Golf

[Rapples]

I've just heard a golfer on the TV blame his last place on maybe not getting his food intake quite right on the way round

Is golf an endurance sport??

[Cyclops]

Is golf an endurance sport??

Well watching it certainly is. Mind you haven't watched it in a while after I bought a DVD of some paint drying

[delthebike]

Is golf an endurance sport??

Well watching it certainly is. Mind you haven't watched it in a while after I bought a DVD of some paint drying

<anorak>I like the pastel shades series and lime wash on wattle and daub. </anorak>

[Cunobelin]

“Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.”

Winston Churchill

[Aidan]

I've just heard a golfer on the TV blame his last place on maybe not getting his food intake quite right on the way round

Thats called a grasping at straws excuse for being a crap golfer

[rogerzilla]

I think it's a good game played by some unspeakably awful social climbers.    I know there are others (my brother-in-law plays, and he's a postman) but the number of people at work who take it up, just to hobnob with the directors, makes me 

[toontra]

I think it's a good game played by some unspeakably awful social climbers.   

Maybe true in some areas, but in Scotland it's still a game for the ordinary folk as it was originated.  A lot of the best courses (e.g. St Andrews) are actually public courses run by the local council, so you'll see people walking their dogs across the fairway and old fellows with a half-bag of clubs out on their own having paid a few quid mixed in with the Yanks and Japanese.  Its mainly outside Scotland that the game had been hijacked by the snobs.

Regarding the stamina, it's bloody knackering playing a long, hilly course (7,000 yards+) on a hot day I can tell you, and I usually take snacks with me if I remember.  My game is so poor though I wouldn't have the nerve to blame nutrition for a bad round.  The main thing about golf, though, is it's sheer, perverse masochism - you never play as well as you'd like.  Makes cycling long distances seem like a doddle. 

[Rapples]

But these guys don't even carry their own bags

[Jaded]

toontra is right. Some of my happiest memories of golf have been of rounds played on Scottish courses.

Its just about the only game where a mediocre amateur can take on the best players in the world on an equal basis. It is also one where rules are scrupulously followed and honesty is a necessity. Yesterday at The Masters a player's ball moved fractionally as he addressed it, he reported it and received a one stroke penalty.

This thread is a bit like the ballet thread. Participants in an activity that most people don't undestand happily taking pot shots at an activity they don't understand.

[rogerzilla]

I feel like the BD, in that no-one reads my posts properly 

[Wowbagger]

I remember an ancient Australian who used to fish for trout at Hanningfield Reservoir. Ask him how he was doing and the reply was, more often than not: "No bloody fish all bloody day! It's enough to make you take up golf!"

[Rapples]

This thread is a bit like the ballet thread. Participants in an activity that most people don't undestand happily taking pot shots at an activity they don't understand.

I'm not taking a pop at the game, or the people that play it

I just don't see how correct "fuelling" during the game can have a significant effect on the outcome.

[toontra]

I just don't see how correct "fuelling" during the game can have a significant effect on the outcome.

As you say, the bloke in question was almost certainly looking for an excuse.  In terms of nutritional needs, a round in one of these events will take minimum 4 hours, plus the fannying about beforehand, so most people would think of taking snacks if out for 5 hours whatever they were doing. 

The energy expended is admittedly not great (a 4-5 mile walk with occasional pauses to hit the ball), but the game at that level is largely psychological, so players are always looking for thing to give them an edge, or more usually things to blame.  It's usually the putter that gets thrown in the lake.

[Si]

This thread is a bit like the ballet thread. Participants in an activity that most people don't undestand happily taking pot shots at an activity they don't understand.

I'm not taking a pop at the game, or the people that play it

I just don't see how correct "fuelling" during the game can have a significant effect on the outcome.

Well it's not really a game of super human physical endurance, but it does require a fair bit of mental endurance for those playing at the pop level where £1000s can hang on every put.  And as all the to-do about feeding school children might show: diet does affect concentration.  OF course this argument may fall down flat when you compare golf to snooker and darts, two more games that require a fair bit of mental fortitude at the top level, and look at the average player's intake during an event.

[rogerzilla]

If golf is a sport, so is darts.

[Cyclops]

  OF course this argument may fall down flat when you compare golf to snooker and darts, two more games that require a fair bit of mental fortitude at the top level, and look at the average player's intake during an event.

At least in recent years snooker and darts players have cut back on the booze and fags. Unless they were at the oche/ table they permanently had a pint or fag in their hands. Bill Werbernuik even managed to get Income Tax deductions for beer as he convinced the Inland Revenue he needed to drink 14 pints a day to steady his nerves and allow him to play.

I do vaguely remember some golf pro getting stick for drinking a can of beer during a round. I've got a feeling it may have been Sam Torrance

[saturn]

Nutrition is indeed important for golf. I need a Mars bar half-way round and for post-round recovery a bacon sarnie hits the spot. Mind you, the pro's take 5 1/2 hours over a round, at that rate I'd need a good lunch at some stage during the game.

[Rapples]

Nutrition is indeed important for golf. I need a Mars bar half-way round and for post-round recovery a bacon sarnie hits the spot. Mind you, the pro's take 5 1/2 hours over a round, at that rate I'd need a good lunch at some stage during the game.

At least your not  a middle classed Museli Muncher

[pcolbeck]

I don't play golf or really have any interest in it except bizarrely for the US Masters from Augusta which is on telly at the moment. I always watch it. I think I used to watch it as a kid with my dad and it's kind of got locked in to my mind as a harbinger of spring.

[toontra]

I don't play golf or really have any interest in it except bizarrely for the US Masters from Augusta which is on telly at the moment. I always watch it. I think I used to watch it as a kid with my dad and it's kind of got locked in to my mind as a harbinger of spring.

Yes, it's a bit like the Grand National of golf.  Something to do with the surreal colour of the course and the slick (almost spookily so) presentation.  Peter Alliss said the course reminds him of the Letham Grange old course, which is my local when in Scotland.  I've never been there in spring when all the azaleas are out but it's still a very pretty course at other times of the year - I like to think of it as my Augusta!  And it's certainly a course that requires nutrition - very long and very hilly!

[saturn]

Nutrition is indeed important for golf. I need a Mars bar half-way round and for post-round recovery a bacon sarnie hits the spot. Mind you, the pro's take 5 1/2 hours over a round, at that rate I'd need a good lunch at some stage during the game.

At least your not  a middle classed Museli Muncher

Maybe not but I do have standards and never take beer before the 19th hole. On the coldest days of winter however, hipflasks containing (briefly) drambuie & whisky are perfectly acceptable after only a few holes.

The Masters is worth watching if only to marvel at the beautifully manicured course.

[nutkin]

I'm not a particularly big fan of golf, but I found myself watching The Masters last night and getting fascinated by the number of times the ball skimmed the edge of the hole.
I finally dragged myself to bed at midnight.


I think I need help.

[alecstilleyedye]

I feel like the BD…

well you know where he lives then

[Zipperhead]

I used to share an office with 3 others. All they ever talked about was golf. If it was quiet, as well as talking about it they would play in on one of the PC's.

In the end I had to move offices before I went postal.

Flying over SE England, it's depressing how many golf courses there are, all looking so similar from above. Grass free of any trees or flowers, sand bunkers here & there.

[Adam]

Flying over SE England, it's depressing how many golf courses there are, all looking so similar from above. Grass free of any trees or flowers, sand bunkers here & there.

Very true.  I'd hate to think how much water is wasted in summer to keep the greens in a green-ish state.