Golf Club Technology is not New – However, my concert regards new technology is not that its new or earthshattering but that it does not replace skill which is the prime mover in making golf what it is to each Golfer. Technology to maintain or improve stability, to give longevity is why we should embrace it but never, never if it gives us even one inch of extra distance or replaces skill. In Golf the only one that counts is the Golfer playing his game to the best of his ability. Any Golfer or player that resorts to technology to improve or even maintain his/her game should without a doubt be reported for cheating. The R&A, The Club, other Golfers and players should feel very much aggrieved if this became common place on our golf courses - Ops it is common place thanks to the inability of our Governing Body to understand the basic simplicities of the game – The Golfer plays unaided. As golf developed in the 19th Century, first with the development of real design intent in Golf Course Architecture, improved course condition now that it had real constructed form followed by a slow catch up of the clubs/ball, started by the introduction of the Gutty ball. This period circa 1850-1899 was the development of the modern game, as mentioned above by seeing design shaping courses, they in turn being maintained now that their own shape and form was acknowledge requiring the stability of a reliable ball and a set of clubs not just to comply with the ball but to embrace the new designed format of the modern golf course. In my opinion that was achieved by the end of the 19thCentury, turn of the 20th Century, from the latter date all development in distance improvement should have been stopped however new manufacturing materials and processes should still be welcome as long as it just sustained the game and golfer but did not offer one inch of extra control or distance over the ball. Alas this never happened, the Governing Body had not realised what had been achieved and were happy for technology to nearly run wild to the point that many a modern golfer and player does not consider it wrong to use aids, or obtaining help or assistance (which actually replaces both skill and the need to learn and understand skill) by purchasing the latest fad club or ball as long as it gets then to the pin in fewer shots. If only the R&A had the intelligence or the ability understand the game of golf in those great Golden Day of Golf and Golf Course Architecture then the game today would maintain the real glory of the Royal & Ancient Game of Golf that took the world by storm. Hence my wish to see a technology roll back to the distances the ball travelled way back by the turn of the 20th Century – this is the ‘Line in The Sand’ that I would draw because it would have embraced the great wonderful Holes that the second Golden Age guys copied and are still templated to this day, yet were born in the 1878-80’s and the wonders devised by Colt, Mackenzie, Simpson, Braid etc., etc., into the early 1900’s to 1930’s. However, the current mess, total farce and out of touch policies of the Governing Body is the product of them not being accountable for their rather piss poor action over the last Century. Today they oversee a sport based on the principal of buying skill using replacement equipment be they in the form of clubs, balls, carts and of measuring devices. In any other sport it would be openly labelled as cheating. Nevertheless, we cannot say that for fear of upsetting friends and family who do not have the balls or the commitment to play the real game of golf in the first place, so in golf a game with its own special and clear Etiquette we have to tolerate comments like ‘Live and Let Live’ which translated into golf language is a Charter for Cheats , alas it is tolerated by the very people that are meant to protect the Game of Golf, so much for their duty of care.. Technology is not evil, nor is ignorance but the inability of not noticing the damage incurred over the last 70-100 years on golf and our golf courses or to rectify it can very much be defined as evil. Anyway, look at the Golf arms race circa 1894 and enjoy the quality of the early engineering in the following photos.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:45:53 +0000
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