Musings on this year´s British Open

Well done to Shane Lowry yesterday on winning this year´s British Open on home soil! Yet another Irishman winning a major in the last 15 years. Yes, on a global scale, the Irish certainly punch above their weight when it comes to golf. Not only was I struck by how much fun Lowry was having out there, even in that shite weather, but more by all the different kinds of shots he could play. He was ´playing´ golf.

Whilst watching, I noticed how the commentators kept talking about his magical hands and when you think about it, is is not surprising Ireland has produced such great players of the game. They have had to learn to do amazing things with their hands from a very young age in order to cope with these extreme weather conditions. The great thing about Links Golf is that it demands such a wide variety of different types of shots and a deft touch around the greens.

The origins of golf

These days, it is easy to forget that golf was actually invented in very similar playing conditions all those years ago just across the Irish Sea. A game invented for people who also had to explore and experiment with how to use their hands in order to swing a club in different ways to get a little white ball to fly in a variety of ways under sin order to cope with the elements? 

So, if this is the nature of the game, to learn how to use your hands properly and in a variety of ways, then why are we only exposed to swings that assume a golfer is playing in normal conditions? You only need to look at any golf magazine to see what I mean. I will put my money on the next edition of Golf world giving us a full analysis of Shane Lowry´s swing as if he was attempting to hit a straight shot down the middle of some fairway in perfect weather, on a course somewhere in the USA. And the buck doesn’t´t stop with the golf magazines. 

Technology

Why, as I sit down to watch the final day of the British Open where the rain is lashing down and the wind is blowing a gale off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, do I have to listen to TV pundits harping on about yet more swing technology? Here is Paul McGinley telling us how the latest  3-D swing technology software can analyse, in great detail, the intricate body movements of John Rahm, and how this is to quote “he future of golf” The future of golf for who, Paul? For the 98% of the viewers? Really? For the 60plu percent of senior golfers that make up the membership of every single golf club up and down the country? I don´t think so. What I would love to ask him is did he, or Shane Lowry, or any of the other great Irish golfers learn to play golf using this high tech equipment.

There is no doubt that his technology is only for elite golfers and this needs to be made very clear when the pundits ramble on about these technological advances. This technology is not for the future of the average golfer and it is certainly not for the future of the senior golfer. No, it is only for the future of the very elite golfers! If only they could be honest with themselves and with the 98% of viewers watching and say something like” hey we have this great technology here, look what it does. But please be aware, if you are a senior golfer over 60 years old and you just want to go out and hit some good shots and have some fun, then please turn the TV off for the next few minutes because this is not for you. In fact, if you were ever to use this technology it is very likely to ruin your golf. So please, treat this as an ad break (because ultimately this is what is is, selling us something we don´t need) go and make yourself a cup of tea and we will return to the golf in a few minutes.

Killing the game

So many people in the golfing establishment, people like Paul McGinley, are actually helping to kill the game by taking their part in filling minutes of extremely high viewing TV airtime with this kind of information which has become the norm. I have heard of many reasons why people are leaving golf and what needs to happen to attract people back into the game, including going to such lengths as making golf holes bigger so the game is easier. We don´t need bigger golf holes to make the game easier, we just need to help simplify how the game is taught. We need to keep the majority of our golfing members (senior golfers) happy by talking to them about things that they can relate to and show them that we care.

People are leaving the game because when they see this kind of information they think to themselves ¨I can´t do that¨ and they become demoralised. Senior golfers, who make up over 60% of the golfing population, end up feeling that they haven´t got the energy or desire to analyse their swings with such detail and are already put off with the paralisis by analysis approach because it has never done them any good in the past. Rather than thinking their golfing days are coming to an end and they cannot improve because they are too old, it is possible to inspire older golfers if we only begin to start to talk to them in a language they understand, not just the language for the 2% of elite young athletic players.

Wouldn´t it be more appropriate and more engaging for regular and senior golfers to hear about the different ways people like Shane Lowry play different kinds of shots? To listen to the pundits demonstrate and talk about the child-like playfulness, curiosity and experimentation that goes into their practise sounds like a lot more fun to me. And it sounds like something that the 98% of golfers watching CAN DO!