[Mike Hendren]

Despite a dramatic decline in both my ball striking and short game, I have ONLY seen my handicap decline from 4 to 8 in the past several years.  I suspect GCA has contributed to my ability to mitigate this decline in talent by teaching me to tack the ball around the course.

I also find that I readily accept bad results from marginal shots and take greater delight in parring  difficult holes.  

Aside from camaraderie and architectural insight, how has GCA tangibly benefited your game?

Regards,

Mike

[Mike_Cirba]

Mike;

I now know better what the architect doesn't want me to do before I go ahead and do it anyway.  

I've had the same precipitous handicap decline during the same timeframe, and the exact same reaction during that time...I'm more patient, happier, more engaged, and love the game even more despite sloppier play.  

Could it just be that GCA has made all of us worse players, but better golfers?

[THuckaby2]

Could it just be that GCA has made all of us worse players, but better golfers?

Wow.. that is profound, Mike.  I'm not kidding... I really like that.  That's gonna be my new standard quote at the bottom.

TH

[Tim Weiman]

Mike:

If anything, GCA has probably made me a worse golfer.

Besides getting older, I'm playing far less than years ago. I get my fix of golf architecture more through reading, walking courses and watching other people play.

Twenty years ago I wanted to get out to see and/or play every course I could. Today I have less time and am far more selective about my travels. Also, seeing finished courses has become somewhat less interesting. I now like to see courses earlier in the project stage, even at the point of still being raw land.

One other point: I have accepted that there is a big difference between playing and studying the architecture of a course. I can't do both at the same time. Both activities are too much of a distraction to do the other well.

Perhaps that's why I'm so much at home in Ballybunion. It's the only world class course I know so well that further "study" doesn't seem necessary. As I mentioned to Tommy N, I can't say that about St. Andrews or any other course where my exposure has been limited to one or two visits.

[THuckaby2]

Tim:  that too is very well said - damn there is some wisdom on this thread.  And you are one lucky man to have Ballybunion as a "home" - I'm serious when I say that is on the shortest of lists of courses where I'd want it to be "play is the only thing / study is done." That is very, very cool.

I'm not nearly into the study of courses like you and Tommy and many other regulars here, the play is still the thing for me, but I do find that the "study" is seeping into things more and more for me as time goes on... For example at Rustic Canyon I found myself wandering off to look at things and for the first time that I can remember, hitting some absolutely thoughtless shots in my eagerness to just get on with it and see something that looked cool up ahead... This is what you guys mean by becoming a worse player / better golfer, right?  I still play too much competitive golf to let this overwhelm me, but it is happening...

I'm trying to think of a Ballybunion equivalent for me (what that is for you, a course that is such for me) and the closest I can come is Pasatiempo.  I have played enough there such that the study is pretty irrelevant - or so I think.  The Renaissance boys keep changing things though, so the study continues as there seems to be something "new" every time I go there....

TH

[Mike Benham]

I wouldn't say it has impacted the way I play the game but I would say it has chagned the way I look at courses, their development, evolvement and the architect.

Although I have always had an interest in architecture and golf course planning and routing (Designing, building and developing a course was my project in Senior Finance Seminar for Dr. Corrigan at SCU - was he still alive for you Huck?), GCA has taken that too a new level ...

My only regret is that I did not pay attention to the architectual details, concepts and ideas of some of first rate courses that I have had the opportunity to play ... Cypress, Pinehurst#2, Kiawah, SFGC ... maybe this would have prevented me from making a stupid comment about Cypress in one of my first posts ... lesson learned about what GCA is really about ...

[THuckaby2]

Although I have always had an interest in architecture and golf course planning and routing (Designing, building and developing a course was my project in Senior Finance Seminar for Dr. Corrigan at SCU - was he still alive for you Huck?), GCA has taken that too a new level ...

Oh yes, that's a famous name - many of my business major friends had him for classes.  I never did myself, but then again I was a history major...

TH

[redanman]

I've really looked at GCA since I first started playing hilly courses (Got out of SoFla) in 1969.

That brought features other than water into play.
Am I better?  

I'll answer this way.  The better the architectural details, the better I play.  I can't score well at the relatively featureless or non-stimulating places any better than the hard, strategiuc, penal or heroic courses.

For a while there, the tougher the course by slope and rating, the better I played.  It seemed I shot 75-80 no matter where I played.  70.0/113 or 77.2/140, I shot the same!
Lately, it's all about what shape my body (Low back) is in that day.

I always look, though.  Sometimes I just look.  Sometimes  I stop and look, and sometimes I stop, look and roll around on the turf or in the bunkers, depending on how much there is to see.

[Slag_Bandoon]

 I have a higher appreciation of the playing fields and people.  I play with 9 clubs.  I score about the same.  I now know more of the kind of golf layout I like the most and why.   I use my walnut brain more than my nuts in choosing a club.  I look ahead for next preferred shots.  My scoring is more honest.   I don't need to score well to enjoy golf.  I drink better whisky and don't pinch the cart girls as much as I used to.

[Scott_Burroughs]

It's funny how true this is.  It's amazing how my game has fallen in just the past year, but more recently how less I've started to care.  I study more and more of the courses I play and really concentrate on my game so little while playing with guys here.  I haven't played any less (thankfully), and have in fact played more new (and good) courses than ever before.

[John_D._Bernhardt]

The positive impact of GCA is seeing shot options quicker on a new course than I might have before. The rest is negative lol It is difficult for me to play and study the course at the same time. I have found more of my golf time is spent in the study of architecture and on here. lol I am also not getting stronger or seeing better but that is not GCA.  I have committed to practice this year and maintain a much higher standard of play. The last two years, while wonderful for architecture and playing around the world have been the pits for my game.

[Steve Lang]

Since my 1 week course in golf course architecture with Prof. Warren Rauhe of MSU and Ray Hearn at Boyne USA in summer of 1999, I've definitely had an expanded perspective of design features and have had more fun as a golfer.  I'd say similar things about GCA's impact in the last 6 months.  The field work experience, seeing it in the raw, discussing it on the tee and playing it, is however, only approached through the internet GCA connection, but that's OK.

I do feel sorry for everyone north of the 30th parallel now that winter is here.. right!

So , for the last 3 years, I haven't been able to look at an undeveloped property without thinking about routing options or at a course, why did they route it that way, what is that thing doing there, and what aren't i aware of ?

Beyond that, and reading Combat Golf (by Capt.Bruce Warren Ollstein, whom my wife met in an airport) I'd say there's positive impact from GCA in golfing.

So discuss and play on!

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Hendren,

GCA has had a positive and negative impact on my game and my life.

I've developed a noticeable limp in my right leg due to GCA.

I consulted with and was tested by some of the leading sports medicine physicians in the nation.

While they all recognized the symptoms,
Not one could diagnose the problem, until an orthopedic surgeon, who was also an ardent golfer, at the sports medicine clinic in Alabama pieced the puzzle together.

He thought he recognized my name from lurking on the site and asked me if I was a participant.  I said, "yes".  Then he asked me if I knew Ran Morrissett.  I said, "yes" and told him of our personal history.

He then explained that my limp was caused by the sudden and abundant infusion of cash into my wallet, which I keep in my back right hip pocket.   That my hips weren't used to this suddenly bulky mass which now affected the way I walked, and canted me to one side when I was sitting or driving.

He then asked to see the wallet where I keep my cash.
I showed it to him and he said, "WOW" no wonder you have this problem, but, "why don't you convert everything to hundreds", to which I explained, that, I already did.
He said "WOW" a few more times.

I told him that if he ever gets to NYC to give me a call.
He said that he had relatives in Edison, NJ, and that he visits them occassionally in the summer so that he can play golf at his favorite course in New Jersey, Plainfield.
I asked him which was his favorite green complex, and he said # 13, especially if you hit it long and left over the green.
I asked him which was his favorite green and he said # 15 because it rewards only the greatest of putters.

The more we talked the more I liked him and could see that he knew a lot about golf.

As I was leaving, he mentioned that the HMO's and medicare were really cutting into his practice, and was it possible that I could introduce him to Ran.  I said sure, just come on up to New Jersey on January 11, 2003.

Ran, he can't wait to meet you, but he did say he would prefer Plainfield in the summer to Alpine in the winter.

[ForkaB]

Interesting thread Mr. Hendren

I must disagree with Mssrs. Weiman and Huckaby.  My time on GCA has greatly improved my ability to learn things about the courses that I do know very well--the good, the bad and the ugly.  As others have said--far too few time--on this DG, the beauty is in the details--the edging of bunkers, the micro-movements of land, the "poofs", the other anomalies that make golf courses interesting and great.  I have found GCA, sometimes, an impediment to my really enjoying courses that I play for the first or second or third time.  Having someone say proudly to me "That's our 'Redan' hole" takes away some of my enjoyment of discovery, particularly if that hole bears as much resemblance to a Redan as to a Volkswagen.  As to my golf game, no change either way.  GCA is far more important than the perception of score.

[TEPaul]

Pat, you idiot!

I knew you were generally light on commonsense. You should have done what my Dad did and go to two wallets, one in each rear pocket and now both your legs and hips would be stronger, completely balanced, and you'd be playing your best golf! From now on you should get in the habit of calling me every morning before leaving the house so we can be sure you're ready for the day and that you haven't left your commonsense in the drawer again!

[Mike_Sweeney]

I would say that I am a slightly better long putter and chipper. I am much more aware of the subtle and not-so-subtle nature of greens now as a result of GCA. Before GCA, I was a classic "just point it in the direction of the hole" long putter. Thus, lots of three putts. So much of architecture and this site is about the greens which has been a great education.

In reference to strategy off the tee and into the green, before GCA I would make statements like "it tempts you to cut the dogleg over that sand trap." Now I say, "HE (the architect) tempts you to cut the dogled over that BUNKER." Thus my strategy has probably not changed much, but it has turned into Match Play of Me vs. The Architect.

[redanman]

Patrick

Balderdash on three points.

You didn't need to see all those "over-hyped" (Equivalent-Trump courses) "Sports Medicine" specialists.  The redneck Orthopedists in Alabama are no better than your guys down the street.  Heck, I could have evaluated you across the state line in Pennsylvania and saved you all the bother fer chrissake.

Also, anyone worth his salt in medicine would tell you to see a Physiatrist (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) instead of an Orthopaedist for back and leg pain, anyway.  D-oh!
 
And no one, no one, even a redneck from Alabama would prefer the 13th of all the green complexes at Plainfield.

Get the FACTS straight.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul & Redanman,

I knew I should have called you guys first.

Redanman,

No, the bone doc from the south was correct.
There is nothing quite so pure as lofting an L-wedge, out of deep rough, over the bunkers, onto the green and into the hole, especially while Ran is watching every painful revolution that ball makes.  The agony and ecstacy all in one.

[A_Clay_Man]

I would've guessed the hip pain was from all the dancing at the fu****ng Dilitante's Ball.

[redanman]

Mi$ter Mucci

Your mi$take was wa$ting all that time and money in$tead of calling me.  I have helped more than a few on thi$ board in an e-mail and over the phone.  And it would have been free.

But $ome have it to burn.

Great outcomes make for great architecture?  Oh, NOW I get it!

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