For some reason, I’ve felt compelled lately to ask those who’ve been around the block a time or two how things look to them. The question is simply (though, perhaps not so simple after all): Is golf a better game now than when you came in?
Not generally nostalgic; I’ve always liked
Red Smith’s observation that he figured he got more liberal as he got older. We’ll start with
Mike Hurdzan’s reply. (I know I asked
Jack Burke, who thought I was after his thoughts on the pro game, but then he started talking about societal change - I know, heavy stuff – with regards to the way we now approach the whole notion of child's play, and the consequences of it to...the Big Picture.
I think I posted his response, thought provoking stuff, I tell you.
Bud Shrake, too, got the question. I can’t remember what he said. I’ve been too scared to check the tape in the event that I somehow screwed it up and lost the better part of a two-hour conversation.
Hurdzan, incidentally, is a former Green Beret, not the first military man to turn to the craft of course design; we’d have to start, I suppose, with the good doctor
MacKenzie, who honed the art of camouflage in the savannahs of Africa.
“You know,” Hurdzan said, “in lots of ways the reason that golf has been around for 600 years is that even though the swing and the ball and the clubs, and the people and the golf course, have changed, there is a magic about being in and out among nature and fresh air and being with great friends. And I think that’s the timeless heart of what golf’s about – that companionship of being out in a shred activity pitting yourself against yourself. So despite the fact all those things have changed, I think that golf still has the same allure and it always will.”
Read it over the next time you feel like holding your head in your hands. Not bad for an early Saturday morning. I hope to hell, he’s right. -0-
