Re: Any UK Golfers here?

Howard Brazee wrote:
On 2 Feb 2006 08:25:24 -0800, "Simon" <hancock_simon@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

1) Walking v riding in golf carts

You just don't see golf carts in the UK. There may be a few resort
hotel courses that have them, but I don't think any real golfers would
be seen dead in one.

I understand mountain courses requiring carts. And some courses are
designed to give the largest number of houses an opportunity to claim
to be part of a golf course community, spreading out the walk from pin
to tee.

OK, perhaps another difference should be 'building golf courses in
inappropriate locations and filling them full of houses' :-)


2) Choosing which tees to play according to ability

So what's the difference between having different tees on one course
or different courses?

The handicap system and course rating system is completely separate for
women. As Crispin says - perhaps it only works when you have a slope
system in operation. Besides, few courses here have multiple tees. For
men there is normally a white tee for competitions and a yellow tee for
other games. I expect in the past, there was just a single tee for each
hole and you had to play the course as it was. Maybe this is where
there is an attitude difference. Do you feel you have the right to play
the course the way you want it, or do you accept that everyone plays
the same course regardless of ability?

3) The lack of (and lack of interest in) competitive golf in the US.
I've just counted up - our club has 92 singles strokeplay competitions
this year!


4) Handicaps based on casual play

I've never been that comfortable with the idea that you could get a
handicap from unchecked, partial rounds that don't even have to have
been played by the rules. I think our system of only using rounds from
official strokeplay competitions is much more reliable.

I'm the opposite. Handicaps are a great idea for gambling, giving
bettors a starting place to make their bets. But the net club
champion is not a real champion. Flight the club if you want, but
play head to head.

I've never found betting to be a major deal here. If you do bet on
matchplay, then you just get your allowed handicap strokes and that's
it. If a larger group of people turn up to play, then you'd normally
play an informal Stableford comp (playing off your normal handicap) and
all stick some money in the pot (normally in the £1 to £5 range)

We don't have a net club champion. That competition (and a few others)
are scratch. Most other compeititions are nett within divisions

5) Whether to follow the Rules of Golf all the time

I think it's funny seeing the posts about guys getting all defensive
about how they justify 'emulating' penalties for lost balls. Often this
is on the grounds that the following group would get angry if you
really played by the rules and walked back to the tee. For one, people
tend to hit provisionals here, so you might only have to walk back
about once a season. If you had to do that, you'd let the following
group through and you'd usually get a sympathetic response from the
group you let through.

If they aren't playing for anything, let them play whatever game they
want. Sort of like playing soccer in an alley, bouncing the ball
off the walls - it's a different game and can still be fun.

The danger is that their strategies change and you don't get good
enough practice with all of the shots they need.

I let consideration trump the rules - if the course is crowded, and
I'm not playing for anything, I emulate stroke and distance. But
that is with full knowledge of what I'm doing. When a buddy asks
advice in a casual game, I preface my reply with "this is advice and
thus illegal, but...". This keeps both of us aware of what the
rules are so that we are ready when we play rounds that count.

Obviously in friendly games for us, there is no obligation to submit a
score, so we don't need to invent a score. If it's Stableford, you
might throw a ball down just to complete the hole, but you wouldn't
ever claim a score for that hole. Similarly in matchplay, you would
lose the hole. If you threw a ball down, then made a decent score with
it, would you still claim that as a genuine score and enter it for your
handicap?


6) Playing strokeplay even in friendly games

I guess this may be linked to the fact that every round needs to be
submitted for handicap, so there is pressure to put in a score for each
hole. I don't think I've ever seen anyone play strokeplay in a
non-competitive play over here. It's always matchplay or stableford

I can appreciate having match play for casual rounds. Stableford
seems like another way of scoring medal play rounds. I don't see
that it is more suitable for non-competitive play than for competitive
play.

Stableford is essentially just another way of scoring strokeplay, but
it encourages people to pick their ball up once they can't score a
point or to walk on when they have lost a ball, rather than forcing
them to complete the hole. Also, like matchplay, it keeps the game
alive after one player has had a disaster. If we were playing
strokeplay together and one of us had a par on the first hole and the
other had a 10, a strokeplay game would be almost over before it begun.
In matchplay, you'd just be one hole down, or just 2 points behind in
Stableford.


7) Endless debates about the minutiae of the golf swing from people who
probably can't break 90.

My view is that if you don't have the physical ability or coordination
to break 80 after a couple of years, then I can't see how you could
have the physical ability to implement the complex swing mechanics that
are discussed. I don't think it's a US v UK thing, more a RSG thing.
I've never met a golfer who has discussed the swing in the way it is
discussed here.

I agree. When we get together to talk golf on the Internet, what is
there to talk about? Swing mechanics is interesting, the tournament
we saw on TV is interesting - but the 5th hole on the local course was
only seen by one of us. It may not help our game, but talking about
golf theory is still fun stuff while waiting for a program to compile.

It's one aspect of golf that has always intrigued me and you don't see
it in any other sport (or anything else). The amount of technical
analysis and studying that is done by people who obviously have a
limited physical ability for the game. Understanding where various
parts of your body should be during the swing isn't going to help if
you are not capable of translating those thoughts into actions. If you
were cabaple of producing those actions, then you'd be doing it
already! Nobody would think that reading about and understanding the
techniques required to play tennis or play the piano would make you a
great tennis player or a great pianist. Is this something odd about the
game of golf or the sort of person it attracts?
Do you think there are many players around who are bad players because
they don't understand enough of the theory of the golf swing? There
seem to be many good players who know nothing about the theory and many
bad players who know plenty of theory.

I guess the interesting debate is - are the good players good because
they play naturally and don't confuse themselves with theory, or they
never needed to get involved with the theory because they were always
good?
Are the bad players bad because they get themselves bogged down with
theory, or do they have to resort to the theory because they are bad
and need to try something?


I post a lot because I enjoy these discussions. There are some real
big threads with people putting down other people that don't interest
me at all - and I rarely post in those threads. Golf is what I
enjoy. I've learned some useful stuff, and some useless stuff about
golf - and had fun doing so.

We seemed to have wandered away from the question about UK golfers and
I've just been going back over my old arguments I always bring up on
RSG, but there we go. Have a good weekend. I planning to get a game in
on Sunday. Weather forecast is dry, but around freezing.

.

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