Do we value the ability to read the course?

I guess I will have to admit at the outset that I own and use a bushnell V2.


Not to pick on ban but he made a comment on another thread that got me thinking about where the ability to read the courses is ranked and why we are happy to do away with that skill. Ban stated that before having a sky caddie he was poor when playing a course for the first time but now he can score quite well. This is not to say ban is a poor reader of courses it is just the example that sparked the idea for this thread. The point is with the availability of modern aids an area of potential weakness, or strength, has been removed. I see this as evidence of a change in how we view the methods required to overcome a course.

Golf is a test of the player vs the course (nature hopefully, if the course is well designed) and the players ability to overcome the obstacles/hazards the course presents. As I stated in the spirit of the game thread I believe this to be a crucial link to the origins of the spirit of the game.

https://www.606v2.com/t15890-the-spirit-of-the-game


Reading the land to me seems integral to the game and something that without due care we could see diminished in the coming years. We now have gps maps, exact yardages and course planners all removing the players need to think about the shot.

Initially the introduction of yardage markers at 100, 150 and 200 yards crept into the game in the 60’s and for a while that was enough for the average player. With this level of information the player still had some thinking to do but maybe not as much as would be associated with the maximum enjoyment the game could provide.

Without any yardages provided the player is reliant on judgement or previous experience on the course. From this position the player must read the lie of the land and work out how far they have to go and what club will feel right. Further without an exact yardage in mind the land between the player and the hole will be given more consideration.

Many features will be in place to fool or deceive a player and only those with the very best architecture reading skills will consistently select clubs that will be the correct ones for the shot. So why is this skill, one which was valued so highly in the early days, now relegated to something which the rules are willing to let die?

Imagine we got rid of putting and it was decided that outside 12 feet you got a two putt and inside it you were given a one putt. It would not only remove the joy of reading and making putts but also rob the best players of a crucial advantage.

Instead of this being a thread about my longing for the old days I would like people to consider why golf no longer values the skill of reading a course and whether you think greater enjoyment could be had if the game was played with no distance aids or course maps of any type?

Would you enjoy a new element being introduced back into the game and how proficient a reader of the land and the architecture do you think you would be?


Consider another scenario where not only are yardage and guiding aids removed but the pars removed from holes. In this scenario it becomes totally down to you to decide how best to play the hole and you are not dictated by par or yardage. I accept prevailing methods would develop but would people be forced to think a little more outside the box?

It is clear that reading the course is no longer a skill but rather something that is done for the player.

Thank god, because otherwise we would be looking at 6 hour rounds.

Let's get rid of caddies, too

I don't think that knowing precise yardages means that suddenly you can't read a course. You should be able to look at any course with no yardage information and know whether you can carry the hazard or whether it's best to lay up.

I don't think DMD's are ruining this "skill", more that they are highlighting how important course management is.

Mac

I think due to the nature of modern equipment, the need/ability to read the course has pretty much disappeared. Golf is now predominatly played through the air, even on links courses by the majority of players. Modern clubs and balls are all about 'drop and stop' thereby negating the ground shots of old.

It would be nice to bring the skill of reading the lie of the land back into the game but I can't see it happening. The percentage of golfers throughout the world that play most of their golf on links courses is a very small minority. I play on a heathland track which ideally should emulate a links with firm turf and hard greens that are difficult to hold but modern irrigation etc has softened everything up so even these courses are now all about flying over trouble and stopping quickly on the green.

When playing on a new course we have to trust the yardage markers, and we've all played courses where you look and think, 'no way'. I think you'll find that not all courses are 100% correct, and especially trying to do the metres to yards calculation when abroad. I use a Bushnell and have found I trust that more than marker posts, as i got sick of coming up short. I've even watched some young kids moving marker posts, but chased them off, but wonder how many are checked on a regular basis.

“Thank god, because otherwise we would be looking at 6 hour rounds.”

Really, you think not using aids would take longer than people faffing around with them?


“You should be able to look at any course with no yardage information and know whether you can carry the hazard or whether it's best to lay up.”

Well why not put the skill to the test and abandon DMD’s, then we will see who can really read the land. Do you really think without them you would use the correct club as often as with them?

“Golf is now predominatly played through the air”

I agree that more of the game is played in the air but if that is the case then would it not be more interesting to play if you had to judge for yourself what club would land full on the green from your position?


What I take from most of the comments so far is that people are happy to let the true art of reading the course die out.

Mac, there is no such thing as a true "ART" , simply that we didn't have the technology before.

You seem intent on making a very difficult game even harder.
It wasn't that long ago you were saying that the bunkers shouldn't be raked, despite the fact that even good pro's are pretty average up and downs from the sand, now you want reverse technological advances.

For someone who loves F1 so much, where technological advances happen year on year you aren't half inconsistent.

There is no faffing around with a bushnell, or a Sky caddie.

Get to your ball, pick said device up, look at/through it, pick club, hit shot.

Get to your ball, walk back to nearest marker, or yardage point, pace it out, go to top of hill to have a check, do it again, think about club, did i pace it out right, change club etc etc etc.

it takes so much less time with a DMD, and in no way takes away the need to read a course!

I do not have any measuring devices but my playing parter does and i have been known to ask him 3-4 times a round for a yardage. I rely on the 150 yds markers on my home coursse and really miss them on courses that don't have them. When I played Royal Lytham I had a professional caddy and could not have played that course without him only due to the amount of fairway bunkers, my home course doesn't have any

So are we saying in theory we value the skills needed to read a course but are then happy to negate most of them by using Dmd'd, yardage markers etc?

There is no skill in "reading a course". I think you are being all poncy and sentimental.
You can either judge distances or you can't.
Do you think a cook should judge the weight of ingredients or use a set of scales instead.

What skills to read a course?

The skills I can think of have nothing to do with how far it is to the hole - more like, how will the wind affect the ball flight, how will it bouce if I land it there, which way will this putt turn etc - and none of that info can be gained from a DMD

I use a SkyCaddie. I love using it and it helps me a lot.

However, I think we have lost part of the challange. 20-30 years ago judging the club was part of the skill. Could be frustrating at times but it was an integral part of the game. I normally played links course so with hard fairways and wind the actual distance to the pin was only part of the equation.

I can recall when the 150 yard markers came out. A friend of mine was on the golf committie at Royal Aberdeen and he tried hard to prevent them being introduced. I recall not agreeing with him at the time, but I get it now.

super, JD

You think that without using distance aids it would take no skill to judge how far you have left to your target?

If this is the case then why use a dmd in the first place?

Mac I think we all use a certain amount of skill looking at the course/route into the greens etc. Nothing worse than being on a strange course that has no marker posts, and struggling to judge the distance. You will end up in 2-minds and not committing or over committing and screw up. Range finders don't take anything away from the game

Scottie the game moves ever forward, and much of it is introduced because of the touring pro's. Do the pro's have an unfair advantage because they use a caddy and have notes about each hole including yardages from each sprinkler head, bunker, tree ..... Much more information than we will ever get to use, unless you go out of your way and walk the course

Mac,
It is a skill to a certain degree, but i'd rather know exactly, I don't seehow using a DMD makes it less of an "art" to judge with the eye. You still have to play the shot you have in mind.

There are lots of things in life that make things easier so that we take away the guess work, or rather the educated guess. Are pro'd taking away the "art" by having caddies and comprehensive yardage guides?

Perhaps you could unhook the sender unit in your planet destroying Citroen 2CV and guess how much fuel you have left in your tank, or not look at your bank account and guess how much you are spending so that you don't go overdrawn.

Seriously, I think you are trying to romanticise something where there is very little to romanticise. You've already said you have a DMD, so you don't really believe it yourself.

No offence taken Mac.

Scenario from a couple of weeks ago at Kilspindie - 4th hole, strong breeze off the LHS. Proximity to the beach on the RHS.

My tee shot - punched 3 iron for position and to keep the ball under the wind.
One of my playing partners - driver off the tee for length.

My approach shot - 120 yards to green centre from RHS fairway, strong wind from LHS. usually more or less a full PW for me in normal conditions, but because of the severity of the wind, the danger of losing a ball to the beach on the right, and the nature of the land with fairway and apron feeding down to the green from the LHS, i played a 3/4 punchy 5iron, hands down the grip, low trajectory, starting 20-25yards right of the centre of the green, landing short, left, and bouncing toward the flag, but finishing up on the front edge of the green.

My playing partners approach shot - 110 yards to green centre from RHS fairway. Full PW, starting directly on line with the flag and finishing on the beach in amongst the rock pools.

I was left with about a 20 foot putt which had a couple of feet turn, which came up 12 inches short - straightforward 4. My partner fluffed two shots on the rocks before picking up.

Two questions:
Who read the land better in the scenario?
Who was carrying a DMD?

Just because I carry a DMD, doesn't mean I am incapable of reading the land and choosing 'imaginative' ways to play the hole ahead. I used to find when playing new course that 'naturally' it was often difficult to judge distance in front of you. Obviously as you get closer to the hole, this becomes less of an issue, but all you are essentially saying is that local knowledge is becoming less of an advantage.

A few people mention the feeling of cluelessness when faced with a shot where the yardage is not known as if this should not be the way. Surely this just shows that we have become lazy and can no longer judge distances for ourselves?

So people like super who think that we should be handed the yardage on a plate clearly think there is no need to reward those who are better at using their brain and eyes to read the shot. As in the OP I will ask why abandon this skill as opposed to other skills requiring judgement like putting?

What is it about this part of the game that people just don’t value?




Ban

But without the dmd how would you have judged the distance?

The fact you played a more imaginative shot surely only demonstrates that if we abandoned dmd’d etc you would fair better than most.

I tend to agree in general Mac. I think they should have been strangled at birth but it's pretty much too late to remove them now. Then again, I've played many holes where the design is deliberately set up to deceive (i.e. to hide, say, dead ground over a fairway bunker when approaching a green); is that fair? Overall, I'd remove them from the game as I think they go too far but I'm not that much of a zealot about it.

Nice idea to play courses without an official pars on holes. That might be interesting.

Due to the fact the beach rounds the back of the green as well as the RHS, I’d have probably taken less club - 7iron perhaps - and attempted the same shot, meaning I’d have come up about 30-40 yards short and probably in the rough on the RHS, if not, on the beach. Also, one of my playing partners who witnessed the blow (in awe) would have lost the opportunity to see a fully committed and imaginatively conceived shot, beautifully executed.

Mac, there's no need for your condescending snide.
Technology has given us a method to gauge the distance to the hole relatively accurately. What benefit do you gain, (apart from some self satisfied smugness) from being able to judge it by eye.


Is it an art, or just something you get used to. How different is my handicap since I got one. Not that different really, any difference is down more to practice than knowing my distances.


The internet has given you a method on which to satisfy your urges for teenage wizardesses, isn't this sort of thing ruining your artistic imagination.

A dmd doesn't really give me much more than reassurance, I know to within 10 or so yards how far I am, the DMD just confirms it for me.

super_realist wrote:...A dmd doesn't really give me much more than reassurance, I know to within 10 or so yards how far I am, the DMD just confirms it for me.

Which begs the question: why do you need one then?

So at least ban has the guts to admit that without a dmd he cannot always judge the distance to the target landing area. Would folks not agree that there is the implication that greater judgment skills and ability to read the land in order to work out distance is skill that would be needed without the availability of dmd’s?


Super

I am guessing that even before dmd’s you used the yardage markers?

As to your point that technology progresses, well yes it does and when it does you have to decide what aspects of the game you want technology to erode? When it comes to using your eyes and perception of the features to judge the shot needed I do not see the benefits of technology taking away from this part of the game.

Mac,
Do you look at the speedo in your car, or do you just judge how fast you are going?

I don't see what the point of going back to an era where there is no marker post, discs, strokesavers or DMD's.

Do you find golf too easy with your handicap that varies between 4-18?

I can only scratch my head at this post, given that he openly admits to having a DMD??

navyblueshorts wrote:

super_realist wrote:...A dmd doesn't really give me much more than reassurance, I know to within 10 or so yards how far I am, the DMD just confirms it for me.

Which begs the question: why do you need one then?

From certain distances e.g. <150 yards I can hit consistently closer than 10 yards spread, also, it's not always about the pin, I might want to leave myself a shot of a specific distance into a feature less area. This makes judgement a bit more difficult, but I wouldn't consider it an art really.

I think Mac just wants to go back in time so that he's closer in age to his wizardly fancy.

Could all this judgement of distance (or not) have anything to do with the plethora of new courses that sprang up in the 90's and 00's? In 50 years time when the trees are fully matured, it might be easier to get some perception of distance from the green but when I play these courses now, I find it extremely hard to judge the distance to a green.

Doesn't seem to be so much of a problem on older more established courses.

Drive

The oldest courses in the world have no trees.

McLaren wrote:Drive

The oldest courses in the world have no trees.

True, they are all links courses. But there are thousands of non links courses in the UK and they are generally the ones played by the majority of golfers.

Plus, most decent links have some sort of mounding or bunkering that assists in the perception of distance.

there are plenty of things on a links course that give you an idea of distance, bunkers, mounds, bushes etc

McLaren wrote:Drive

The oldest courses in the world have no trees.

They've got gorse though, and the occasional tree (even the old course has some trees)

I do not meant to patronise anyone on this thread but looking back either I have not explained myself properly or some have not understood my point.

It is of course true as super has pointed out many times that technology moves on and dmd'd help us in the same way that thermometers or any other measuring device can. The issue is however is there greater enjoyment to be had playing golf without dmd's or yardage markers.

Equipped with a dmd, course guides and yardage posts you have full knowledge of the course and your next shot at hand and potentially the best possible chance to score low. But you are only scoring low in comparison to other people who also have these devices.

You have to think about golf where no one has these aids and it is your own judgement and skill when it comes to reading the course that dictates a large part of the outcome of your shots. After all golf is a game of shot making and not of distance. There is an obsession which has entered the game centered around distance. By distance i do not just mean the ultimate distance that we associate with modern drivers and course lengthening but that almost every shot is about exact distances and knowing them.

Given this obsession and the use of dms's choosing a club and shot is pre determined and requires little thought. I would like people not to right this idea of as that of a man obsessed with the past but rather think about the interest that could be had when the only information you posses when making a shot is that of which your eyes and intellect can gather at that moment. You have to ask yourself if you would to play a version of golf where the more problem and puzzle solving is present?

McLaren wrote:I do not meant to patronise anyone on this thread but looking back either I have not explained myself properly or some have not understood my point.

It is of course true as super has pointed out many times that technology moves on and dmd'd help us in the same way that thermometers or any other measuring device can. The issue is however is there greater enjoyment to be had playing golf without dmd's or yardage markers.

Equipped with a dmd, course guides and yardage posts you have full knowledge of the course and your next shot at hand and potentially the best possible chance to score low. But you are only scoring low in comparison to other people who also have these devices.

You have to think about golf where no one has these aids and it is your own judgement and skill when it comes to reading the course that dictates a large part of the outcome of your shots. After all golf is a game of shot making and not of distance. There is an obsession which has entered the game centered around distance. By distance i do not just mean the ultimate distance that we associate with modern drivers and course lengthening but that almost every shot is about exact distances and knowing them.

Given this obsession and the use of dms's choosing a club and shot is pre determined and requires little thought. I would like people not to right this idea of as that of a man obsessed with the past but rather think about the interest that could be had when the only information you posses when making a shot is that of which your eyes and intellect can gather at that moment. You have to ask yourself if you would to play a version of golf where the more problem and puzzle solving is present?

Mac, I think you just have to realise that most people are not like you when it comes to golf. They don't always look for a nod to Doak in course design, lust after hickories or look into rose tinted spectacles for days of yore where bunkers weren't raked and greens were cut once a week.
You sound like you should have grown up in the 1950's and not the 1980's.
What I still find strange though is that you suggest that new technology definitely has to curtail the enjoyment you can yield from a round, unless it somehow steps 60 years back in time to the days of Spiv shoes and Spitfires, yet you readily admit to having a DMD as if you can be excused but no one can have as much fun as you playing golf because you "understand" how it used to, and "should" be played.
It's almost as if your holier than thou attitude to golf, or some kind of virginal purity you attach to the old fashioned golf is somehow better than the way we play it now simply because it's old.

Just because it is the way we used to do things, doesn't make it better or more fun, just means that you see it differently.

Do you prefer playing football with hobnail boots and a lace up ball soaked in water and played on a waterlogged pitch, or does the technology of better footwear and a lighter ball make it better?

McLaren wrote:Equipped with a dmd, course guides and yardage posts you have full knowledge of the course and your next shot at hand and potentially the best possible chance to score low. But you are only scoring low in comparison to other people who also have these devices.

Mac, surely these elements just take away another excuse as to why you didn't play well or score low. We all know someone that can blame almost anything and everything as to the reason they scored 10 shots over their handicap. Adding I didn't know how far it was is only going to give them the opportunity to tell you that if they'd know it was 150 yards they would have hit a 7 instead of their 125 yard duffed 8 iron.

I've been doing some research into the legality of the iPhone and there is lots of contradictory information issued from the R&A and USGA about its use.

The primary issue is the inclusion of the Compass on later iPhone models and everything points to it being illegal but without the R&A expressly saying so. A USGA spokesman gives more hope that an iPhone would not be illegal but his comment is from 2009 which is likely before the time a Compass became an unremovable App on the iPhone.

I can't believe this wasn't resolved in the new Rules update. Why the continued ambiguity?

Also, this Compass rule/discussion is blooming ridiculous. Who would ever use a compass to aid their shot decision? Get real, you blazered buffoons!

What benefit would a compass give?

super_realist wrote:What benefit would a compass give?

Exactly.

The one I've read is that you can locate north and determine where the sun will be and consequently work out which direction the grass is facing as the flat-side of the blade turns to face the sun.



I can't believe this is true.

Ha ha, that is a terrible excuse,
You can use the position of the hour and minute hands on a watch and the position of the sun to find out your compass bearing if you need.
I can't believe anyone has EVER used a compass for that reason.

Compass is to do with knowing the wind direction when you are sheltered from the wind, I think. Although I am sure that I read that Langer used to get his caddie to keep one. Even without one I is not beyond the wit of man to have the course map and work out which way is north just using that and checking at the start of the round.

I thought that the iPhone issue was more to do with getting outside advice such as changing weather/wind speed and advice like course advice from others playing in front of you.

Back to the OP. The chief beneficiaries of DMDs are players who do not know the course so you have real home course advantage. I have a GPS but probably only use it a couple of times a round as I know the course and it is really just to confirm what I want. All of the clever pieces of design to fool my eye don't really have an effect as I know that the slope is deceptive here so one extra club, etc. I do use the distance markers but think after a round or two I would be able to go back to using trees and so on.

I find the idea of going back to no aids a funny one as the best players of almost all ages used caddies who paced out or knew the hit but for some reason it is expected that hackers like me should get the same info when really we are the ones who really need it!

It's a compass, not a weather vane!
You should be able to see which way the wind is blowing by being observant.

twoeightnine wrote:Compass is to do with knowing the wind direction when you are sheltered from the wind, I think.

I've read this before as well but it doesn't make any sense. How will you know where the wind is coming from? It's not from a constant direction. It could be coming from SW, NSW, W. It's a ridiculous rule.

I think the wind and temperature issues are fine providing you don't have those Apps on your phone. The compass App is the problem because you can't delete it.

I've got an anemometer, dew point meter, thermometer, inclinometer, theodolite, total station, weather vane and soil pH equipment in my bag I set up on the tee before I play.

Should I be banned?