regarding the outcry and how the alumni and fans needed to "get with the times." This prompted a response from the Blue Band director, who took out a full page ad in the Saturday edition (seen by a lot more people than just the students this time).

I followed the outpouring from the director's ad, and several apologies and retractions have been printed in the past week.

Coincidentally, the Blue Band themselves had picked up and learned a few renditions of these hip-hop songs over the past few years that are actually quite catchy and good. It takes a college football spin on a modern stadium atmosphere, that again, is a reasonable compromise.

One night last season, when this was beginning to happen I got into a heated discussion fueled by some alcohol in a State College bar with another student who didn't seem to understand that it's a very special thing that he does the same thing in a stadium that a 70-year-old alumni did to root on his team and has been doing for 50+ years.

More appropriate than ever...

FOR THE GLORY

[TEPaul]

"Golf's history and traditions.....how important are they to the health and future of the sport?

How well would you say golf's administrative entities have preserved golf's history and traditions? Have they done a better job with this than any other sport? If not, what would be your suggestions?"  
 
 

[wsmorrison]

I guess we did stray from the topic and didn't answer the questions well...sorry 'bout that  

"Golf's history and traditions.....how important are they to the health and future of the sport?"

VITAL!

"How well would you say golf's administrative entities have preserved golf's history and traditions? "

They've been far more successful at preserving the traditions.  The USGA and R&A are paragons of tradition in the modern world.

As to preserving golf history.  I am extremely encouraged.  I hope there are a lot of suggestions forthcoming.

[Kyle Harris]

Tom,

Whoops... sorry  

I think golf is in a league of its own in regard to preserving history and tradition. For the most part, we can experience the same courses, the same challenges and same shots that the very elite of our game experience. Golf is more accesible, therefore making most players get some idea of the traditions and history. Though most people I meet on the first tee have no clue, however, the occasional serious players I meet is well-versed.

Where golf really preserves itself is in the clubs, many of which have paralleled much of the history of the game. Therefore, I don't think the preservation of the history is necessarily a macro-idiom or something that an administrative body needs to oversee or preserve - usually the clubs do a good enough job of that themselves.

All told, this makes the continuance of history and tradition in golf a grass-roots movement. When I coached my high school's team, I would spend a few minutes a day with little historic snippets about the courses we'd be playing (Huntingdon Valley, Sandy Run, Philly Cricket among them) and the various tournaments. All told, I wanted my team to be at least a little familiar with what they were doing.

As compared to other sports, again, golf is in a league of its own. Most golf fans are also participants. It's a bit different for someone like me to rattle of Penn State's football history, or the Phillies' decripit history when I won't play a down in Beaver Stadium or ever face John Leiber. However, I could conceivably play the 11th at Merion, where Bobby Jones closed out his Grand Slam.

[Kyle Harris]

Wayne,

Golf's history is best preserved through the Oral tradition. The fact that we spend 4 hours with other golfers in playing the game helps this along immensely.

[Dan Kelly]

It is an indictment on our youth that teams think they need to do this to get fans in the seats.

While mostly agreeing with you:

I don't think this is any indictment of young people, particularly -- because all of this tangential nonsense is not aimed at young people, particularly.

It's aimed (like everything else in American mass commerce) to appeal to the *marginal* customer, of every race, creed, gender and age -- the customer who, absent the tangential nonsense (think: GPS-equipped carts, waterfalls), would find some other place to spend his or her time and, more to the point, money.

[Tony_Muldoon]

T E Paul asks how important are traditions and history to the future of the sport?  I think most people here think they are crucial, but which parts of them hold the key to golf evolving from it’s glorious past?

I think Tiger ‘get’s it’, but there’s plenty of the old guard in the clubhouse who think golf has gone wrong because he cusses and he wears turtle necks.  Well I’ll bet Old Tom Morris wasn’t a saint in the language department and you won’t see me out there with a collar and tie.

Right now there some young kid in China is trying to swing this strange stick he’s found just like the grown up’s he’s seen.  Maybe no one will ever talk to him of the history or the traditions, but somehow he will get it (and if not him the kid in the next village will be curious and will want to find out more).

Can we as a group determine what the essential history and tradition to pass on are?  I feel that these things are so embodied in the game that the players in future will want to absorb more than just the swing from the better players they see.  I think these things come from the playing of the game and not by any direct route from administrators, books, or the oral passing on of information.  I’m not by nature a Conservative but I believe the administrators do help by resisting change and allowing a slow evolution rather than revolution. Revolutions seek to overthrow history and tradition and it’s a long time later that we realise what has been sacrificed.  Without these the game is just another expensive pastime on expensive real estate and likely to become more and more marginalised.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

History should be separated from traditions.  The former is important, the latter perhaps laudable or even desirable but not fundamental.  Why should the institutions be the ones to preserve history and/or traditions?  Surely it is for historians to preserve, re-examine and re-assess history.  It is for individual bodies, be they single golfers or clubs, to maintain traditions - if they wish to.  Of course everything should be archived, but something is not of itself sacred because it is historic, while tradition is merely a matter of habit.  

Living in an old country, as I do, and being an old-fashioned character with old-fashioned views, I feel very aware of history and I am comfortable with tradition but, as far as my (now adult) children are concerned, I will be content if our former and present times are adequately documented for those who wish or need to know about them and that they, the children, have the information and ability to enable them to decide for themselves what is appropriate to them to maintain in the way of tradition, be it golfing or otherwise.

[TEPaul]

Mark:

A Very thoughtful post, indeed.

I’m certainly not trying to suggest that history and tradition should be looked at as synonymous, and I see nothing at all wrong with trying to keep them separated while always recognizing they necessarily have some inherent connections.

Why should institutions be the ones to preserve history and/or traditions? Well, in my opinion, and in the case of golf course architecture or golf and their histories and traditions simply because an institution (such as the USGA) can be a very recognizable, convenient and efficient place for people who are interested to find those histories and traditions recorded.

Once that is done then historians, or whoever is interested, can do all the re-examining and re-assessing of them that they want to.

America, unlike most of the countries and cultures of the world does have some pretty interesting histories and traditions, in my opinion, except in America they seem to be looked at (by Americans) almost in sort of an antithetical way compared to the way most countries and cultures look at and treat their histories and traditions. In America “change” itself is basically glorified by Americans as much as anything about this country (our pride in our so-called “dynamic can-doism”) and in a real sense that dynamic is almost “anti-history” or “anti-tradition” compared to the way most countries and cultures view and treat their own history and traditions.

In a very real way I think a series of semi-myths form the American self-image and ethos, and some of those myths are basically child-like, albeit powerful as hell and extremely prevalent. Most all of us over here learn them in school---they are a series of powerful little parables. Perhaps the most common and powerful of them all is----don’t laugh now----Washington cutting down the cherry tree!

Think about it---if that odd little myth and parable doesn’t just about completely describe the American self-image and ethos, what does?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Tom,

As you know I am entirely with you on the preservation of historical material and I agree that the USGA and R&A have a moral duty to do so and to assist others in accessing it and they are clearly the ideal bodies for doing so.

I'd not say that Americans are necessarily different in their attitude to their history.  There were many roadsigns as I drove around proudly pointing the tourist in the direction of historic sites and buildings and my tour of Philadelphia's historic buildings with Bill Vostinak last winter was very informative and demonstrated an admirable objectivity in the way the buildings, documents and objects were displayed to and described for the visitor.  As an Englishman I felt no triumphalism on the Americans' part and it made me realise for the first time that these were mostly Englishmen, not native Americans, who were fighting their own homeland in order to establish this new nation.  History admirably presented.

[T_MacWood]

"...it made me realise for the first time that these were mostly Englishmen, not native Americans, who were fighting their own homeland in order to establish this new nation."

Come again?  

[TEPaul]

"Come again?"

Tom MacW:

Just try rereading it. It doesn't get much simpler and historically accurate than that. Who did you think the combatants were in the Revolutionary War---the Crips, the Bloods and the Cops?    

[T_MacWood]

TE
There was a time when colonists saw themselves as both Americans and Englishmen, unfortunately England saw then as something less the Englishmen, second class citizens. By 1775 Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, etc did not see themselves as Englishmen.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:

Nevertheless, it's patently clear to see what Mark Rowlinson is saying above. After all where did those men or the generation of their families just before them come from if not from England and the British Isles?  

The point is that English aristocratic world and that ethnicity and culture later labeled "WASPs" that virtually founded and ran this country early on were remarkably one and the same.

[T_MacWood]

"...it made me realise for the first time that these were mostly Englishmen, not native Americans, who were fighting their own homeland in order to establish this new nation."

While it is true the colonists were of British decent or background, a hundred plus years (1640+) of development created a uniquely American character. Exacerbated by England's disrespectful attitude toward these Americans. I disagree with Mark's take, by 1775 they were not mostly Englishmen, they were Americans.

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