I agree, I have yet to hear one convincing argument for letting technology run rampant in golf.
However, I would love to hear a good argument for it. The problem is that anyone who comes up with one will at some point say… “oh, well, we can’t let that happen” and then they end up just like me… this is crap.
Their stock argument of “It’s good for the game, it makes the game easier, more fun for the average Joe, more accessible for the masses and so forth”
That same person would then say… “oh, but we can’t make the hole bigger, that would ruin the tradition of the game, it would make it too easy”. Or how about a ball that could change size, inflate or swell to a larger size with a remote control so it could be easier to hit out of a bad lie… “that would be ridiculous”.
How about an ipod app that does all the calculations for you regarding wind, humidity, yardage, grass type, measures the lie of the ball and slope of the ground via GPS mapping. “The golf ball is 174 to the pin, based upon your golf swing speed from earlier data today, you must aim this ball 14 yards left of the target and play a 4 iron”.
How about a laser beam coming out of the face of the club? Is that taking it too far? That would make putting easier…
and the sole of the putter could take a picture of the slope from the ground angle, do the calculations and tell you via your bluetooth where to aim and even how hard to hit it during your practice strokes. Why not? Do you fear technology?
We could keep with tradition and not make the hole bigger, and we could all make more putts… and hey, we still have to make the stroke, even with all the input from the clubs computer. There are no moving parts in either the optical sensor or the hard drive inside the shaft. Why not? Don’t be getting traditional on me now.
Are you trying to say this is a fookin’ nut shop, Styles?!
I jest. Fair points, but I think the video game analogy is slightly different in that looking to the top of golf, there’s only one way it’s going, so there’s no viable alternative as of yet, in terms of an upper end player wanting to compete with traditional gear. Hopefully that can change.
The argument of “play the version you want” is nice in theory… certainly when you’re playing alone or in a casual game…
but what about competition?
You get to play the game you like with modern silly gear in competitions… but I don’t get to play my archaic antiques with apples being apples.
I can’t realistically play in my national open giving up 40 yards to the field off the tee.
I can’t even buy a balata golf ball… or wear steel spikes in my shoes without being escorted off the property unless I travel to Ireland and play some golf course that still holds onto a bit of tradition.
If I want to compete with persimmon and blades, I have to spend a year of my life organizing a tournament so a few of us can do this once or twice a year.
I can’t enter a pro event or tour in Australia or anywhere for that matter, and play persimmon golf on classic tracks where my skills as a shotmaker and ball shaper can be pitted against other players who have similar skills.
It’s a nice suggestive argument, but no… I don’t get to play golf (competitive) the way I or many others would like to.
There was nothing wrong with the game the way it was before…
by that argument though, as go low suggested, we should be back in the 15th Century with featheries and fending off arguments that our archery was suffering.
Of course a top golfer could play persimmon if he/she chose to. No rules to stop it. The problem is they’d struggle to make cuts. If you think different then why haven’t any of these guys speaking out about it done so? As Lag said, it would take just one win from a guy using persimmon to upset the apple cart. However, these guys know which side of their bread is buttered and despite making these proclamations about persimmon and the ball, they all still use it and take their wheelbarrow to the next event for it to be filled with cash. Geoff Ogilvy and guys like him are the ones who should bear the brunt of your criticism because whilst they do magazine articles (for free?) saying how they’d love to go back to persimmon, they turn up at the next event with their ‘frying-pan’ and get beat in a play off never once considering the hypocrisy of what they’ve done. Do as I say, not as I do!
At least Lag stayed true to his values when he went for the US Open qualifying a few years back.
I disagree, mainly because of my argument for the value of par… being a standard of excellence within the game.
The game was striving for a balance between man and beast (the course). It took a while for par to be attainable by even the top players. Once this was achieved, then the goal of the course designer moved into a quest for style, taste, and quality of the experience… a fair test, balanced, but one that offered various options to play a hole and so forth… and it is these kind of more sophisticated designs that really made the game what it became in all the best of ways.
There were problems with hickory being available for the growth of the game, and steel shafts made sense on many levels to relieve the situation. Golf balls were another issue, as they were very expensive to make, and only the rich could afford to play… and if poor people played, they would spend half the day looking for the ball that cost them half a fortnight of wages. The ball needed to be more practical economically for everyone.
Once these issues were addressed successfully, golf thrived just fine, and certainly didn’t NEED to change into the boring dumbed down version it has become.
I don’t agree with this either, because if the golf courses played required perfectly positioned tee shots, and balata balls were the tournament ball, then it renders the frying pans useless. In the modern game I see guys hitting it 40 yards off line all the time… but with a balata they would be 60 or 80 yards off line. The rough is not penal enough, and you don’t see OB stakes anymore. Not many trees either.
So the gear argument is really more of a golf course argument.
Persimmon could win on certain golf courses no problem. But they don’t play these courses anymore, so it’s not a viable option.
Remember, Mac O Grady finished 5th in the Australian Senior Open last year playing persimmon and Roger MacKay’s vintage Hogan Apex blades. I’m sure if he had 27 putts a round he would have been able to beat Harwood for the title. He beat 139 guys in the field using modern gear… but I would bet my modern Euro that the course was not 7500 yards.
Styles, I found your post to be particularly ironic!
Every so often you turn up with these rants. It’s equivalent to me going over to Lynn Blake’s forum and reminding them all what a stupid idea the Flat Left Wrist is.
I’m still waiting patiently for a good argument for technology going unchecked. As soon as you restrict any advancement, you jump to the other side of the fence “against” technology.
That’s a diplomatic article from Gentle Ben… but I would like to hear what he really thinks behind closed doors.
I bet he’d be screaming more like a hell cat than a teddy bear.
If we are going to pass on the game as we inherited it… I have a big cauldron that can melt titanium at just over 3000 degrees. Geary would gladly take the material for his next beauty.
A shot that I really miss is the low riser that took off line an airplane, it just can’t really be done with the new ball because it jumps so quickly and floats. And the flip side of that, is the bad low riser that you used to get when you hit the driver off the bottom a bit, that would just go nowhere- nightmare in the wind. Those shots don’t exist anymore. Each to their own, but that sort of premium on quality ball striking being gone from the game, is a great loss in my view. If you’re a half way decent player the game is too easy with the modern gear, and it makes you lazy and keeps you uninformed of what’s really going on. This stuff has all been said before and will probably be said again, but personally I’ve benefitted a great deal from rediscovering and playing the old gear. The two games are barely comparable in terms of their demands and rewards.
You call my post a rant, I of course am much too polite to describe the posts calling for a return to ‘the good old days’ as rants.
You should head over to Lynn Blake’s and tell them what a poor idea the flat left wrist is. Without directly quoting what others have said though all you’ll do is make a fool of yourself though.
Well firstly, par was being matched and beaten way back when Tommy Morris was playing and he didn’t have any modern technology whatsoever. The same goes for Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, so to suggest that old man par only began to get challenged when steel shafts arrived is factually incorrect and misleading.
With regards golf becoming an ‘everyman’s game’ after steel was introduced, again I feel that it is misleading. In certain parts of the UK, yes every man and his dog played the game but look at the histories of the great triumvirate of Hogan, Nelson and Snead who were all caddies looking in from the outside because the game was so exclusive to the rich.
The truth is that golf was almost exclusively a white male’s game where country clubs excluded people for reasons that ranged from the size of their wallet, their religious beliefs and of course the colour of their skin. As Tiger Woods’ billboard proclaimed in 1996, “some of these courses won’t even let me on.”
RR
