[Tom_Doak]

John:

I've seen a demo of the computer device which, if programmed with the contours of the green and the speed, can correctly line up any putt.  If that becomes legal I'm quitting the business.

[John Kavanaugh]

John:

I've seen a demo of the computer device which, if programmed with the contours of the green and the speed, can correctly line up any putt.  If that becomes legal I'm quitting the business.

I don't see where that would be any different than a range finder.  Once again it is just an electronic device doing what a caddie could do.

[Kalen Braley]

I'd like something optometric that could correct my inability to read the break on a putt after my fourth Bud lite.  

Just as the xray glasses, this one seems a bit out of reach. What is attainable is a better choice in beer.  

I raise my glass to that one, we need better beer on the course...

[Kalen Braley]

John:

I've seen a demo of the computer device which, if programmed with the contours of the green and the speed, can correctly line up any putt.  If that becomes legal I'm quitting the business.

Tom,

Do you mean the one they use on golf channel?  They actually had a green yesterday that the computer couldn't figure out the line and speed.  So just keep building those wicked greens and stay one ahead of the technology.  

[John Kavanaugh]

I'd like something optometric that could correct my inability to read the break on a putt after my fourth Bud lite.  

Just as the xray glasses, this one seems a bit out of reach. What is attainable is a better choice in beer.  

I raise my glass to that one, we need better beer on the course...

I like to drink bottled beer while on the course.  Usually requires planning ahead and a cart.  

[Kalen Braley]

I'd like something optometric that could correct my inability to read the break on a putt after my fourth Bud lite.  

Just as the xray glasses, this one seems a bit out of reach. What is attainable is a better choice in beer.  

I raise my glass to that one, we need better beer on the course...

I like to drink bottled beer while on the course.  Usually requires planning ahead and a cart.  

I've been known to carry a bottle or two, or three or four in my bag to enjoy during the round.

Of course on a hot day, without the proper hydration counter measures, this can be risky business when walking/stumbling/crawling on the last couple of holes  

[Tony_Muldoon]

John:

I've seen a demo of the computer device which, if programmed with the contours of the green and the speed, can correctly line up any putt.  If that becomes legal I'm quitting the business.

I don't see where that would be any different than a range finder.  Once again it is just an electronic device doing what a caddie could do.

Wrong wrong wrong.  Making fun of 'luddites' doesn't make the contrary opinions right.  A caddie offers you an opinion and you choose whether or not to accept it. A computer offers you facts.  This technology will be in those hand held computers within 5 years and how are you going to stop real cheating then.  Sometimes you need a little vision to see whats really happening. Selective approval of technology, balls! The introduction of the computer on the course is simply a step to far.

Mike can't get his to work on the course- how exactly has that speeded his game up!  Just wait until you're stuck behind some group waitng to reboot the little terror.


This is Patrick Dickinson writing in 1951.

"To the end of golf-till the whole game is played mechanically and golfers sit like telephone operators before switchboards in underground club houses radio controlling their robots-... Dynamic shafts, supersonic balls, cannot avoid this basic fact: that golf is a game of skill, a game played with the head and hands..."


We can observe, read drawings, talk to caddie's or players who know the course better and we are using our judgement to play golf. We give over part of our decision making to the computer and we may as well be play golf on a TV screen.  

I urge everyone to think how fundamentally different this change is for the whole game and give up this stupid notion it's just a new way of presenting information already availble.  It's different because it takes away all doubt.

[Tom Huckaby]

Tony, I love ya man.  Any long-lost brother of Mike Cirba is always gonna be OK by me.

BUT.... when you say:

I urge everyone to think how fundamentally different this change is for the whole game and give up this stupid notion it's just a new way of presenting information already availble.  It's different because it takes away all doubt.

methinks we are at odds.

I don't see much doubt involved with a yardage guide.  I also don't see a significantly lesser degree of doubt involved in stepping off distances from sprinkler heads, nor asking a caddie.  Remember these things do have variances, and I don't see that changing.  If one is prone to doubting information, such will not be removed.

If this is what you base your argument on, well...

I shall just have to disagree.

Because I find it eminently logical, and far from stupid, that GPS systems do anything but give information that's already available.  The fact they do it quicker - and I believe they do in the vast majority of instances - is just icing on the cake.

[JohnV]

It should be very simple to have locator chips placed inside your golf ball.  Considering you have used your eyes for years to find lost balls you'd be a luddite not to avail yourself of one of these.  They would make courses play differently because the fear of a lost ball penalty would not be the same.

John,
You are a bit behind the times:

http://www.radargolf.com/home.asp

This ball got a best new product award at the golf merchandise show, I think.

There is a decision that has been in the book for longer than I've been a rules official that says you can use the ball (as long as it conforms), but not the detector.  Might be best of show, but it isn't legal.

[Mike_Young]

John/Jeff,
You joke about the "no lost ball" and the magnet in the ball.....
Faldo was at the course we did in Costa Rica for a week a few months ago filming an infomercial for a Palm Pilot looking device where one would mark up to four balls with a metallic silver marker , log the ball to the machine and it will track your ball.  It will track the entire group and if you change balls you just code another.....it may be at the PGA show.
Mike

[John Kavanaugh]

John/Jeff,
You joke about the "no lost ball" and the magnet in the ball.....
Faldo was at the course we did in Costa Rica for a week a few months ago filming an infomercial for a Palm Pilot looking device where one would mark up to four balls with a metallic silver marker , log the ball to the machine and it will track your ball.  It will track the entire group and if you change balls you just code another.....it may be at the PGA show.
Mike

And it will be made legal just like the Skycaddie.  Of course I use a nail clipper for my toes because I can no longer reach them with my mouth...so I'd be a hypocrite to bitch about it.

[Mike_Cirba]

John,

I've always contended that I'd play much better after a full frontal lobotomy, so perhaps someone can build an insertable chip to shut off the brain, at least for the length of a round of golf?

It would certainly be handy around the house, as well.  

[Mike Hendren]

The challenge has always been, remains today and will be tomorrow to strike the ball on the club's sweet spot with reasonable speed and alignment.  

Cheating devices don't help in that endeavor and are merely another product to feed the insatiable consumption of the typical American.

It's all about stiking the ball.  I know this because I no longer can do so with any degree of regularity.

Mike

A good player can play with a broomstick.
-Fred Formanski

[John Kavanaugh]

The challenge has always been, remains today and will be tomorrow to strike the ball on the club's sweet spot with reasonable speed and alignment.  

Cheating devices don't help in that endeavor and are merely another product to feed the insatiable consumption of the typical American.

It's all about stiking the ball.  I know this because I no longer can do so with any degree of regularity.

Mike

A good player can play with a broomstick.
-Fred Formanski

What is so wrong in trusting either yourself or another person instead of a machine.  We are losing something here.

[Eric Franzen]

I think it's wrong that a good player should be penalized by playing with a broomstick.

Oh, sorry. Wrong thread.

[Tom Huckaby]

JK:

A person still has to read the machine and interpret what it says and decide whether to trust it or not; just as he does with a yardage guide, stepping off distances from sprinkler heads, or asking a caddie.

We are losing nothing here.

TH

[Mike Hendren]

The moment of truth is impact.  There's generally a 25 yard margin of error distance wise on an approach shot.  If I stike the ball well I can hit the green with three different clubs and hopefully two putt for par from 30 feet.   If either a caddie or rangefinger assures me it's 152.5 to the pin and I strike the ball poorly, I'm likely SOL and bogey or worse.  

John, remember not everybody is a great Player like you and Gary.

Mike

[Mike Hendren]

Oh, and as for Shivas' dastardly cheater line, I submit it's much harder to line that thing up correctly than it is to be a great putter.

Ya gotta keep yer eye on the ball, son. Eye. Ball. Eyeball. I almost had a funny there. Joke, that is.
-Foghorn Leghorn

Mike

[Geoffrey Childs]

John

Interpret this and tell me if its too much information (for a par 3 no less).  Is it cheating?  Is Tiger Woods cheating the once a month he decides to play golf?

[John Kavanaugh]

JK:

A person still has to read the machine and interpret what it says and decide whether to trust it or not; just as he does with a yardage guide, stepping off distances from sprinkler heads, or asking a caddie.

We are losing nothing here.

TH

Huck,

Is there a difference between taking your wifes word that you are the father of the children in your house or sending off a mail order DNA test.  I don't see how you can say we lose nothing when we put faith in either a caddie or ourselves instead of a mechanical fact checking device.

Would you take a skycaddie or range finder to Pine Valley or would you trust the caddie...I can't believe that they are the same experience.  note:  At Riviera the caddie gave yardages straight off memory...It took trust to believe him without double checking the sprinkler heads or score card.  It was an additional element of excitement.

[John Kavanaugh]

John

Interpret this and tell me if its too much information (for a par 3 no less).  Is it cheating?  Is Tiger Woods cheating the once a month he decides to play golf?

That is no more cheating than a sailor looking at the stars.  

[Tom Huckaby]

JK:

If you're asking how I play the game, hell that's easy - I never use these things, and find taking a caddie to be very fun.  I'd sooner cut off my arm than use one of these at any course with any traditional values, or where a caddie was offered to me as a visitor.

But that's not the question, not as I saw it.  I thought the question was are these good or bad for the game, should they be legal, etc.

And I see no problems with anyone else using them.  I see no loss of any part of the game for those who do want to use them.  I see them speeding up the game so selfishly I like them, even if I have no use for them myself, because I treat this like Mike H. - approximate yardage is good enough for me as I am far from precise enough to need anything more.

What I don't get is you differentiating the "faith" one puts in one's fact-checking or in a caddie from that one puts in this mechanical device.  It still needs to be read, it still has variances, it still needs to be trusted or not.  It's not a DNA test.

TH

[John Kavanaugh]

Huck,

Golf is a finite amount of fun and if you keep chipping away at it you soon will have nothing left.  Once again, I'm trying to protect those on here that don't know any better.

[Tom Huckaby]

JK:

Well, we can chalk that up to about difference #5003 between us then.  I believe people can decide for themselves what's fun and it's not up to me to protect them or judge that one way or the other.

Not one iota of my fun is lost by other people using distance-finding devices.  In fact given it has the potential to speed up play for most of my golf, I see it as increasing my fun.

TH

[JESII]

Huck,

Golf is a finite amount of fun and if you keep chipping away at it you soon will have nothing left.  Once again, I'm trying to protect those on here that don't know any better.

I disagree for now, but even if you convinced me there was a finite amount of fun to be had with golf I would counter that the specific fun is different for everyone and there is no way for you to understand exactly what is fun about golf to me.

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