Do golfers tend to criticize their game and its playing fields.......

[TEPaul]

.......more than those who play other games?

If so, is it a little more or a lot more? And if golfers generally do that, why is it so?

[JMEvensky]

.......more than those who play other games?

If so, is it a little more or a lot more? And if golfers generally do that, why is it so?

If you're talking about professional athletes,probably not.They all assume the fault lies somewhere else.Basketball players complain about tight/loose rims,baseball pitchers complain about poor mounds.I'm sure hockey and tennis players bitch about rinks and courts.

Professional golfers just have more to complain about--their playing fields aren't as circumscribed as others'.There's a lot more difference between Olympic and Merion than between Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium.

Club golfers complain because they figure their monthly dues check entitles them to an opinion about the golf course.

[TEPaul]

Jeff:

I like your last line. You ran a club----did you ever consider telling one of the members that you might consider cutting him a financial break for a month or a year if he would just agree to keep his mouth shut?

I wonder sometimes if some on here just keep on complaining about something thinking others might percieve that as some kind of intelligence about golf or architecture.

[John Kavanaugh]

I grew up playing basketball in Catholic gyms both large and small. I didn't lose often but when I did criticizing would ensue. All athletes find fault with their fields of play.

[Chris_Hufnagel]

Club golfers complain because they figure their monthly dues check entitles them to an opinion about the golf course.

Dumb question, if an equity member in good-standing wants to have an opinion about his/her golf course - why is that an issue?  

Now they may not know much about agronomy, course design, or the architects or superintendents "intent" - but they still can have an opinion, right?

Now that I think about it, anyone can have an opinion, right?

[Peter Pallotta]

TE - I think golfers do tend to criticize their fields of play more than athletes in other sports (though, strangely, I think professional bowlers come a close second) -- but I don't think they actually mean to criticize the course as much the person behind the course. When golfers complain about Shinnecock, they are complaining about Tom Meeks; and when they complain about Olympic, they are complaining about Mike Davis. And I think the reason is obvious, i.e. it's not nature (wind, rain, a 'natural' golf course) that bugs them, it's the hand of man. In other words, golfers can stand getting their asses kicked if there is no one to blame (including themselves); but put a guy behind the curtain 'manipulating' nature/the golf course, and you can be sure that as soon as the going gets tough, golfers will look to pin the hard times on that guy, on someone other than themselves. Quite Freudian, actually....

Peter

[TEPaul]

PeterP:

Good point. I've never been one to much criticize any course's architect but I can tell you right now the next time I have something critical to say about Merion East I'm not going to criticize that "after-the-fact" novice bunker arranger, Hugh I. Wilson; I am definitely going to crticize the bat-snot outta that mother-stickin' Charles Blair Macdonald and his son-in-law side-kick Henry Jerbil Whigam!! Apparently they were the ones who planned that golf course (routed and designed it) or were the 'driving force' behind it or some such; therefore if anyone deserves to be criticized for anything about, I would just have to believe it has to be them; wouldn't you?

[Jason Thurman]

I don't hear many basketball players complaining about the court, but plenty complain about officiating.

Athletes in all sports complain equally, but golfers are more likely to complain about their "playing field" because they don't have officials to point fingers at.

[TEPaul]

Jason:

Apparently you've never officiated golf tournaments!   

[John Kavanaugh]

Could it just be that golf is the sport we play as we get older. Sometimes before we even tee off my buddies go into great detail about everything wrong with their eggs. Eggs, my God...the pettiness that comes with age.

[JMEvensky]

Club golfers complain because they figure their monthly dues check entitles them to an opinion about the golf course.

Dumb question, if an equity member in good-standing wants to have an opinion about his/her golf course - why is that an issue?  

Now they may not know much about agronomy, course design, or the architects or superintendents "intent" - but they still can have an opinion, right?

Now that I think about it, anyone can have an opinion, right?

Having an opinion is one thing-sharing it with others is another.

Having and sharing uninformed opinions that are based on a single person's frame of reference,his own,is when the trouble starts.

A Green Chairman has one single overriding responsibility in my view--protect the golf course.Sometimes the golf course needs protection from the GM,sometimes from the President and/or Board.But,usually the biggest threat is the member who knows everything and feels a compunction to share his opinion with the world.

I'll save someone from responding that sometimes the golf course needs protection from the Green Chairman.When this happens,when the Green Chairman is that uninformed member with opinions,you're just screwed.

[Mike Hendren]

Dad's inevitable reply to someone bitching about playing conditions or architecture:  "It's a better golf course than I am golfer."

[JMEvensky]

Jeff:

I like your last line. You ran a club----did you ever consider telling one of the members that you might consider cutting him a financial break for a month or a year if he would just agree to keep his mouth shut?

I wonder sometimes if some on here just keep on complaining about something thinking others might percieve that as some kind of intelligence about golf or architecture.

There's never enough money to bribe an idiot.

[TEPaul]

Jeff:

Is there enough money to bribe bothersome naysaying critics who aren't idiots?

With idiots my MO was to just brush back the side of my jacket and show them the holstered .45 strapped on my belt without saying a word. 

If things remained heated then I might just take it out of the holster and lay it on the table without saying a word. That always did the job.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Fisrt of all, it is so good to have Mr Paul amongst us, I missed his wit and content.
Surley no sport has as much influencelaced upon it by its playing field as golf.
Most sprts are played on size specific fileds of play, which although surfaces may chnage nothing chnages quite like different golf courses.
As such courses are a prime target for comparisons and critisisms.
In football, the real football that , is pitches get the occasional blame for a team not performing up to par.
An occasional runner will complain about the track surface in rack and filed.
Tennis players will occacsionally complain about a surafce, but in other sprorts that is usually the extent of complaining, the surface itself and not the entire arena of play!!
That my friends is confined to us the golfers of this world.

[George Pazin]

In the Burgh, we complain and criticise Heinz Field a lot more than Oakmont. As we should...

[Doug Siebert]

Football fields are all pretty much the same, at least in dimension.  When kickers miss field goals, they tend to blame the ball, not the goalposts (especially since the NFL quit letting kickers mess with the ball as much before kicking it)

Golfers get to select their own ball, so blaming a missed putt on their ball is almost the same thing as blaming themselves.  Easier to blame it on the green being bumpy, some invisible spike mark, or the cut who cut the hole getting a slightly raised surface around it.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TE,

Psychologists will tell you that golfers HAVE to blame the course rather than their own shortcomings, otherwise the game would become unbearable.

Bob Rotella might have said something similar.

Golf is a difficult game to master, frustrating as hell, and filled with bad breaks that can sap a man's strength and erode his will, thus, the golfer needs a foil, something to blame his misfortunes on, and the natural default is the "Golf Course"

I'm surprised that you didn't know that

[TEPaul]

Pat:

One of the things I think you should give some thought to, and many golfers should as well, is something that is truly unique about golf-----matter of fact, it just may be the underlying essence and uniqueness of the game itself----eg the fact that it is perhaps the only or one of the really rare stick and ball games in the world in which the ball is not vied for between human opponents.

When one begins to really consider the underlying ramifications of that if they have any intellectual ability to do that, which you probably don't, it does become apparent why more in this game of golf may tend to criticize its playing fields compared to other ball or stick and ball games where the ball is vied for between human opponents and therefore a person becomes the effective opponent of any and every player.

This is not the case in golf. The only real physical opponent in golf for any golfer and his unvied for ball is actually the golf course. And as Max Behr said his humon opponent is not much more than some psychological obstacle.

[Ed Brzezowski]

Jason:

Apparently you've never officiated golf tournaments!   

Great point, working one tomorrow where the contestants get a chance at Pine Valley, may wear some body armor. The younger players are really prone to going off at times. Alawys get to learn some new word combinations.

[Tim Gavrich]

I've always found and thought that the complaints about the playing field in golf are rather proportional to the financial stake the complainer has in said playing field. I would consider it gauche to complain much about the condition of a golf course one is playing for free.

It's always a little funny to hear members of a course complaining about said course on a perfect summer Saturday morning on an attractive course to caddies or guests who have nothing resembling the wherewithal to afford to play said course. And there is almost always the too-close association of quality of conditions with quality of course, but volumes have been disgorged on that subject here in the past.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat:

One of the things I think you should give some thought to, and many golfers should as well, is something that is truly unique about golf-----matter of fact, it just may be the underlying essence and uniqueness of the game itself----eg the fact that it is perhaps the only or one of the really rare stick and ball games in the world in which the ball is not vied for between human opponents.

There's no vying for the ball in Bowling, Lawn Bowling and Boce

When one begins to really consider the underlying ramifications of that if they have any intellectual ability to do that, which you probably don't, it does become apparent why more in this game of golf may tend to criticize its playing fields compared to other ball or stick and ball games where the ball is vied for between human opponents and therefore a person becomes the effective opponent of any and every player.

Bullshit.

It's the difficulty of the game, not the fact that the ball isn't vyed for.

Your premise is also flawed in that there was a measure of vying for position with the ball prior to 1951.

BRING BACK THE STYMIE

This is not the case in golf. The only real physical opponent in golf for any golfer and his unvied for ball is actually the golf course.
And as Max Behr said his humon opponent is not much more than some psychological obstacle.

Did Max Behr Bowl, lawn bowl or play boce ?

It's the difficulty invovled in hitting a little round ball with an implement ill fitted to the task.