Distance aids

[C. Squier]

I always enjoy reading people disparage rangefinders, yet have no problems using anything from 150 yard bushes planted 50 years ago all the way to sprinkler heads with pin sheets.  The data is the same, rangefinders only make it quicker to ascertain.  I can't think of 5 courses that don't have some type of yardage information, be it plated every 50 yards or numbers on a scorecard. Unless you play completely void of any of this data, the anti-rangefinder argument is just puffery.

Pat - clubs like Merion and FH don't allow rangefinders, but their caddies are armed with marked up yardage books that they refer to all day long. Does it really matter if the sprinkler head has a number on it or a blue hollow triangle (which is synced up to a number in the caddies yardage book)?  The only thing prevented is the aesthetic of the rangefinder, the player is still eventually getting the same info.  That being said, the quickest way to piss off a caddie is to pull out your rangefinder.  Always wince when someone does that.

[Brent Hutto]

Clint,

I know of at least two of the people participating in this thread who would prefer no 150-bushes, no sprinklers, no caddies, no pin sheets, no nothing. And that's why I'm not being sarcastic in saying I can perfectly understand why playing golf in today's environment could be very frustrating to those people. By "today" I mean the last few decades, though. Nothing to do with laser rangefinders, as you point out.

But those unusual purist preferences aside...

Anyone who lets a caddie feed them yardages all day long then comes online to bitch about somebody using a laser rangefinder and/or saying the numbers out loud is expressing exactly the same attitude as in the "anchored" putting thing. There is something they just don't like to see people doing and they want somebody to Make Everyone Do Right, according to their own sadly limited view of the game.

[Dan King]

Bullshit. I don't want to know the yardage from devices. Nothing strange or weird about that. You like to know. Nothing strange or weird about that. That is why they make wallpaper. It should not be all that difficult for both sets of groups to co-exist on a golf course, it is just going to take both sides using etiquette. Not such a tough nut.

I think shouting out yardage is wrong, and in the past was against USGA/R&A rules. When did the rule change?

Cheers,
Dan King

If your adversary is badly bunkered, there is no rule against your standing over him and counting his strokes aloud, with increasing gusto as their number mounts up; but it will be a wise precaution to arm yourself with the niblick before doing so, so as to meet him on equal terms.
  --Horace Hutchinson

[Ally Mcintosh]

Brent,

We (you and I) have had this argument before.

I just think there is more purity associated with there being no distance information. I believe that eyes end up telling you more than any range finder and that walking up to your ball whilst thinking about the club you might hit is an integral part of the game. I understand your case study above and in many ways agree with it – executing a shot perfectly knowing the exact tolerance levels you have to play with is indeed a thrill. However, it’s even more thrilling executing the shot without knowing all the variables. That’s where intelligence and feel comes in to the game even more.

I don’t really understand why distance info has actually improved the game. Perhaps one could argue that it has made it slightly easier, though mainly for the good players, not the bad players.

I don’t use caddies. I don’t use strokesavers. I don’t mark off distances from plates or sprinklers… I do glance at distance markers now and again as I pass them. That’s just second nature.

[Rich Goodale]

All I can say, Dan, is that I wish I had a distance aid a couple of weeks ago when trying to negotiate the beach from your place to and from dowtown Cayucos.  My caddie (YOU) told me that it was an easy 1/2 mile walk each way, but after arriving home 3 hours later, the only thing that benefitted from that advice was my cardiovascular system.  Thank god the BBQ was great....

[Brent Hutto]

Yes, this is a recurring discussion. And as I suppose I probably always point out, absent knowledge of distances in a lot of situations like the one I described the absolutely sensible and score-minimizing tactic is to play away from the hole any time a bad guess as to yardage is going to bring double-bogey into play.

I'm an 18-handicapper. On my home course there are going to be at least three or four times a round where being off 5-10 yards on a yardage estimate plus being off 5-10 yards on a mishit are going to leave me in a place where I absolutely will not ever get up and down. If knowing a number lets me play toward the hole on a couple times a round of those otherwise "sucker" hole locations that is a meaningful addition to my experience.

In the end if all comes down to whether you think guessing distances is part of the game of golf or not. The Rules do not say it is required so I put it in the same purist category with using hickory shafts or teeing the ball up on pile of sand instead of a wooden tee. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as they say.

[C. Squier]

Clint,

I know of at least two of the people participating in this thread who would prefer no 150-bushes, no sprinklers, no caddies, no pin sheets, no nothing. And that's why I'm not being sarcastic in saying I can perfectly understand why playing golf in today's environment could be very frustrating to those people. By "today" I mean the last few decades, though. Nothing to do with laser rangefinders, as you point out.

I understand that there are those who want no info.  I don't begrudge them, it's a bit romantic actually.  However, those people will find themselves SOOL as there are virtually no golf courses in the US that have no info available. And then, as Scott Warren stated, after a few plays even a completely unmarked golf course becomes familiar and past experiences give a player the "it's a good 7 iron from the end of that bunker" advantage.  It's not numerical distance, but it's a distance marker.

Dan - It's the social norm in golf today to have distance information available and to share it with other players.  I'd say the burden would be on you to kindly ask your playing partners to not tell you the distance as you find it more enjoyable to fly solo.  I can't imagine anyone having a problem with that request.  However, asking them to not share between them as you're still in earshot.....you'll need to find new playing partners.  That doesn't make what you're trying to accomplish wrong, but it is different than the vast majority of players.  It's not new either, since I was very young I remember guys yelling out when they passed the colored 100/150/200 yard plates on the ground as we walked to our balls.  My 2nd round at my club ever was played when the sprinkler heads had just been replaced and the yardages weren't on them, it was very enjoyable to play a still new course without any information.  I can see why a person would want to recreate that experience.

[BHoover]

I have no problem with distance aids.  At the very least, I think they tend to speed up play.  I use a laser but I don't think it detracts from the skill of taking into account other factors such as wind, firmness of the turf, roll, etc.  The only thing the laser does is give me a quick yardage, but then I have to judge how to play the shot. 

I understand why some folks dislike distance aids, and I'm fine with that.  I don't have to give a playing partner the yardage unless he asks for it. 

I think there are other devices that are much more destructive to the soul of the game -- i.e., golf carts.

[Sean_A]

Clint

As stated earlier, the range finder offers a second opinion to a yardage marker - thus confirming what may be hard to believe.  Also, a yardage gun can be used to great effect when a player is well out of position.  

As Brent eluded to, I would rather there be no yardage markers except on the tee, but I realize this is pie in the sky stuff.  I would be quite content with a vertical 150 marker and flat 100/200 markers.  We have stones at Burnham which work quite well - so well in fact that visitors don't realize they are 150 markers until told so - thats a perfect compromise.  

I am not really in favour of aiming poles either unless it is dead easy to purposely hit into a dangerous situation or if the landing is so narrow as to really be unreasonable.  I am all in favour of baskets instead of flags to hide wind direction/strength.  I also don't like longer flag sticks on dell greens.  

Brent - you should be ashamed to laser on your home course.  Practically every hole location and approach should be known dead cold by now.  To say you have issues with distance 3-4 times a round doesn't sound right to me.

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

And then, as Scott Warren stated, after a few plays even a completely unmarked golf course becomes familiar and past experiences give a player the "it's a good 7 iron from the end of that bunker" advantage.  It's not numerical distance, but it's a distance marker.

Where I come from, we used to just call this “home-course advantage”. It was experience of how best to play a particular shot. I don’t see how it relates to distance markers.

As an aside, we all know laser finders are a new invention. But when did distance markers come in to play in the States?.... It was as recently as the mid-eighties in GB&I… Usually only with a 150 yard marker but often with the 100 and 200 yard markers also… Sprinkler head yardages came in much later than that.

It’s not as if I am harking back to the days of the gutta percha…

[Sean_A]

Ally

I started playing golf in earnest by about 1977.  I don't recall ever not having at least 150 poles/trees etc.  I was always amazed when going to private clubs how well courses were marked - plates/markers on sprinkler heads were everywhere. 

Ciao

[Ally Mcintosh]

Ally

I started playing golf in earnest by about 1977.  I don't recall ever not having at least 150 poles/trees etc.  I was always amazed when going to private clubs how well courses were marked - plates/markers on sprinkler heads were everywhere. 

Ciao

Hi Sean,

Just for confirmation - this was in the US I presume?

Incidentally - when did you move across the pond?

Ally

[Mark Smolens]

Bullshit. I don't want to know the yardage from devices. Nothing strange or weird about that. You like to know. Nothing strange or weird about that. That is why they make wallpaper. It should not be all that difficult for both sets of groups to co-exist on a golf course, it is just going to take both sides using etiquette. Not such a tough nut.

I think shouting out yardage is wrong, and in the past was against USGA/R&A rules. When did the rule change?

Cheers,
Dan King

If your adversary is badly bunkered, there is no rule against your standing over him and counting his strokes aloud, with increasing gusto as their number mounts up; but it will be a wise precaution to arm yourself with the niblick before doing so, so as to meet him on equal terms.
  --Horace Hutchinson

Dan, I don't believe that advising one's fellow competitors about yardages has (at least in my lifetime) been against the rules. Giving a yardage is not advice (which would violate the rules). I admit I would probably be someone who would -- on a single occasion -- give you the yardage without being asked. . . but once you told me that you'd rather eyeball it by feel, I'd certainly respect that (and try not to say the yardage in your earshot on the par-3s).

Clint, I've never had a caddie get angry when I pull my Bushnell out of my pocket. On the contrary, I let him give me the yardage first, and then hit the flag -- a friendly competition between man and machine if you will. Every caddie I've had enjoyed trying to be as good as the rangefinder.

[jeffwarne]

It's hard for me to find fault with those using lasers.

I just hate dealing with them myself (I was recently given one and tried it out-frustrating for a luddite like myself)

I prefer simple vertical 150's, but clubs starting doing away from them because they "don't look right" as part of the "big dick" race (see prior rants )  plaguing golf the last 10-20 years or so.
I I became very good long ago at estimating 30 yards so 150+30 and possibly +30 again is all I care for.
 inside 150 is easy because you can easily walk it off after you pass the 150.

One of my assistants armed with his laser  is always shocked I can guess it within 1-3 yards , but I've already done my eyeball calculating walking up. Sprinkler head markers can slow the game down as their lack of verticality can send one searching if he wasn't looking for one as he approached his ball.

[Brent Hutto]

Brent - you should be ashamed to laser on your home course.  Practically every hole location and approach should be known dead cold by now.  To say you have issues with distance 3-4 times a round doesn't sound right to me.

For a course that is not super hilly (although far from flat) we have lots of opportunities to tuck holes behind bunkers. Depending on where exactly one is approaching from you may be able to see the base of the flagstick, the majority of the flagstick or occasionally only the top half of the flagstick.

Combine this with shelves, tiers, false fronts, hollows and just general "green within a green" contours and you have situations where there is no way of knowing if the hole is at the base of a slope, just over the ridge on the top tier or all the way on the back of the green. I've played many rounds with no yardage measurement tool, just to see what you lot were on about (is that how the phrase goes?). The result is usually at least a couple of times per round I hit the ball with five yards of where I'm aiming and end up with a downhill putt from the back of the green to a front hole 20, 30, 40 feet away. Often those first putts have zero chance of finishing within five feet of the hole.

Put simply, when there is no way to tell if the hole is three yards above an 18-inch ridge crossing the green vs. three yards short of that ridge I'll be damned if I'm going to just wing it and flip a coin. That strikes me as being willfully ignorant just to prove a point. Sure I can glance at the 100-yard plate and just try to hit the ball to the middle of the green. But with a wedge or short iron in hand I am perfectly capable of putting the ball on the desired side of some internal green contour, assuming I know what the proper side happens to be today.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Brent - You sound like a much better golfer than most 18 handicappers I know if those are your main concerns.

[Sean_A]

Ally

I started playing golf in earnest by about 1977.  I don't recall ever not having at least 150 poles/trees etc.  I was always amazed when going to private clubs how well courses were marked - plates/markers on sprinkler heads were everywhere. 

Ciao

Hi Sean,

Just for confirmation - this was in the US I presume?

Incidentally - when did you move across the pond?

Ally

Si - Michigan experience.

I moved to England in the summer of 1999 after coming to GB&I for nearly 10 years on golf trips.  Though my first living stint in England was way back in 1987 staying in Brighton after a briefly living near Nutfield (close to Redhill).    

Ciao  

[Brent Hutto]

Brent - You sound like a much better golfer than most 18 handicappers I know if those are your main concerns.

I'm an 18-handicapper because of the dozen or so duffs, foozles or penalty strokes I have in a typical round. Honestly, the entire reason I enjoy golf is what happens within about 120-130 yards of the green. So I belong to a club with very interesting greens that's bog-simple to keep the ball in play off the tee. A classic "defended at the green" design suitable for a small-town country club type course circa 1960 (Ellis Maples).

Playing an inland course with usually overwatered Bermuda turf there's no chance to enjoy bouncing the ball in front various distances and angles of approach as on a links or good heathland course. But we keep the greens firm enough to allow a certain amount of finely calibrated approach and pitch-shot play. To me, and apparently to a substantial majority of the people I see playing golf every day, that part of the game is more fun when you know how far you're standing from all those detailed little internal green features.

And that's all it really is, at its root. I want to try and judge how the ball is going to react when it lands on various subtle features of the putting surface. And I want to "purify", so to speak, that experience by knowing how far away my ball is sitting at the moment. It's the form of the game that draws me out there 150+ times a year.

If I could play a course like Royal Cinque Ports or Ganton or Brora 150 times a year I'd expect there are many other pleasures on offer that might make me less focused on these things. But I don't so I maximize my enjoyment the 51 weeks a year I'm playing on soft warm season turf and USA country-club conditioning.

[Lou_Duran]

I've been away from playing golf for a few years. I did play a bit of golf at this year's King's Putter. I was shocked by how many people now use distance aids.

Perhaps if you got out of your head once in awhile and played golf on terra firma you'd find that "distance aids" are more the rule than the exception.  Though I'm a Luddite by gca.com standards, I have a GPS watch which I like a lot (incidentally, I was turned-on to the device by my host at Deal a couple years back, not having seen one before).  To date, I have had two guys, both GCAers, who have declined distance advice, though on a course that was well marked.

Unlike Sean, I like the conveniences of the modern world where I can have a choice of a Big Mac, tofu, or a home-packed bologna sandwich with relative ease.  Dan. for a self-professed libertarian, you don't seem to like options.  Not that you're becoming a curmudgeon, but with age and ill-temper comes failing vision.  Live and let live?

All the arguments about wind, firmness, links, etc. may have some validity, but knowing the linear distance is but one step in considering what shot to hit.  Used properly, distance aids can speed up play and help the traveling golfer enjoy his round more.  As usual, Brent provides reasonable advice- inform your playing partners of your preferences on the first tee and let everyone have a good time.  And if someone blurts out a distance, know that they mean well.  After all, do you think that your unique sartorial preferences might not cause similar dissonance for an occasional ultra-sensitive individual (not me of course, the zanier the more entertaining)?  

[David Davis]

I enjoy being able to read sprinkler heads measuring yardage to the center, front and rear of the greens. It would really be helpful if I could actually hit 8-10 shots to the yardage those clubs are supposed to play.

Had a frustrating round about a week and a half ago in Belgium and Royal Antwerp a decent Simpson course. The fairway markers were all to the front of the green. The 150 pole to the middle. Lots of wind and someplace along the way I was confused and I'm sure the 150 markers were off as I came up short all day.

In the end I don't really care how they do it but it would be great if they simply came up with some consistent method. Often the markers on the course are off yardage as well.

I've never used a range-finder, not against it though, in fact I quite like it. So I wouldn't mind getting one of those Garmen watches or something just to have an indication and make up for not being able to eyeball things very well.

I think that's part of what makes golf relatively easy in the US in my mind. Riding around with a golf cart, no wind, perfectly manicured  fairways and greens and utilizing GPS to know the exact distance.

[C. Squier]

Where I come from, we used to just call this “home-course advantage”. It was experience of how best to play a particular shot. I don’t see how it relates to distance markers.

It has everything to do with distance markers.  I know my 8 iron goes 155 yards, you know it goes the distance between the half dead pine tree to the center of the green.  Some use numbers, others use landmarks.  It's still a measurement in distance, just different units.  The only time its different is when playing a brand new course.  It's a skill to eyeball something accurately when you've never played the hole.  It's not a skill to simply remember what club you hit yesterday on the same hole.  

[Sean_A]

Unlike Sean, I like the conveniences of the modern world where I can have a choice of a Big Mac, tofu, or a home-packed bologna sandwich with relative ease. 

I'm not sure what bologna sandwiches has to do with yardage markers - must be Texan logic.

Ciao

[Brent Hutto]

Interestingly, I played on Saturday at the slightly scruffy public course where I played for the first decade after taking up the game in 1994. This course has about the smallest greens you'll ever see, the two original nines (1978) I'd say have less green square footage than Harbor Town or Pebble Beach. The newer nine (built in the 80's) are a bit larger but still smaller than most courses I've seen.

After a few holes I realized I had not been missing anything playing without a laser back then. Between the cuppy fairway lies making solid contact difficult, the tendency of even a mid-iron shot to bounce and run forward a variable amount from 2 to 20 yards and the fact that a "middle pin" could still be only 20 feet from the falloff at the back of the push-up green I finally recalled the proper tactics.

Look at the 100/150/200 markers in the fairway and a club you are absolutely certain will not go any farther than a couple of paces onto the green. Play with a combination of chips from five yards short of the green and uphill putts from five yard onto the putting surface. Have a steady stream of 4-6 foot par putts on bumpy greens that make the 50/50 distance about 3 feet.

I was about eight over par for the first six holes before remembering I had to play short of the green. Then eight over for the final twelve holes just by putting/chipping uphill every time. Anyone playing at that course would be wasting money on a rangefinder.

[C. Squier]

Clint

As stated earlier, the range finder offers a second opinion to a yardage marker - thus confirming what may be hard to believe.  Also, a yardage gun can be used to great effect when a player is well out of position.  

Yardage markers aren't placed by a person guessing, but by using lasers.  Assuming a golfer understands that the little numbers on the sprinkler heads aren't there on accident, you're not confirming anything.  A golfer should be no more befuddled by a sprinkler head than their own rangefinder.  

If you're a player who wants exact yardages, you'll get them on a modern day course.  Either by pacing off distances, searching for sprinklers and using a pin sheet.  Or you can just walk up to your ball and zap a distance in literally 3 seconds.  I know which guy I want to play with.  I'd suggest that nearly every golfer under the age of 35 in the US grew up with distance markers of some sort on their home course.  The distance cat was let out of the bag decades ago with at least a couple generations growing up with it.  

Eyeballing only is like a waitress not writing anything down when taking your order.  I'm only impressed if you're really, really good at it.  And even if you're really, really good at it you're still no better than if you just wrote the darn order down in the first place.  

[Lou_Duran]

Unlike Sean, I like the conveniences of the modern world where I can have a choice of a Big Mac, tofu, or a home-packed bologna sandwich with relative ease. 

I'm not sure what bologna sandwiches has to do with yardage markers - must be Texan logic.

Ciao

About as much as lamenting about McDs.  Options, my friend.  I like more, not fewer.  I wouldn't think about denying others distance markers or devices because I prefer to rely solely on my wits.  For all the crap facing this world, I am sure glad I live in these times, Bushnell, Garmin,  bologna sandwiches and otherwise.