With the professional golfing calendar ripped up and thrown out the window, golf on TV has been a marriage of re-runs and top tips from the world´s best golfers, both past and present, but what can you really learn from the worlds´´ best golfers? Many golfers avidly watch as much golf on the box as they can, hoping to find the next tip on how to improve or gain vital yards, but we have to realistic, what you hear from the pundits and swing gurus on the Tv is nothing more than a broken down analysis of the golf swings of the worlds elite, something the average golfer is far from.
I stopped watching golf on the TV, with the exception of the Ryder Cup some years ago, I became bored at how the only shots we saw were the best ones and the only advice we got given was how to swing it more like “Tiger” or “Rory”. These guys are sports stars, they are athletes finely tuned and with barely an ounce of fat on them, they are lean machines and the way they swing the golf club is something that a normal golfer could never achieve in reality.
So why can you learn now?
Watch re-runs of classic golf programming, like Shell´s Wonderful World of Golf and watch the old masters, craftily plot their way around a golf course, take note of the putting styles, which under today’s microscope would be deemed to “handsy” or “poppy” to be able to withstand the pressure of modern day golf, but I disagree with that sentiment, as today golfers are playing to win trophies, whereas years ago players wanted trophies, but with winnings so low, earning a wage was far more important and from my own personal experience the greatest pressure of all is to be able to put food on the table for your wife and kids.
See how they coaxed the golf ball around the course, managing the holes and accepting that on occasion they would need to pop it back out onto the fairway and take their punishment. Golf was an artform that has slowly become, like many sports, a competition of strength and power rather than gracefulness and cunning. Few masters of shot making remain, the clubs don´t allow it, and golf is worse off for it, we don´t hear about majestic touch, shaping the ball around the hazards to find a tight pin, now they just fire the ball in high with copious amounts of backspin.
This is the professional game now, but for amateurs we still need the cunning and guile of the post modern era golfer, the likes of Steve, Trevino, Nicklaus, Palmer and perhaps the best sand player of all time Gary Player to show us where to improve our game. So go ahead and enjoy some of the classic golf shows, you will be amazed at what you learn.
Recent Comments