Golf: sport or not

[bobb]

It's for working out your shot yardages.

[Noodley]

This reminds me of when, in my youth(ish), I used to go to the Open golf thingy with my mates, and posh middle aged blokes would get outraged that some oik (me) bumped into them cos I was pissed.  I never did find out why they were not, as the entire thing seemed geared up for drunken piss taking.  And there were always plenty of laydeez who never seemed to worry about someone being an oik.  I never wore RTs tho, maybe I shoulda.

[Noodley]

It's for working out your shot yardages.

<bites fist and yet at the same time rejoices>

[Wowbagger]

Should one wear a helmet when playing golf?

I've had a golf ball driven straight into my back before. It didn't really hurt much tbh.

I've been hit on the head by cricket balls quite a few times and I once drove a juicy half volley right into the bowler's forehead. He dropped so fast I thought for a moment that I'd killed a man! He was OK though. H*lmets are overrated...

It must have been Brian Close.

[Euan Uzami]

But WHY?

It's not like you travel any great distance.
It's not like you're going to get lost.
It's not a race, so speed around the course is not an issue.

What's the POINT of it?

Does it have built-in POIs of the local dogging sites or something?

It's for working out your shot yardages.

Yes, and knowing where a bunker is, where the rough is, and where the green is, as you can't always see these things from the start point.

[RJ]

<golf ignoramus>

Isn't that cheating?

[bobb]

It was banned for a while in competition, but I think most clubs have lifted that now. I suppose it isn't considered cheating as you are given course maps with yardages anyway, so it's no different to swapping from paper maps to a GPS on a bike.

So if you consider riders in Le Tour having GPS with the locations of climbs and stuff stored on them rather than having them taped to their top tubes cheating, then yes, it is!

I can't see myself ever using one.

[clarion]

If you've played the course before, or even walked around it, you'd have the knowledge, so it doesn't strike me as cheating.

[Jaded]

I've used my Edge705 for this purpose. 

[bobb]

If you've played the course before, or even walked around it, you'd have the knowledge, so it doesn't strike me as cheating.

Well, if you play in competitions you end up playing loads of courses you've never played before, so you don't really have any idea what's in store. Obviously professionals get to walk and play courses before the competition starts - a luxury club players don't get.

I've always found the yardage charts sufficient. Anyway, I know how far I can hit each club to an accuracy greater than GPS can give!


 

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

It must be useful to know where the windmill, water feature and surprise tunnels are.

[mattc]

But do they work in tunnels?!? Gps is overrated!!!

[LEE]

"Rory McIlroy says he probably won't even watch television coverage of golf at this summer's Olympic Games, preferring "track and field, swimming, diving, the stuff that matters".

Nice to find someone who agrees with my views on Golf.  I just didn't expect it to come from a top Golferist.

Golf can't be considered a sport when .........





..... these people can play it at world level.

Seriously they both look like my Nan's lady friends.

[trekker12]

At least he's being honest and not using the Zika virus excuse. Golf shouldn't be in the Olympics and it's clearly not a goal for the top players. You don't see Usain Bolt claiming he's not going because of Zika.

It's a desperate attempt by Golf's top authorities to stop people finding more interesting (and considerably cheaper) things to do for six hours on a Saturday morning and it's backfiring. Unfortunately I suspect it's not backfiring enough because sponsors and TV executives like it so the IOC are unlikely to kick it out. It's guaranteed for the 2020 games anyway.

Lee, I can't view both images (I suspect that's something to do with my company firewall) but the second picture is John Daly, one of the most notable golfers of the late 90's and early 00's. One of his business interests is his own line of golf clothing called Loudmouth Golf. He was always known for his sartorial elegance!

[LEE]

The Olympics is a 2nd rate trophy for many sports, Golf included.

The Olympics really exists as the pinnacle of a sport, where it isn't then it shouldn't be included.

The Augusta masters is the pinnacle of Golf as far as I can tell. You also get a zillion dollars and a new coat.

If you included Snooker then the Olympics would come a poor 2nd to the Sheffield Crucible event.

No Olympics road-race Champion ever waved his medal in the face of a Tour de France winner.

You can usually tell how important the Olympics are to a sport by checking where the Top 10 competitors are during the Olympics. 
Barring injury they should all be there if it's the pinnacle.

I can't comment on John Daley's attire.  It's no worse than some less baggy cycling attire I've witnessed.

[trekker12]

I was going to mention some non-educated people make comment on cycling attire in other forums!

The problem lies in popular sports many of us play. Most football fans would be quite upset if the most popular game in the world wasn't in the Olympics but it's usually a side show as we are all too busy watching the sports we don't normally see the rest of the time. As we know an Olympic gold is nothing to a footballer in comparison to the Champions League or the World Cup but it's got to be in the Olympics because more people play football than anything else. It's an under 23 tournament so the top players don't need to find rubbish excuses to not go.

Cycling is harder to quantify. The road race isn't equal to the TDF but track cycling is based entirely around the Olympic cycle and the elite athletes whose entire career is based on the track will aim for Olympic gold over anything else. Alternatively you will get the likes of Mark Cavendish finding something is missing from his trophy cabinet.

The joy of the Olympics is that we can pick and choose as spectators, I watch Augusta every year and will watch this weeks Open, I won't watch the Olympic golf. Unfortunately golf is taking the place of an alternatively worthwhile sport which would be the pinnacle of someone's career because it's governing body has more money and therefore influence than another potential sport.

[Exit Stage Left]

The Olympics should revert to the Olympian ideal. It should not be another showcase for those who make their money from sport, combined with petty nationalism.
I've no objection to them featuring any sport with a wide enough participation to justify inclusion, be that golf, bowls or Zumba for that matter.
I'm very much in favour of a village hall Olympics, where the gold medal winners get to draw the raffle.

[trekker12]

Which unfortunately is very unlikely to happen. Even the 'pure' sports of the original Olympic ideal are full of professional athletes so the best in the world won't attend. The 100m without Usain Bolt would be unthinkable to most people.

[Ben T]

what's in the olympics doesn't really have anything to do with sport. Wrestling, ffs. 

[Mr Larrington]

Though neither of the two wrestling disciplines in the Olympics is the kind of thing done by masked Mexicans, Hulk Hogan or Kendo Nagasaki.  Not to mention having been there practically since the beginning...

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

what's in the olympics doesn't really have anything to do with sport. Wrestling, ffs. 

Have you explained that to any wrestlers?

[LittleWheelsandBig]

The original Olympic sports match the motto 'Faster, higher, stronger' or are basically practice for combat. Wrestling is in the latter category.

[jsabine]

Isn't the definition of a sport coloured by whether or not you can do it while smoking a fag and drinking a pint?

No=Sport, Yes=Pastime - so I guess it comes down to whether or not your golf cart has cupholders.

[LEE]

Isn't the definition of a sport coloured by whether or not you can do it while smoking a fag and drinking a pint?

No=Sport, Yes=Pastime

I'm an Audaxer.  That tends to blur the lines.

[pcolbeck]

The Olympics should revert to the Olympian ideal. It should not be another showcase for those who make their money from sport, combined with petty nationalism.

I'm not sure there ever was an "Olympian ideal" in practice. The Olympics in the ancient world would have had contestants who were from the professional warier class (which I know for many Greek city states included most of the landed citizenry) and there was inter city rivalry over contestants plus large sums of money or goods for the winners.