Interesting read from Geoff Ogilvy: golf has "dumbed (him) down."

https://www.golfaustralia.com.au/feature/ogilvy-i-cant-help-feeling-it-has-dumbed-me-down-as-a-golfer-538520

Good Read. Was interested in everyones thoughts.

With current equipment, will it be less likely that we'll see another Seve, Sergio or Tiger?

Can't even spell his own name right.

What else is new?

I will read it. But I don’t have to , to know it’s true. I’ve been screaming it since I came here.

Of course. Bubba is out there now. New kids will figure out new things that can be done with the current equipment.

It's not like the game is easy. For anyone, regardless of their level.

Game is easy for guys like GO especially with modern clubs. For us mere mortals maybe not so much.

That all makes sense, especially the conditions on tour. Most of these guys (not all) throw a fit when they have a less than perfect lie or green.

I agree, let the fairways grow a little and not be so perfect/fast. Don't make all the bunkers perfectly even and fluffy sand. Would be more fun to watch.

I remember in the 80’s and 90’s how Many Of the “great minds” said there were too many clones, good players, and forgiveness in equipment and balls for a player to be able to separate themselves from the field

tiger. apparently never heard about that

You know, maybe he's onto something. I was thinking about this and realized that back in the day, the top players were people like Nicklaus, Player, Palmer. Pretty cerebral guys with ample intellect on and off the course.

Now we are seeing DJ and Koepka.

Maybe the equipment is literally dumbing them down?

So, conditions are just too good? And somehow, this poor guy has accumulated enough money to basically retire at 42. Jack tried coarse rakes at the Memorial one year and it was greeted with howls. Dude, play in the real world.

Trying to remember the last time Ogilvy was relevant... I think it was a long time ago....

Bubba's a bit on the "older" side no? I don't mean to say that the game is too easy but less creativity is needed with the current generation of junior golfers.

Lol. Exactly. Could they get through the corn maze at Halloween .... even if they held hands and DJ tried to look over to find the way ? Not sure.

I think he should quit the a Tour and join us hacks out in the real world. We get less than pristine conditions, bad lies, crappy sand, idiot playing partners and we actually pay good money to do it. Poor Geoff. How sad that 0.1% of golfers have it so tough. Boo Hoo!

What a sad commentary from a guy who's washed up. Instead of taking responsibility for his diminished skills, he blames equipment for dumbing down his senses. LOL, when will the whining about the state of the game end? GFY

It won’t ever end. Rich, entitled privileged guys can't help but whine. They are too used to their own perfection.

Sounds like he is talking about the public tracks I play. Soft sand, hard sand, no sand, dust on crust, grainy sand, powdery sand, etc. I play a variety of different courses and they all have differing bunker conditions. Really hard to adjust and have to play close face, open face, more bounce, less bounce, 60 degree, 56 degree, etc. It is so nice to play a course with normal bunkers and hit a stock bunker shot with a 56 or 60. Lol.

He's won two full-field PGA events in his career, 1 opposite event, and the rest limited field or matchplay.

I wonder how he would have turned out if the shots weren't so easy to pull off.

Previously found his golf commentary fairly interesting for golf commentary, this just comes off as a grumpy old man having a whinge.

I don't think that's the point he's trying to make... merely that pros playing on perfect conditions are less adaptable than when setup was less one dimensional.

He's not saying Pros are less skilled, just that they have fine tuned their skill set to what's on offer week in week out on the Tour... super fast greens and predictable fairways. I don't feel he's coming across as whining, just telling how the game differs from a decade ago.

He is absolutely saying that, it's all over the article....easier to play today due to equipment and conditions, less shotmaking, shaping the ball, etc. Of course he throws a bone or two towards the modern player and their skill, but he can't have it both ways. It's a back handed compliment at best and he's clearly not happy with the state of his game or the tour anymore. Kudos to him for admitting it. Time to go away then and find his love for the game. Nothing stopping him or anyone else from doing so. Same tired old argument in a slightly different way. He's not fooling me any.

Old equipment. New equipment.

Haven't been able to buy a swing all these years and that's what the game is all about.

Hitting the shot. Doesn't matter to me if I'm hitting my first set of Spalding irons or some beautiful new offerings. If I miss the shot I still missed the shot.

Some weird takes in here. The guy isn't whining, he is just stating the obvious facts. The game has changed for the Tour player due to equipment and course conditions and he explains how it has. nothing more nothing less. Like saying the sky is blue.

He's just expressing his own feelings. How can you disagree (or attack him over his views)?

As a matter of fact, it is the same conclusion you hear from a lot of people whom have played golf in the 80ies and 90ies, have been away from the game for a while and came back to the game in the past 10-15 years: the game of golf has changed. And a lot of these people say it has changed for the worse, some others like the new game. I think the increase of people going back to persimmon or hickory is a result of that. You may not agree on their way of looking at it, but is it therefore wrong?

Is someone that calls old cars better than new cars wrong because a Prius is better that Mustang from '75? Am I wrong for liking vinyl and turntables better than mp3's and Sonos? I think the vinyl sounds better, and the ease of use of mp3's, Spotify or Sonos does not outweigh that for me. To others the ease of use of modern music carriers may be more important than sound quality or esthetics. Same goes for golf: I prefer to play my persimmon driver and am going to buy old wound balls off of ebay because I can't stand the way the modern ball dictates how i should play. I would not give that up for more forgiveness or length by using a 460cc driver and a modern ball. No matter what i score. If someone else makes the opposite decision, why would that effect me? I don't care, you just play as you like.

Ogilvy preferred a game where you would have to make more choices and where you had more options. Where creativity played a larger part in the game than it does today. And looking at the distance debate, he's right: golf is all about athleticism, strength, technique and technology. Not about creativity anymore.

He's right.

The advent of the spikeless era.

I like the article. None of it effects the local Am. player. It maybe has changed the pro game. The courses I play are all different. All the conditions he described still are there, just not in the pro game.

Everything anybody does is adapted to the era they learned in or grew up in. I grew up on TV, my son does not go near one. Everything he does is on a phone or I Pad. He's doing the same thing I was just in a different way, based on his era.

The players now are a product of the era they learned in. The older players learned in a different era. All he is really pointing out is that he does not need all those speciality shots anymore and they are no longer in his arsenal of shots due to the course setups and equipment. Most of what these guys write has no bearing on the Am. game at all. It has not changed. The courses are different, the equipment has not made anybody all that much better. I do not work the ball. I have never had to. I never learned the game with the old wound ball. I hit a straight shot most the time.

He's right in everything he says.

On the PGA tour the courses are set up very similar week in week out always in great condition, with amazing greens, you only have to look at the US Ryder cup team when they play in Europe, suddenly the fairways are narrower, the rough is up, the sand isn't lovely and fluffy, and the greens aren't as fast and a bit more "bobbly", and guess what.. they struggle, think it was 93 the last time the US won in Europe

Good to see more American players now playing in Europe and getting use to different courses and conditions, though they do tend to only play the biggest events which usually means the best kept courses.

I think his point flew over most of your heads.

he’s not whining as you say. He’s actually saying that conditions are too perfect , clubs and the ball are too one dimensional. And he can say that since he’s of the age group who saw the change. Younger guys don’t know that. They didn’t live it. That’s all. It’s that simple. There’s no “1%er out of touch with the people “ happening here. Geoff is one of the most even keeled humble guys out there.

I remember the first time I putted tour level greens, I was making everything.

Oh, I get what he thinks he's saying, but it's like anything else that you work at really hard and do it over and over again. You can become really good at it and what you perceive as being no longer creative or too easy, is because you have done it so many times that you don't have to think about it anymore.

No different than University Calculus or Physics. You work at it and do so many problems, that what you once perceived as hard and required thinking, you can do automatically and is easy. It can become boring unless there is another level of complexity. He might not even realize that he is executing a hard shot that requires a lot of things to happen because he has done it so many times.

What has happened to Ogilvy is that it has become boring and he doesn't even think about it. No challenge to him as he perceives it. Meanwhile, the other 99% of the golfers that aren't as good, find it just as challenging and requires planning and thought to achieve a good score - every time. Maybe for the very few, golf has become too easy, but I have never perceived it that way - for more than 9 holes.