Brent
Very clever, but perhaps you can answer the real question do distance aids work? Does the information gained by the aid overrule that human action of looking at the target for that final time. When the eyes take that final look and the brain/body goes into automatic mode and the swing starts, is it information from the aids or eyes/brain that takes over controlling the shot?
I believe it’s the eyes/brain/body that ultimately controls the whole series of events over that last fraction of a second and that previous input is overruled by the eyes/brain at that moment of final look and check of the target.
My points are (A) Golfers do not need aids as our final actions are controlled through that last look at the target before the swing starts. (B) That being the case all previous information is just a distraction to the game and has IMHO taken away some of the real pleasure of playing golf thanks to pointless distractions. (C) This belief that because we today need a crutch to help play the game does not mean that those pre WW2 did the same. There so far is no written record that I have found to confirm the existence of distance aids in the early part of the 20th Century let alone the whole of the 19th Century.
My comments are based upon trying to get modern golfers to embrace the game with all its rewards by playing it in the time honoured fashion, that being unaided using one’s eyes and mind only.
What I certainly do not understand is why take up a sport or in truth a way of life, then start trying to make it easier. A golfer, I believe relishes the tests and challenges of the game, its courses and the genius of a clever testing designs, so why seek to make things easy. Yes I refer to carts but in this case aids, distance aids in all their forms, why, where is the challenge in getting information from a third source, particular if in the final moment its discarded in preference from what the eyes tell the brain.
Call me names, accuse me of whatever, but my intention is to show golfer that there is far more to the game that than seeking and trying to use aids. Letting our senses run freely, developing that freedom to the point that skills start to surface in their various forms is what the game is all about. The flowering of the inner spirit, remember the moment when you first achieved a Par on a Hole, then your first Birdie, and to those who have achieved a Hole in One. Many made it without the need of toys, they did it under their own steam, sweeting the feeling even more.
The game for this golfer is in feeling the atmosphere as I walk the course, the mood it creates and that great de-stressing feeling. My game uncluttered by distractions, the goal to navigate the course, to pick my way through the terrain and hazards placed before me by my God and Man. The knowledge that I achieved it unaided, naked of any gadgets makes it far more enjoyable. I just hope others will see what golf was and really is no matter what current level of skill you have achieved.
Purest, yes but not in the way many today use that word, purest in the overall feeling the game achieved, well did when I last played. If I am wrong why are more and more people turning to Hickory? Because it is the true inheritor of the game of golf, thanks to the contamination eroding the real pleasure of the modern game – AIDS (just as vile as the AIDS that surfaced in humans in the 1980’s).
Brent, what we learn is down to the quality of each individual or in this case the greed and weakness of each individual. Those who grab at straws to try and tweak their game, because his opponent used this or that aid he/she too must also use it just in case it does generate an advantage. This seeking to win by any means, just portrays one’s real character, a true outward display of pure desperation and weakness. Is this the image you wish to seek when you view golf, well we have it now and unless we make noises to the contrary it is indeed here to stay.
However, it all depends what game your play, is it golf or one of the modern variation on the real game, the ones coming from the result of the weak whimpering’s of a flawed Governing Body.
Melvyn
Sam
Weak players will do anything to try to justify their need for aids, the sickest is to use the names of ODG who never (according to the current records) used distance in the format many modern players use today.