Two visions of the game

Maybe I’m just a curmudgeon, but I prefer my golf simple. I know there is another model of the game out there, one more associated with fancy country clubs and high-end hospitality service. But my preferences are all on the uncluttered side.

Perhaps it’s because I learned the game from the vantage of the caddie yard. Had to get up early, ride my bike or take a suburban commuter train the few miles to the golf course to hang out with the other would-be loopers, many of whom were older than I was and moonlighting their regular jobs on weekends or off days to supplement their income. And coming from a middle-class family on the modest end of the income bracket, I saw firsthand the value of hard work, saving and disciplined spending.

My golf values formed accordingly. To this day, I cringe when I drive up to the parking lot of a club and get accosted by what I call “bag rats” over-schooled in trying to be helpful. I know they mean well, but I don’t need help removing things from my travel bag, nor having my golf bag automatically hoisted onto a golf cart under the presumption that I would be riding rather than walking.

I know some of my peers are thrilled to find their name embossed on a metal plate on the door of their locker. To me, it’s merely a ritual that looks to impress with tokenism.

Things get more serious when the indulgence extends to matters like a pin sheet — as if golfers have lost the ability to make judgments and, with it, make mistakes. Or Stimpmeter reads for each green. Golf, after all, is supposed to engage the senses, not eliminate the need for them. A simple but insidious example of this sensory erosion comes in the form of red, white and blue flags on the green to denote the relative depth of the day’s hole location. I can only imagine the joy of the green chairman with cataracts who invented this cheap way of avoiding having his eyes repaired. The fact is, based on optics and color science, a simple solid yellow flag provides the best way of identifying and judging the flagstick.

Out on the golf course, there are other indulgences that bespeak of excess, if not outright wastefulness to me. Like having three or four distinct heights of cut around the greens. Or elaborate ornamental floral gardens scattered around the property. Mowing fairways as if they were meticulous checkerboards. Or having caddies outfitted with radio headsets so they can tend to your every gastronomic or liquid need.

Such overloading of everyday golf threatens to ruin the game by turning a sport into an entertainment experience. Full-color yardage graphics on a cart-borne screen that starts to demand more of your attention than the golf course itself. Drive-up (or drive-through!) halfway houses as well stocked as any delicatessen.

These concerns are not abstract or merely idiosyncratic. They go to the heart of the game. They are also part of what is emerging in Washington, D.C., these days when it comes to the future of golf at three affordable, municipal golf courses at the heart of a bureaucratic firestorm: East Potomac Golf Links, Rock Creek Park Golf and Langston Golf Course. Mind you, this has nothing to do with political partisanship. Rather, it has to do with protecting affordable, accessible, down-to-earth golf rather than converting everything to a country club model.

The golf market is big enough so that both styles of the game can thrive. Golf demographics show that about one-third of all golfers prefer to indulge in the luxury version of the game, whether at elite private clubs, five-star resorts or “country club for a day” high-end public courses. Meanwhile, the vast majority of golf facilities and golfers are situated on the modest end of the spectrum.

Which is where I love to play the game — walking, with a pull cart or simply carrying, sometimes only five or six clubs. I also want a well-conditioned golf course, one with consistent turfgrass cover and firm ground when the weather allows for it. But I don’t need courses where the rough behind the tee is mowed as assiduously as the rough next to the fairway. Nor where “perfect” means lush, dense green. After all, droughty, tawny, starved turf can be at least as healthy and certainly more resilient than turf that is heavily watered and fertilized.

Two visions of the game. Maybe there are more. It’s always easy to dichotomize to drive home a point. And the point I am getting at is that a segment of the game needs to be kept simple and basic. It’s probably a larger segment of golf than most industry leaders are willing to admit.