MuchoBulls wrote:I care enough about golf to watch it. I would say that I watch about 15-20 tournaments a year (PGA and LPGA) and I have gone to a few as a spectator.
As BSmack wrote earlier in the thread, you have to play the game enough to fully appreciate watching what these guys do on tv.
I'll go one step further and say that a solid understanding of the game is even more important for a spectator at a tournament than it is for a TV viewer. Just this year I was at the Rochester LPGA event with my wife and I had her convinced I was half psychic by calling the players wedge shots either long or short into the par 5 17th green while they were still in midair. What she didn't understand was that all the players at that level have impeccable distance control. Therefore, the only question on most of those shots was whether or not the shot would check up or not. Which meant that it was a matter of trajectory control. Simply put, it was easy to deduce after a few shots that shots that passed above a certain point would release forward, shots that passed below a certain point would check up.
Now the average person who doesn't play much or at all would never understand that concept without a television announcer walking them through the idea. I didn't understand the idea myself until I started playing 4-5 times a week. That's just one of many aspects to the game that simply don't manifest themselves right away to the non player. Don't even get me started on shot shaping and agronomy.
"Once upon a time, dinosaurs didn't have families. They lived in the woods and ate their children. It was a golden age."
—Earl Sinclair
"I do have respect for authority even though I throw jelly dicks at them.
BSmack wrote: Don't even get me started on shot shaping and agronomy.
Another handicap for TV viewers -- ALL shots on TV look like they "squirted" to the right.
The guy who hosts the saturday maorning golf show on the radio explained this phenominon in detail, as to why every shot looks like it went right on TV...and I thought that was just me seeing that.
I don't remember the exact explaination, but it had to do with the camera work basically being an "optical illusion," the camera being positioned slightly off, but the angle they're showing making it appear to be from straight-behind...or some crap like that.
Goober McTuber wrote:And here I thought they were all playing a draw.
I USED to think that when I was a teen. Watch now and the announcer will say something like "he's fading that one right down the middle." Well, if he was fading it and as right as it seemed on the screen, no way in hell could it be near the fairway.
But in most cases, the 'fade' or 'draw' is only a few iches either left or right of centre (I kno, but I've always spelled like this.), which is tough to see on TV AND live.
Luther Wrote:
a butt load of people who sit in those small cubicles pretending to work while submitting a "take."
The phantorino wrote:Hey dumbfuck. That dark green area about 20 feet left and right of the centre of the fairway is called The Rough.
Hey dumbfuck -- if I'm on the left side of the fairway, and there's a tree protecting the left side of the green, ideally, I want to go out to the right, maybe 50 feet, and bring it back to the left, maybe giving myself a putt.
This is known as a "draw" to a right-handed player.
When the ball is airborn, I don't really give a shit what length the grass on the ground is mowed.
13 yard fairways? Have you been playing at Eastmoreland or something?
