Despite the field changing the most has the game changed the least?

[Tom Huckaby]

Huck,

Your opinion on the AJGA has everything to do with kids, yours, mine and the other people on this board.  You are saying now that if we even want our kids to play at a state school like Texas we have to get on the circuit soon or give up.  I just don't agree.  I think you rich double income urbanites look for excuses to send your kids to boarding schools.  Golf academies are loser factories.

What's moronic here is you can't read, or just WANT to give me opinions that I don't come close to holding.

Let me repeat, for about the 10th time:  I neither support this system nor see any benefit from it.  I think it sucks.  I just do think that's the way MANY do go now, and will from this point forward.  I am NOT saying that's what I would do, nor what anyone else SHOULD do.  I never have.

So give me a break, will you?

And are you just looking for lines to step over?  You crossed another one here.  My kids are as close to boarding schools as you are to being our President.

TH

Tom, the problem is that there's no evidence behind your theory.

Yes, kids play AJGA.

But there's no evidence of some national traveling freak show circus of kids playing far away from home consistently.  

I do believe there's a little evidence now, and there will be more and more as time goes on.  Check the leaderboards of these events going forward.

I sincerely hope I am wrong - for the good of the game, for the good of mankind.  

But I remain quite pessimistic about this.

TH

[Sean_A]

Sean -

you make a good case. But just as food for thought: can an argument not be made that, in architectural terms, the fishing analogy holds in the sense that a golfers experience at TOC (with its widths and wind and changing strategy-options) is akin to the experience of a fly fisherman standing in the middle of a wide and fast flowing river, using light tackle and trying to intuit where a salmon might be before casting his line and preparing himself for a long fight?

I'm not saying this is what Behr meant so much as telling you what the analogy brings to my mind. I also think that Behr, besides having been a competitive golfer himself, was also a 'sportsman' in an era of the privileged sportsmen, and that he was writing mostly to them and appealing to their sporting instincts...saying, in effect, that the experience of shooting fish in a barrel wasn't the one they ought to be seeking...and talking about golf course architecture as a means to create the kinds of fields of play that could offer the sportsman more than that.

Peter      

Peter

That sounds reasonable enough.  I don't see where the notion of creating an interesting and challenging playing field runs counter to my position.  To compete is to strive for something (if only one upmanship) with someone else.  

I spose one could get very esoteric and believe they are competing against the architect(s), but that is a stretch as there still has to be something one is striving for.  Furthermore, assuming that a certain score is what is strived for (again this elusive idea of par) would imply that only a very limited few could compete in this manner because very few can score a course in par or better.  

No, I do think that there has to be another competitor to compete.  What someone does on their own may be fun and very worth while, but it is not a competition.  I think people take the easy out and call it competition because they don't know what else to call it.  

Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

Sean -

please bear with me on this. If I told you that I played three (team) sports competitively for several years, but that when I discovered golf in my mid 30s found that nothing compared to it either in terms of the pleasure it provides nor in the quality and depth of the competition it engenders, what would you say? You might say (correctly) that it's because I enjoy an individual sport more than a team sport, and because the nature and challenges of the game offer BOTH a man-vs-man competitive environment AS WELL AS a man-vs-himself competitive environment.

And if I were then to tell you that I find this deeper and fuller competitive experience enhanced EVEN MORE during those rare occasions when I've played a very natural and wide and windswept and less-prescribed golf course, what would you say? You might say (correctly) that it's because the natural elements not only make the object of the game -- scoring -- more difficult and challenging, but also because those natural elements enhance/deepen the man-vs-himself component of that game, in that my ability to make sound choices and to maintain my patience and to see the best strategic options and opportunities relative to my own game is being tested in a fuller and more rigourous way.

And if I therefore concluded that my interaction with nature and the natural elements as found on a golf course was as much a part of golf's competitive demands as anything else, would you disagree? Would you disagree that unlike tennis and more like fly fishing, golf's competitive experience is in large part about a competition and interaction with nature? And if you didn't disagree with any of that, might not you say that Behr's exploration of golf as a sport with the potential for placing man into the most competitively satisfying relationship with nature was well worth the effort?    

Sorry for putting words into your mouth

Peter  

[Sean_A]

Peter

I think I know what you mean.  My first sporting love is hockey and I much prefer to watch it over golf, with few exceptions.  However, playing is another matter.  Its disheartening to watch a puck slide when I know that 10 years ago that puck would have been on my stick.  Golf offers a bit of a reprieve against the clock.  If I could play hockey properly now I would give up golf in a heartbeat.  

So far as I can tell you are describing some sort of competition with yourself in which the course enhances the experience.  This is a subtle but important difference from having a competition against the course - no?  I have certainly experienced this though very rarely these days because I don't often go out alone.  I would have to see a course one heck of a lot to go out alone.  

Golf is a social game.  If I want to do some soul searching I don't want to be on a course.  Second, golf is a competitive game and it takes a partner to properly compete.  Anything else is really just a fancy (perhaps Canadian? ha) way to describe practicing, studying or whatever the heck Canadian singles do on a course.  

Who knows, maybe I just haven't reached an enlightened state of mind to engage in competition with a golf course.  Now, my argument runs into serious trouble where other sports are concerned and I admit to not having a good response.  Take mountain climbing for instance...In fact, I am not sure we can say mountain climbing is a sport and it seems trivial to call it a game.  Perhaps its a pursuit and maybe that is how you are thinking of golf when you are stood alone in a beautiful spot with nothing but a few sticks, a ball and the wind for company.  

Ciao

[Peter Pallotta]

Good post, Sean - with some good questions/comments, either stated or implied. For now, all I'd suggest is that, judging from the pictures you often post of some of those lovely, natural and quiet courses that you play (and that I don't), you might actually be understanding Behr much better than I am, and been having the 'experience' that I'm describing for so many years that it no longer carries as much 'weight' for you as it does for me, a newbie to this study, to golf, and to golf in such natural settings. If I'm not mistaken, Behr did his writing in America, and with the future of American golf courses in mind; maybe he would've written much differently if he was based there.  

Peter

[TEPaul]

Peter:

I told you not many would understand what Behr meant when he wrote that the only physical competition going on in golf is between a golfer and the golf course and that the human opponent isn't much more than a psychological hazard.

Sean Arble is just another example of that.

To even come close to understanding what Max Behr was talking about that way one most definitely does not need to consult a dictionary first!!  

[Peter Pallotta]

TE -

well, Sean did imply that I no longer play other sports because I'm too old and broken down to compete successfully (which is probably true) and that I have no interest in beating my opponent out on the golf course (which is probably not true).

That's what golf can offer - TWO levels and kinds of competition instead of one. (I do like the picture he paints of a beautiful wind-swept spot, with a golf ball and a couple of clubs. My community life happens elsewhere.) And speaking of which, my mind must also be getting old, because if I'd simply remembered Behr's distinction you shared about physical competition vs psychological hazards, I'd have saved myself the long winded writing and others the laboured reading.

Peter  

[Mike_Cirba]

If there was not another single human being on this planet, I would still play golf.

In fact, I'd play more of it.

[Mike_Cirba]

In fact, given a healthy supply of foodstuffs and other essentials back in my radiation and germ-protected bunker, it might be about all that I'd do.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mike - very nice! A little of the jazz solo in those posts: a short one-two riff, followed by a longer but well balanced phrase.

And remember, given the essentials you mentioned, you could play any of the Top 100s you wanted, every single day. The only downside would be that your posts about them on golfclubatlas.com wouldn't generate much response.

Peter  

[Tom Huckaby]

Peter:  keep in mind also he'd have a hell of a time finding time for golf with all of his maintenance chores.

 

[TEPaul]

"TE -
well, Sean did imply that I no longer play other sports because I'm too old and broken down to compete successfully (which is probably true) and that I have no interest in beating my opponent out on the golf course (which is probably not true).
That's what golf can offer - TWO levels and kinds of competition instead of one."


Peter:

Of  course.

In defense of Sean Arble and what he's saying----eg there is no actual competition with a golf course only with human opponents, he's perhaps half right but certainly no more than that.

I don't think anyone can even begin to understand what Behr was talking about unless it is first clearly explained the importance of what it really does fundamentally mean in golf that the ball is NOT physically vied for between human opponents as it is in almost every other game between human opponents that involves a ball and/or a ball and implements.

All those other games where a common ball is vied for between human opponents of necessity that puts the human opponents in a positon and in a context where they can and must supply physical opposition to one another using the ball as the medium of that physical opposition.

But this is not the case in golf; it can't be as that is not the way the game and its Rules are structured, unlike most all other games with balls and/or balls and implements.

And so if a golfer has any actual and physical contact between himself and the medium of his game (the ball (and his implements)) to physically oppose him it can only be one other thing---the golf course itself.

Looked at in that way Behr must be right.

But that is not to say that he denied there is and can be another competition going on with other golfers. That competition is only simultaneous in the context of a scoring system---it is NOT actually a physical opposition in the only scoring medium of the game---ie a single golfer getting his own ball in a hole via a scoring medium (a golf ball) unopposed by and unvied for with another human opponent.

Looked at this way it's pretty hard to deny the truth of what  Behr said, but, again, he did not deny there can be competition with golfers, just that it isn't one of PHYSICAL OPPOSITION between human opponents like in most every other game involving a common vied-for ball and implements.

Also Sean Arble seems to think that the only possible time a golfer could be in actual physical competition against a golf course is when he's playing golf alone.

I mean, come on, how myopic and short-sighted can that idea possibly be? That's about the absolute height and extreme of unimaginative thinking that everything MUST BE an "Either" or an "OR".

If a golfer wasn't in actual and physical opposition and competition with a golf course whether he was playing alone or with other golfers competing for a score he would not even be playing golf in the context of the Rules and the structure of the game.

[George Pazin]

In fact, given a healthy supply of foodstuffs and other essentials back in my radiation and germ-protected bunker, it might be about all that I'd do.

Naaaah, you'd have to cut grass and do other such things as well.

It'd be a new twist on "I Am Legend", that's for sure.

* Dammit, I should've scrolled down further - figures Huck would beat me to the punchline.

[Sean_A]

"TE -
well, Sean did imply that I no longer play other sports because I'm too old and broken down to compete successfully (which is probably true) and that I have no interest in beating my opponent out on the golf course (which is probably not true).
That's what golf can offer - TWO levels and kinds of competition instead of one."


Peter:

Of  course.

In defense of Sean Arble and what he's saying----eg there is no actual competition with a golf course only with human opponents, he's perhaps half right but certainly no more than that.

I don't think anyone can even begin to understand what Behr was talking about unless it is first clearly explained the importance of what it really does fundamentally mean in golf that the ball is NOT physically vied for between human opponents as it is in almost every other game between human opponents that involves a ball and/or a ball and implements.

All those other games where a common ball is vied for between human opponents of necessity that puts the human opponents in a positon and in a context where they can and must supply physical opposition to one another using the ball as the medium of that physical opposition.

But this is not the case in golf; it can't be as that is not the way the game and its Rules are structured, unlike most all other games with balls and/or balls and implements.

And so if a golfer has any actual and physical contact between himself and the medium of his game (the ball (and his implements)) to physically oppose him it can only be one other thing---the golf course itself.

Looked at in that way Behr must be right.

But that is not to say that he denied there is and can be another competition going on with other golfers. That competition is only simultaneous in the context of a scoring system---it is NOT actually a physical opposition in the only scoring medium of the game---ie a single golfer getting his own ball in a hole via a scoring medium (a golf ball) unopposed by and unvied for with another human opponent.

Looked at this way it's pretty hard to deny the truth of what  Behr said, but, again, he did not deny there can be competition with golfers, just that it isn't one of PHYSICAL OPPOSITION between human opponents like in most every other game involving a common vied-for ball and implements.

Also Sean Arble seems to think that the only possible time a golfer could be in actual physical competition against a golf course is when he's playing golf alone.

I mean, come on, how myopic and short-sighted can that idea possibly be? That's about the absolute height and extreme of unimaginative thinking that everything MUST BE an "Either" or an "OR".

If a golfer wasn't in actual and physical opposition and competition with a golf course whether he was playing alone or with other golfers competing for a score he would not even be playing golf in the context of the Rules and the structure of the game.

Tom

In defense of Sean Arble, if Behr could write properly perhaps he could be better understood.

In further defense of Sean Arble, the following deduction in reasoning is sloppier than Grandma Heisler's sloppy joes.    

"And so if a golfer has any actual and physical contact between himself and the medium of his game (the ball (and his implements)) to physically oppose him it can only be one other thing---the golf course itself."

Who is this Sean Arble cat?

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"Who is this Sean Arble cat?"

Sean Arble:

I don't know who that Sean Arble cat is but having read a fair amount of what he's written on here I can tell you he's as dumb as a stump and he has virtually zero understanding of or appreciation for really good "Edwardian" writing!
 

I mean seriously, how can you not love a writer who instead of saying something really bland like "In other words" (as I do all the time) says instead "in the premises".

And Maxie Behr gave the world the "Mrs Grundy" bunker and it doesn't get more descriptive than that!

The guy is just so inspirational to me. I want to do some really good rough mounds in Maryland and call them "Mrs Grundy tits" but even the freethinking Paul Cowley seems to think that might be too gross for that particularly membership.

[Sean_A]

"Who is this Sean Arble cat?"

Sean Arble:

I don't know who that Sean Arble cat is but having read a fair amount of what he's written on here I can tell you he's as dumb as a stump and he has virtually zero understanding of or appreciation for really good "Edwardian" writing!
 

Tom

You are more than likely right on one count.  I'll be generous and let you choose which, but it will certainly be noted.  

Ciao

[TEPaul]

Thanks, I chose!  

Seriously, Sean, it's not that Behr was off on the wrong track and it's not his writing style either. In my opinion, you just don't get it. But that's cool too. The game is very dynamic and flexible, and in golf and in architecture it's a great big world out there and there really is room in it for everyone. It needs a wide spectrum of opinion and product very unlike most all other sports and games that don't need that. It's the "Big World" theory.

This all puts something in mind to me. I'm going to start a thread on how far the art form ought to try to push the envelop in really strategic but totally man-made and artificial looking architecture. I think there's probably a pretty big slice out there who'd like that even if they may never know why or even care to know why!  

[Lou_Duran]

“Can anyone else support the argument that the key to keeping golf an open game where anyone can dream to be the very best is to keep the game playing field ever changing and ever more difficult played with easier devices. “  John Kavanaugh

Congratulations to John K for getting us to chase our tails with a premise that I doubt he even believes.  He induces the impossibly offensive Tom Huckaby to get into a spat, which eventually leads to none other than a master of B.S. to state that I am full of shit for suggesting that top Div. I male golf programs rely on AJGA and other national tournament results as the primary criteria for filling their squads.

And for the coup de grace, JK gets the most prominent poster on this site to invoke the ghost of Max Behr and suggest that golf competition is not amongst human beings, but humans against nature and the course.  Now, I’ve only been to one NCAA final, but the trophies were not awarded to the Scarlet Course that more than stood its own, instead they went to Wake Forest and Jay Haas (team and individual winners, respectively).  Yes, this was one JK’s best, right out of the BarneyF vault of oldies but goodies.

I don’t know if it is easier for a golfer today to succeed to the professional levels relative to other sports.  I do think that there are far many more quality players at every high level of the game than when I first started playing golf circa 1968.  Shivas is right, today, walk-ons have no chance at top Div. I programs.  That was not the case when I started college in 1970, and, I suspect, not when Shivas attended Northwestern well over a decade later.

I do think Shivas is playing JohnK playing BarneyF on this- arguing for the sake of arguing.  Something about being able to take the boy out of the law, but not the law (legal training) out of the boy; or simply Al Gore’s tiger who was unable to change his spots.  

Perhaps Jeff Brauer can pipe in on this.  He went through the recruitment process a couple of years ago with his son who did well in local and state regional tournaments, but didn’t have a tremendous amount of experience at the national level.

“Yes this is my exact theory that I set out to prove as it is architecturally based.  If courses were still 6400 yds and we played with balata and persimmon only the biggest and strongest players would advance.  The game would resemble baseball of just a few years back where behemoths would drive every green and the game would be done.  One of golfs most lucky of accidents is how the optimization of equipment has taken the need for strength out of the game.  Much like a car of 600 hp only goes a few miles and hour faster than one of 300 hp because of areodynamic limits the modern golf ball and club has devalued strength over percision.  It is quite the opposite reaction common sense may have dictated.  This is also the reason longer courses test a greater spread of talent than shorter courses...The few yards strength is now worth get lost in the longer yardages.”  John Kavanaugh

Huh?  Most of everything I’ve read or heard suggests that the strong and powerful are the ones who get the largest and most disproportionate rewards from the advanced ball and equipment technology.  I’d think the opposite of what John is “theorizing” is true- golf was more relevant to more tour players when “courses were still 6400 yds and we played with balata and persimmon”.  I do believe that modern architecture with wider fairways, longer holes, and multiple sets of tees is closer to the ideal of the most for the most.  

[Mike_Cirba]

Youz guyz who've played with me all these past coupla years mustuve beaten me, cuz I sure don't remember beatin' youz.

'course, that's not very difficult, I spose, so don't go gettin' all full of jam and jelly boutch yerselves.

[John Kavanaugh]

“Yes this is my exact theory that I set out to prove as it is architecturally based.  If courses were still 6400 yds and we played with balata and persimmon only the biggest and strongest players would advance.  The game would resemble baseball of just a few years back where behemoths would drive every green and the game would be done.  One of golfs most lucky of accidents is how the optimization of equipment has taken the need for strength out of the game.  Much like a car of 600 hp only goes a few miles and hour faster than one of 300 hp because of areodynamic limits the modern golf ball and club has devalued strength over percision.  It is quite the opposite reaction common sense may have dictated.  This is also the reason longer courses test a greater spread of talent than shorter courses...The few yards strength is now worth get lost in the longer yardages.”  John Kavanaugh

Huh?  Most of everything I’ve read or heard suggests that the strong and powerful are the ones who get the largest and most disproportionate rewards from the advanced ball and equipment technology.  I’d think the opposite of what John is “theorizing” is true- golf was more relevant to more tour players when “courses were still 6400 yds and we played with balata and persimmon”.  I do believe that modern architecture with wider fairways, longer holes, and multiple sets of tees is closer to the ideal of the most for the most.  

Lou,

Thanks for taking the time to get this thread back on tract.  When I first read the above I became a little embarrassed because I was flushed by the genius of the theory and then came to the end only to find out it was mine.  Thank God Ran has given me a place to put some of these ideas down in writing.  Like I said...The genius of this theory is that it doesn't make any sense..It just works.

Here is a simple example from real life.  I will beat an old man who has lost a great deal of distance over his life time but still has a great short game everytime on a 420 yd hole and rarely on a 470 yd hole.  Get it?

[Peter Pallotta]

I got it, John. I got it a long time ago. Which either means I'm sick, or that your theory lacks the genius you ascribe to it. A question back to you: who ELSE would that old man beat on a 470 yard hole?

Peter
   

[John Kavanaugh]

I got it, John. I got it a long time ago. Which either means I'm sick, or that your theory lacks the genius you ascribe to it. A question back to you: who ELSE would that old man beat on a 470 yard hole?

Peter
   

The old man beats the kid who hits his 300 yd drive into the adjacent hazard which explains why a penal course is better for the player of less strength also.  The old man makes 5 on the the 470 yd hole and the 420 yd hole and never birdie on either.  That is where the odds get him as we trick him into playing the close tees on tight holes.

[Peter Pallotta]

Well-said John, and I gotta think about it more before trying to refute it.  But my point was that I think you've changed the parametres of your theory.

The original theory was that ever-longer fields of play tied to ever-changing technology has kept golf a more viable game for everyone, no matter what their physiques, than it otherwise would've been.

You didn't mention pitting yourself or a hack youngster who duck hooks 300 yard drives up against a mythical oldtimer who's lost just the right amount of distance to be able to reach 470 yard par 4s in 3, and who's lost none of his short-game prowess.

But even granting the use of that example, to me the real theory-testing question is whether that old man finds golf MORE viable today than he would've if he was playing a 350 yard hole with persimmon and balata; and whether he can compete more effectively TODAY against you or that youngster than he would've with the old technologies and the old style golf holes.    

Peter

Edit - I'm thinking Sam Snead, John. In a decades-long era during which neither the equipment nor the playing fields changed much, Snead won in his 20s and was still winning  when he was, what, 58 years old! Was he the same physical speciman he was 30 years earlier? No. But apparently the matching of the technology and the courses back then allowed that to happen, albeit rarely.  

[Sean_A]

Thanks, I chose!  

Seriously, Sean, it's not that Behr was off on the wrong track and it's not his writing style either. In my opinion, you just don't get it. But that's cool too. The game is very dynamic and flexible, and in golf and in architecture it's a great big world out there and there really is room in it for everyone. It needs a wide spectrum of opinion and product very unlike most all other sports and games that don't need that. It's the "Big World" theory.

This all puts something in mind to me. I'm going to start a thread on how far the art form ought to try to push the envelop in really strategic but totally man-made and artificial looking architecture. I think there's probably a pretty big slice out there who'd like that even if they may never know why or even care to know why!  

Tom

Of Course Sean Arble would say either you fundamentally don't understand the term "competition" and/or you are fundamentally misinterpreting Behr.  In the one case you could be accused of being what was it - dumb as a post?  To be sure I would never accuse you of not understanding good Edwardian literature because we can ascertain that from reading Behr.

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"And for the coup de grace, JK gets the most prominent poster on this site to invoke the ghost of Max Behr and suggest that golf competition is not amongst human beings, but humans against nature and the course.  Now, I’ve only been to one NCAA final, but the trophies were not awarded to the Scarlet Course that more than stood its own, instead they went to Wake Forest and Jay Haas (team and individual winners, respectively)."


Lou:

I'm pretty sure you can see the distinction between the fact that a golf course is the only thing that can PHYSICALLY oppose golfers and their balls and implements compared to golfers against one another via a game structure and scoring system where golfers never can physically oppose one another such as in games where a common ball is vied for between human opponents. The fact that a trophy goes to a golfer or golfers does not and can not change that fact.

Furthermore, I am not opposed to----and I doubt Maxie would be opposed to---a trophy also going to the Scarlett course if and when it beats the snot out of some NCAA player or team. I think that would be quite appropriate, thank you very much, and might even serve the purpose of helping myopic people pay more attention to the importance of the golf course in golf rather than just their human opponent!