The Game
For one or two weeks out of the year, it would be alright to play up the fun and camaraderie of the game, yes even the professional game, to remind us that first and foremost golf is about more than what is captured on a scorecard, no matter how good a player you are. Here's to Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and the good golf times they helped create!
Did you know that your mind is still flexible, maleable at 60 and 70? Did you know that you can successfully learn new behaviors, say playing the violin, at the ripe age of 65? So for 2011 let's throw out the old adage 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks'.
I'm sure there are some things I've overlooked. So feel free to send in your own ideas. If you know someone who wasn't fortunate enough to have a dad like mine to explain these things, print this out and let them read it. Golf is too great a game to let ignorance or selfishness ruin it.
I like Peter Kostis as a commentator and swing analyzer on TV. Now I can add that I like his ideas on changing some of golf's rules. I don't say this lightly, as much of golf's mystique comes from it's culture of rules and self-policing. However, even golf can improve itself from time to time.
Kostis wrote a piece for Golf.com the other day about some much needed rule changes in 5 different areas. I'm in complete agreement about four of them, though I have to give the one on 'dropping the ball' some more thought.
He addresses; bunkers versus waste ...
I can see how this would upset someone who's not a golfer and typically follows sports like basketball where the rules have been so decimated and abused that no one really knows what they are anymore or how a given official on a given night and for a given player is going to interpret them. We golfers don't have that problem. The rules are the same for you and me as they are for Tiger Woods. They can't be bent, broken or selectively interpreted. And that is what makes Golf the game it is.
My best golf rounds have ALWAYS been when I was paying no attention to score. Once I realize I might be having a season best round it all goes to hell in a handbasket. In some ways that's golf's enduring mystery and charm. A round of golf is not so much something you do as something you watch unfold.
I've played long enough to know that success in the game will always be an up and down affair. I also know that personally I score better when scoring is completely out of my mind.
Last week, Michelle Wie once again ran afoul of the rules at the Kia Classic. There's no sin in that and this time she called herself on the infraction and asked the officials for a ruling. So far so good. Unfortunately her interaction with the officials was televised to the world. Instead of stating her case and taking the officials ruling gracefully, she proceeded to whine about not being understood and not being treated fairly for way too long. She came across more as a 12 year old arguing with a parent over making her bed than as an adult respectful of the game and its officials.
So last weekend I headed out to the
National Golf Expo show in Boston. I will be sharing some of my observations in some upcoming posts but I first wanted to share with you my "Dumbest Golf Game Product of 2010" (who knows, maybe there will be more but, in my opinion, this is a front runner!)
The product is called the Arnold Palmer Indoor Golf Game and obviously it looks like it is somehow endorsed by "The King." Are you kidding me? This was, head and shoulders, the biggest piece of crap I saw at the show. How could Arnold endorse this thing? Maybe he was under the influence ...
You can fall from grace and still do great things. Maybe you have to fall from grace to do the greatest things. Tiger, forget beating Jack and show us all the true nature of golf.
