Is Legacy the Problem with Golf?

With all the craziness that is Bryson and the non stop “roll back the ball” talk I had a passing thought.

I wonder if legacy and it’s propagation is the problem with golf these days? 

I would argue that golf is not doing fine, or poorly for that matter, but doing exactly what it should be (and he been) doing all along. It’s evolving. 

It would seem that every armchair bandit out there has a problem either with how golf is being played, how the governing bodies are governing, or how equipment is ruining the game. 

I propose the problem is legacy and how we assume things should remain the same (read: how it used to be when I was younger). “Good old days” is a term that is often used when engaging in nostalgia, remembering only the positive aspects of times past while sweeping associated negatives under the rug. It has also been called the Golden Age Fallacy and I believe it is ruining the golf on tv experience. 

The Golf Channel definitely propagates it with their non stop love affair with past champions. Especially Jack, Arnold, and Tiger. They do it through many other forms as well. 

I wonder if there is a correlation to legacy and your current age? Do we think 19 year old Korn Ferry competitors want the ball to be rolled back? 

I guess i’m just rambling and thinking “on paper” but I’d be curious to know what everyone thinks. Is legacy hurting the game?

Must be, I’m apparently too old to remember my opinion the other 50 times this has come up.

ok boomer...did I do that right?

If this is old, fogey “legacy”, then Id argue the current game is light years *behind the times ; )

I doubt the KF guys see this and think, yeah, that’s how old geezers play...

Of course it is. Golf has always had that problem of hanging on to the older golfers (as most of their playing population skews older than other sports), and attracting new younger golfers. Let's not pretend young golfers think Tiger is awesome. He wasn't dominating anymore in their teens. 25 year old now, 15 year old in 2010. Maybe they caught the end of it. But for 20 year olds, and the junior golfers nowadays, they know Tiger the legend, but they would connect more with BDC who is 26. Spieth, JT, Fowler, Koepka. The same golfers that the older generation doesn't really get. It's like in basketball, or if you talk to young people, you'd realize that the stars or music that they like and idolize is not only different, but they probably don't know who you are talking about. Tiger is different of course, he is still the major star whose star has lasted a very long time.

But different fans want different things. You can't please them all.

There have been a lot of positive developments since Tiger arrived, the fact that it's "cool" to play golf, lots of professional sportspeople and celebrities play, not just seen as a game for old men as much anymore. The standard of play has never been higher and the fact that the world of golf has a chance to compete against each other regularly is a great development. It's not that long ago that most of the best players from Europe/Australia etc only played against the best American players once or twice a year max. The movement towards athleticism is a good thing, treject he idea that the game was better when half the players were overweight and unfit.

However, I do think that the game has an issue with the ball/distance and the risk/reward nature of golf has become too skewed towards reward in recent years. Too many tournament courses have hardly any rough. You grew up being taught about golf with the aim to hit the fairway and if you hit it as hard as you can you risk being in the rough and it seriously affecting your ability to get it on the green. Now it feels it doesn't matter a lot of the time where a drive ends up as long as it's not out of bounds or directly behind a tree.

Driving is an important skill in golf no doubt and it's a skill to be a long driver of the ball. But nearly all the best players in the world are great drivers, you look at the top 20 in the world and I'd say more than half the best skill they have is driving, and maybe it's 1) modern equipment makes it too easy to be a great driver 2) the balance between driving and other skills is skewed. There should still be a route to the top for a Luke Donald or Jim Furyk-type player but I'm not sure there is.

Only two of the top 10 players average under 300 yards now, and only 5 in top 20. And Simpson, Reed, Rose and Hatton are all just under 300 and none are that short. In the top 20 the only short hitter is really Matt Kuchar.

Golf is dictated by money, not legacy. If there was actually a large enough number of golfers who didn't like watching the game as it is today (the long ball), and t.v. viewership numbers declined drastically, the PGA Tour would change it's model. Same with the equipment companies. It's what golfers want today, much to the chagrin of "traditionalists".

Modernism in golf is always the ying to the the traditionalist yang. There is no problem in my mind between the balance struck between the two. The problem to me would be if one side completely dominated the other and I do not think that is the case at all.

I think you're overthinking this.

The problem is not a legacy problem, it's a problem of population doubling every 20 years, which means we're surrounded by double the number of fools and stupid people every 20 years. All with internet connections.

20, 30, 40 years ago, you weren't exposed to that many stupid people in everyday life. If you were, you could just walk away or ignore them.

Now, with the internet, we're all bombarded by fools every minute.

i have an 18 yo nephew ... he doesn't give a damn about jt, bad, rickie or koepka ... tiger is the man for him ... i think most young golfers are the same, esp after tiger's last two seasons ...

I am afraid that the modern, "hit the driver as hard as possible, because it is possible with 460 cc drivers and highly engineered balls" is actually putting shorter players off, and out of the game. In the league where I play, the younger guys swing lights out; they brag to each other how far off the tee; and they hit 3 fairways out of 7 and lose balls on the others. It has become how far, and not how many, for a few of them. I call it driving range golf.

On the other hand, i have had a lot of fun playing a reduced distance ball on par three courses. It's easier on the back and shoulders, and takes a lot less time. The only part of that game that doesn't quite work is the putting, because the ball is lighter. But I don't sweat about that too much. Wind is more of a factor, but there's nothing wrong with having to be creative in the wind.

Ha! You make the a great point on the viral proliferation of social media impacting attention span and social behavior.

Golf is a game of brief moments of intensity combined with intervals of....walking, standing, calculating, and talking.

The need for immediate gratification and complete lack of patience in today’s “swipe” next, “click” next, world does not mix well with a plodding, strategic, approach to golf. A game that is already relatively slow moving. But that’s part of the beauty of the game, really.

On top of it all, social media encourages idiotic behavior from both players and fans. As well as disdain for anything that happened more than 6 months ago, much less a generation ago.

I just realized Soloman might have been talking about us.

Oh, that goes without saying. Well, me anyway ; )

The internet makes fools think they're experts. Look at all of the recently minted epidemiologists on social media now.

There is not enough new stuff (or maybe they refuse to air it - Champions, LPGA, Euro, Am events) to fill up the time without bringing up the past.

I think you have one of two options. You go baseball where past stats and history matters or you go football and mold your product to fit what the masses want to see on tv, stats and history be damned. But golf is unique in that it has two (working as one) ruling bodies that governs the rules for everyone, pro, am or otherwise. The other sports (to the best of my knowledge) do not and can therefore have rules for pros that work for tv and rules for other levels the game is played at. If you are playing by "The Rules of Golf" they are the same for a 10 year old just learning as they are for Tiger Woods.

For 70ish years this was not really an issue because the equipment and performance level of the those at the highest, competitive levels of the game was relatively stagnant.

Sounds like baseball to a degree.

No, not at all. It's about the unwashed masses not on GolfWRX . . .

Yes i think Golf does have a "must preserve everything" problem, though several sports have also grappled with this. This is the "moneyball" generation, meaning everything gets analyzed and beaten down to a pure science. That's not a bad thing, it shows how smart we've gotten at analyzing data and implementing it.

The NBA is going through a minor identity crisis due to the same things. 15-20yrs ago a few people started suggesting teams would benefit shooting WAYYYY more 3's as they were more efficient. Now there are several people who suggest that declining ratings may be due to the game being boring now (1 guy driving while 4 others wait at the 3pt line to chuck a 3). Many consider the Houston Rockets to be the symbol of how basketball lost its way and became less interesting,

Football will go through a similar thing i imagine as the running game gets phased out more and more in favor of more efficient passing. 10 years from now we will likely see every team in the league running an air raid offense. People might disagree but no one thought the NBA would be shooting this many 3-pters either

I think golf will have a tougher time rolling with it, than the NBA and NFL will though. I imagine those sports will just embrace the change as long as ratings are OK. (i do not believe style of play is hurting the NBA's ratings, i believe it's other things)

Golf is more obsessed with preserving a specific identity. For better or worse

The only sport that's reall analogous to golf in the US would be baseball because they are the only major sports where you us equipment to hit a ball. The issue is really that the equipment advances have fundamentally changed how courses are played because, unless they can keep backing up the tees, the courses cannot change.

Imagine if tomorrow the MLB allowed aluminum/composite bats and did not change their stadiums. Every hitting record would be shattered and I doubt few would be like "Oh well, times change."

We saw at the Ryder Cup in France that the bombers can be nullified with graduated rough that gets impossible 310+ out. That might be the only solution for the Tour if they decide they want to maintain the integrity of old courses - make the rough from about 310 out impossible - a full 1/2 stroke penalty. It will force guys to lay back unless they really want the risk/reward.

Tennis? That sport has changed since small wooden frames have been replaced by much larger metal and graphite frames.

History and legacy are superior guides for man in darn near every aspect of life. But you have to live a long life to know that. Unfortunately, youth, today, is by-and-large, predisposed and simple. Somebody said it best; use the mistakes before you so as to not make the same mistakes twice. When we don't look back for good or bad guidance it's too easy to think you're smarter than you really are, therefore your life will encounter more costly mistakes.

Yes, there's a correlation between age and the sources we use to learn or guide us. Yep, the internet has changed youth by making them more entitled in ways my generation never thought possible. Youth today has lost sight of all the trial and error that preceded their internet generations. Yep, our world including golf is evolving, except social media and other media sources are not presenting it factually but with their bias.

Contemporary people with minimal notoriety teach aspects of golf fundamentals, yet Ben Hogan's "Five Lessons, The Modern Fundamentals of Golf" from 1957 still provides instruction you can trust. But, you'd have to read the #1 legacy book. It was one of three books I used to teach myself golf, (4-5 index and low of 2) the other two were written by older generation authorities Jack Nicklaus and Nick Faldo. Yep, I trust them and others older far more than that youngster, "what's his name" that overlooks depth and complex problems and thinks he has the answer, yet not nearly as accomplished. Choosing experience and wisdom over "my untested theory" can be life changing in a good and happy way, which are the goals, are they not? My 2cents. Have a great day, I am need a golf fix tomorrow.

While all that is true, I don't look at golf as a numbers game. What numbers are revered in golf? Wins both total and majors. Distance doesn't enter into that discussion at all. I look at the Old Course and see that Faldo won in 1990 with 270. Woods won in 2000 with 269. Seve wins in 1984 with 276. Zach Johnson in 2015 at 273. That really isn't that much of a difference. They have made changes to the course but I don't think people are against it being in the Roto.

Most older courses struggle more with having the space to host versus what will happen to the course. It is a nice excuse to say the course can't hold up any longer to the players but you need to be able to host ahuge number of fans per day, corporate tents and parking. Not many places can fit the bill to do all of that.

They change the ball in tennis based upon the level you are playing at and the venue. When serve aces become more routine they dialed the ball back to increase volleys.

...and the overriding standards governing how the tennis ball performs dates back to 1925.

I have noticed that when there are youth tournaments at my course every kid has an orange bag, orange shirt, orange everything...

Maybe the 20 yr old KF guys do look at Tiger as a

40 something old geezer , time marches on.

Yeah? You think the KF guys watching this in some cheap motel room, who would give their left **** to even be in the Masters, much less win it....5 times,

saw this and were thinkin....

”look at that old geezer”

Never realised Doug Sanders was still so popular...good to know ?

I think misconceptions are what is wrong with golf if there is anything wrong with it.