Skip to main content

Golf Digression - on lost balls.

Watching the US Open is one of the more enjoyable events for the average to above average golfer. In this, the supposedly sternest test of golf, we get to see just how tough (or not) the pros really are as the thick high rough, baked fairways, cement greens, and ridiculous length bombard their golfing fortitude. It's a malicious joy to watch them fold, whine, and complain their way to a satisfying missed cut, and/or an embarrassing 80-something. There is something refreshing about seeing the very best experience golf the way most of us have known it for our entire lives - as a wicked tormenting mistress all too gleeful in crushing our small feeble hopes of golfing success.
Well, this is how I had happily envisaged the US Open....
Now, after noting the small heard of official 'ball finders' on every hole, I'm not so sure. On each hole, 90% of the terror of that thick lush awful US Open rough is just blithely swept aside by a small army of USGA officials camped along each fairway to find poor little Pro's errant tee shot.
When did this become golf?!
If you or I ever played Bethpage Black and hit it where I saw all of the leaders hit it multiple times this year, we'd have been hiking back to the clubhouse to buy another couple sleeves of balls. Or, had we smartly packed plenty of ammo for the day, we would at least have spent a goodly portion of that day returning to tees for stroke and distance lost ball penalties. None of those pros would be under par if they had to tramp all three-hundred and ten of the awe inspiring yards they just fired their drive INTO THE GORSE, only to root around for the allowed 5 minutes of fruitless hunting before trudging, stricken with shame, back to the tee for a re-do.

There are no ball finders in real golf. There ARE lost balls in real golf. This is one of the main things that makes golf HARD. To remove this real danger for the "pros" is the antithesis of the spirit of the game which the USGA should be working to protect.

We, the common golfer, can proudly say in the spirit of Bobby Jones, the USGA plays a game with which we are not familiar (and do not wish to become so.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Universal Slavery

We all want people who need health care to get care, just as we all want the hungry fed, etc. In accomplishing this, however, it is immoral to revoke another human's right to the product of his mental and physical effort - his property. It is evil to steal from Bob and give to Jane, and this will always be the case, even if Bob is rich and Jane poor. (This may not have been true in the case of a rich feudal lord or monarch whose wealth came by forcible economic rape of the people, BUT, in American capitalism, wealth is CREATED by the producer of value through mental or physical effort. The value is in the created good or service. Men voluntarily trade monetary markers of value for that CREATED value. Except for those rich who became so and thrive by lobbying (bribing) the government to favor their company/interests with legislation, regulation, or the competition stifling tax code --- except for those evil parasites --- wealth in America is NOT come by through the oppressi
3 comments
Read more

U.S. Law as Crime

Post a Comment
Read more

Equal Opportunity

False Position:  The government should provide equal opportunity for all citizens. Opportunity per se is too ambiguous (and it is meant to be by those you use it). It is right for the government to protect each individual from forcible breach of their right to life and the obtained trade value of their effort (property). The government has a true role in securing equal protection for each individual under the law. This would be seen as the government's rightful involvement in protecting individuals from forcible interference with 'opportunity' that the individuals would have otherwise secured for themselves by expenditure of their own time, thought, and effort. The provision of 'equal' opportunities for all however, as contrasted with the protection of individuals from forcible theft of their property, is absolute nonsense.   As do all these concocted 'economic rights,' government forcibly providing 'opportunity' in the sense of distributing
Post a Comment
Read more