[Peter Pallotta]

Just thought it might be time for some theoretical golfy stuff, from the 2nd smartest guy in the 1910s and 20s writing such theoretical golfy stuff  

Arnold Haultain, not from "The Mystery of Golf" but from "The Secret of Golf", written in 1910. Just a couple of snippets:
 
"No wonder we make mistakes in golf. We make mistakes in every department of life; we bet on the wrong horse, or the wrong cards; we buy the wrong stock; we back the wrong friend; we marry the wrong wife. Is it any wonder we make the wrong stroke? And golf is more exacting than racing, cards, speculation, or matrimony. Golf gives no margin: either you win or you fail. You cannot hedge; you cannot bluff; you cannot give a stop-order; you cannot jilt. One chance is given you, and you hit or miss. There is nothing more rigid in life. And it is just this ultra and extreme rigidity that makes golf so intensely interesting....

…What takes place, or what ought to take place, in the human soul at every stroke, is, I imagine, a seven-fold process: Sensation - a clear image of the ball on the retina; Perception - The cerebral reception and recognition of that image; Cognition - a clear understanding of what you wish to do; Imagination - a picturing to yourself of how to do it; Attention - the concentration of the whole self on the ball; Volition - the issuance of orders to strike; and lastly, Action - The resulting movements of the arms, legs and trunk.

Now, the most important of these seven processes is Attention; for, unless you attend, (1) the image is blurred; (2) the mental recognition dim; (3) the understanding vague; (4) the imagined movements obscure; (5) the attention diverted; (6) the orders to the motor centers confused; and (7) the stroke ineffective….”

Haultain’s focus on “attention” really hits home, I think. No sport I’ve ever played requires me to pay more (and better) attention.  It’s one of the reasons I play golf i.e. I want to learn to pay better attention (on the golf course and everywhere else), and golf makes that learning harder (four hours of it!) and easier (but I’m in nature, and competing) at the same time.

Here's the golf architecture angle: I'm guessing that any golf course that both DEMANDS you pay attention and HELPS you pay attention is probably pretty well designed.  

Peter

[Adam Clayman]

It's the helping part I attribute to the importance of a more natural setting.

[Rich Goodale]

Interesting and instructive quote, Peter.  Thanks.

Vis a vis "helping," isn't "deception" more of a key element of the architect's arsenal, particularly amongst the Old Dead Guys?  Think "line of charm" and "camouflage" and "tying in" and "cetera"?

One of the key differences between the elite players and us hacks is that they have developed tremendous powers of concentration (i.e. "attention" and "what train?").  Their ability to blank out distractions like bunkers that look like they came from the Victoria's Secret catalogue may be why most of them (Crenshaw and Dye probably excluded) design courses that don't really have that "je ne sais quoi?"

Just wondering.....

[Norbert P]

"A man may boast himself invincible by men; never by woman." A. Haultain  

It sure is getting dark early these days. Perhaps it's time to reread Arnold's timeless cosmic postulations.  

[TEPaul]

"Some Haultain - Because He's Smart"


Considering the subject of this thread and judging from the previous posts, I can offer two thoughts only;

1. The previous posters are way too smart for me to respond to.

and,

2. Haultain couldn't wash Max Behr's shorts.

[TEPaul]

Furthermore, judging from Haultain's words above he sounds to me like a theater lecturer in a freshman anatomical class in a fifth rate college who's attempting to upgrade himself to a theater lecturer in a sophmore class in neurology in a sixth rate university.

The way Haultain seems to approach the prospect and act of stroking a golf ball reminds me of a wonderful old remark by the wonderful old curmudgeonly pro at Gulph Mills many years ago while trying to give a lesson to marvelous old Col. Malcolm Wister who really did have an amazing amount of odd and contortionist movements in preparing to make the stroke;

The pro finally said:

Col. Wister, just hit the goddammed ball and stop trying to F... it.

[JMorgan]

Now, no offense to you, Peter.  But once in a while, I start to wonder if all of this hero worship has blinded some of you who should know better.

And thinking back upon all of these Behr-Haultian threads and talk of camouflage-re:-golf without any concrete examination or example -- with the notable exception of Jim Urbina's crystal clear bunkering instruction a few months back -- brings two thoughts to mind:  

One is a quote from Remains of the Day  

... the movie, mind you, not the book, for that would be too high falutin for this group ...

the scene where Jack Lewis, played by the late Christopher Reeve, lobs that kind fusillade into the post-prandial round of pompous self-plaudits:

"You are, all of you, amateurs.  And international affairs should not be run by gentlemen amateurs... The days where you could act out of your noble instincts are over."

Now picture a bunch of Mike Young's ODG's -- minus my favorites, of course -- around a banquet table patting themselves on the back about such reified concepts.  

It's that annoying perpetual snore in the other room.  

It's that saying a lot without saying anything.  



______________________________________
Numero Dos, a scene from Madrid (ca. 2003)...

(My lovely assistant at the magic lantern, please.)  


Gentlemen, I give you the Museo de Jamon:





Pick a hock.  Any hock.

Sorry to interrupt your well-meaning thread, Peter.  But I just had to get that off my chest.  

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Oh, yeah, and a few of these, too.  

[TEPaul]

"Now, no offense to you, Peter.  But once in a while, I start to wonder if all of this hero worship has blinded some of you who should know better."

JMorgan:

While I'm pretty certain your post was an attempt at facetiousness (and it is pretty funny and certainly got a big chuckle from me), maybe you should answer the question of----blinded some of you who should know better than what? Or, blinded some of you who should know better than whom?

It seems to me that some on here are what might be termed "massive proselytisers". I'm sure you know what I mean by that. They are the ones who believe that everyone else should think about golf or architecture or the golfer only the way they do.

I don't see that the likes of Behr and Haultain, particularly, were that way at all, and neither were the messages in what they wrote.

It seems to me what Behr and Haultain were ultimately writing about in their books and articles about golf and architecture and the heart and mind and spirit of golfers is how intensely personal it could be.

If one really thinks about it this is almost the opposite of such things as standardizations, the attempts at the reduction of the role that Nature and its randomness can play in golf, and that the resistance to formulaics really can create an adventure of the spirit for individual golfers in their own ways.

Behr often talked about "freedom" in golf and in golf architecture. What does that really mean? To me it means that a golfer should feel free to find his own way, to play his ball in ways he may feel he's discovering and not in some standardized way that is prescribed to him and everyone else in the same way.

I don't know that much about Haultain and his writing but it feels to me he was only relating the joy he alone felt in some of the things he observed and did vis-a-vis golf. He probably was inspired to do that because he felt such joy in it. The same was probably true of Max Behr. Even if Behr’s warnings might seem stern and immediate I think he was only appealing to those who he worried might take away that personal freedom from the game and the individual golfer in various ways.

Peter Pallotta is most definitely not one of those “massive proselytizers” on here, and thank God he isn’t. Because he is so much the other way I think he’s the best breath of fresh air on this website in some years. I think he just feels with golf and architecture and all this stuff he is just into a form of discovery and it really excites and thrills him and he relates it to us as his personal observations and not some prescription for the way everyone else should or must feel. And I’m not guessing about that because it’s pretty hard to miss that he keeps saying he’s not trying to do that. Frankly, I wish he would have much more confidence in the things he relates as time goes on.

I don’t think either Behr or Haultain were pompous and neither was what they wrote and so the example or analogy of that elitist post-prandial dinner group in “The Remains of the Day” is just not a good or applicable one.

By the way, as time goes on, although I don’t know that much about Haultain or his writing there is getting to be little doubt in my mind that Behr must have read him very carefully and perhaps took most of his ideas that he would write about a decade or so later from him. I just think that Behr greatly improved on Haultain’s ideas about golf and architecture and the golfer and what might ultimately be the best thing for all which was nothing much more than to be given a form or freedom to think and do one’s own thing via golf.

It would seem to me that a true ADVENTURE of the spirit can hardly be something that can be standardized or submitted to some scientific formula. It seems like it almost has to be too personal for that.

Would you not agree?

[JMorgan]

Tom,

I thought about deleting the message after I posted it because I didn't want it to be misconstrued and hurt anyone's feelings, certainly not Peter's.  But those hams are too good to delete.

I was being facetious to a point.  What I do find lacking in a lot of our discussions on this board is the real world example or the next step beyond, rather than always looking behind.  

I'll give you an example ... something I was thinking about last night:

"I am partial to disappearing bunkers.  By that phrase I mean traps, which though glaringly visible viewed from a position when facing the green, fade out when looked at from the reverse direction."  

MacKenzie.   The idea, lure a shot to a place where it should not go.  Line of charm, etc.  

But this isn't Camouflage.  This is just one of many kinds of camouflage ("Decoy").  And one of numerous examples of how camouflage can have an effect on shot choices.  The disappearing in reverse part is of little consequence to anyone but the person playing in reverse and a parlor trick, IMO.  And other architects did the same thing with "fair green" bunkering before 1910.

This is just one example that popped in my head when I read through the thread.  

But I don't hear the discussions go any further than rehashing these old notions or even defining these terms and demonstrating how it could be done better or has been done differently ... using other kinds of camouflage, for instance.  

Of, Jack Nicklaus says he doesn't like deception (another kind of camouflage) on golf courses.  How can you not like deception on a golf course, or at least consider why it could make the game more challenging and interesting?  How can you build a golf course today that doesn't try to get one up on the player?  That one just blows my mind.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood.  

   

[Peter Pallotta]

JM - no offense taken. In fact, the picture of those cured hams (prosciutto at my house) reminded me of happy times helping my folks make our own sausages and wine. Have those sausages and wine with some fresh bread, hard and sharp reggiano cheese, olives and artichoke hearts, and some grapes, and then finish it all off with a large pot of espresso (with a touch of whiskey in it) and a pack of Camel filters - well, it's all very nice.

I do like 'looking back' in threads like these in part because I work under the assumption that human nature and golfing nature doesn't change much with the passing of time, and that the joys and experience of golf is (or could be) much the same today as it's always been -- except that we forget, and forget ourselves (much like we can surround ourselves with noise of all kinds and then take months to remember that we prefer, and are happier with, the silence). I want to remind myself to remember, and the easiest way to do that is through posts like this.

Tom - 'adventure of the spirit' is a very nice phrase, and for me it ties into Adam's and Rich's posts, i.e. like Adam, I find the natural (and the 'seculsion' nature provides) a real aid to paying attention, and thus an aid to really 'opening up' to that adventure; and I see the ideas Rich mentions as part of the demands (though very gentle demands) to pay attention that a good course provides, thus adding spice to that adventure.

It really is just a lovely way to spend a fall day (especially if you can conclude with sauages and bread and wine and....)

Peter

[Joe Hancock]

Peter,

You had me at prosciutto.

 

Joe

[TEPaul]

JMorgan:

I don't know how someone cannot like some deception on a golf course. I certainly do.

On the subject of camouflage (ie MacKenzie) I think what he was trying to do has been largely misunderstood for years and continues to be on here.

I don't believe Mackenzie was trying to camouflage his bunkers in the sense that he was trying to hide the fact of where they were, pretty much the opposite in fact---that was not he primary purpose at all.

The fact that you couldn't see them if you happened to turn around and look at his holes in reverse is some odd notion someone must have come up with along the way.

What bunkers do you see if you turn around and look at them in reverse?

I think the difference with many of Mackenzie's bunker is the camouflage principle he used was something he got from the Boer's because they used natural contours to hide their trenches and Mackenzie used that idea to do what we call "tying in" his man-made contours with natural grades and that did a better job of hiding his work if you looked at it in reverse compared to most other bunkers if you looked at them in reverse.

Did Mackenzie use bunker placements to deceive golfers in the ideal lines to take?

Yes apparently he did that and that is deception but I'm not sure I'd call it camouflage exactly.

I agree with you that your hams are a very fine spectacle and they should not have been deleted.

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