Darren Clarke, definitely the right perspective

First topic message reminder :

Just saw an interview and read the highlights (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/golf/14311912.stm) of DC responding to the comments re. his post-Open victory celebrations. Quality response; well done that man!

S_R. Nothing at all. It's just that some of the best sport I watched growing up took place on a golf course or a cricket field,but equally it also took place on a football pitch and an athletics track. So I find it difficult to bracket sport in the way you have.

super_realist wrote:Cricket is no more a sport than golf, I think they are on a "par" with one another.
I love the quote that "Mike Gatting would have got that one if it were a cheese roll."

Robert Keys, Flintoff, Waugh and Petersen are hardly athletes.

You do at least have to run in cricket. Flintoff played easily his best cricket when he was in very good nick, Waugh (both of them) were perfectly fit guys) and Pieterson is a fitness fanatic. The only one on your list who isnt normally in good nick is Key, if he was in better shape maybe he'd have played more test matches.

Fair enough Faldo, Some of the best I have seen have been the Ryder Cup and some of the most dreary have been so called proper sports such as a World Cup skiing race I took in whilst in Austria, however I'm not sure entertainment always comes into it.

super_realist wrote:If your resting heart rate is around 70, then you have to work on that. Mine is 38.

Is that like a typical internet driver distance?

Seb Coe's was reputed to have been ~28bpm in his prime. He was very unusual in that regard though.

raycastleunited wrote:Cricketers wear trousers, and that is clearly a sport. Although in the past it may have featured "gutlords" like Mike Gatting, you have to be an athlete to play the modern game.

Gatting was an odd bird. Most of his contempories said he was plenty fit enough but had been cursed with that physique of his.

super_realist wrote:...Robert Keys, Flintoff, Waugh and Petersen are hardly athletes.

I'm sorry. You really are off with the pixies now. Key I'll give you but Flintoff (some of the time), Pietersen and definitely Waugh (Steve in particular) were plenty fit enough to be classed as athletes. Maybe not Ed Moses or Daley Thompson but you seem to be very black/white here. If someone isn't as fit as the average Tour de France rider (drugs aside they're pretty fit I think you'll concede) they're a gutlord by your reckoning it would seem.

Sorry, I meant Pie-Man Warne, rather than either Waugh.
In reality, I just don't see how any professional sportsman SHOULD be out of shape or be able to have it called into question. No excuse really.

Samit Patel for example, he's lardy.

an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.
The above is the definition of sport.

Each sport will have its own definitions of what athletic activity is required and what condition you need to be in to achieve this level. As mentioned Samit Patel, was not at the required standard so was not selected for England until he reached the level. I dont get how people can question cricketers, apart from physical fitness the mental fitness they need is higher then a lot of sports. Look at Cook in the Ashes and how many hours he stayed involved in the game. The fitness needed for Cricket knocks golf easily. And the mental fitness is probably more important then physical.

I'll say one thing about cricketers. Cucumber sandwiches

navyblueshorts wrote:

super_realist wrote:...Robert Keys, Flintoff, Waugh and Petersen are hardly athletes.

I'm sorry. You really are off with the pixies now. Key I'll give you but Flintoff (some of the time), Pietersen and definitely Waugh (Steve in particular) were plenty fit enough to be classed as athletes. Maybe not Ed Moses or Daley Thompson but you seem to be very black/white here. If someone isn't as fit as the average Tour de France rider (drugs aside they're pretty fit I think you'll concede) they're a gutlord by your reckoning it would seem.

agreed

Gatting was a very useful footballer as a kid, much better then Beefy who obviously did play as a pro. Think Gats brother played for Brighton.
Samit Patel spent the whole winter over in Australia training in a very tough gym apparently as the penny finally dropped talent alone wasnt going to get him through his career, at least not in this cricket era.
I dont think there is a guy playing test cricket for England right now who isnt in very good shape.

super_realist wrote:I'll say one thing about cricketers. Cucumber sandwiches

Yes. Can't disagree with that ! The reason my dad gave it up (he said) and I seem to have inherited his loathing of that useless vegetable.

Diggers wrote:Gatting was a verey useful footballer as a kid, much better then Beefy who obviously did play as a pro. Thing Gats brother played for Brighton.
Samit Patel spent the whole winter over in Australia training in a very tough gym apparently as the penny finally dropped talent alone wasnt going to get him through his career, at least not in this cricket era.
I dont think there is a guy playing test cricket for England right now who isnt in very good shape.

Perhaps why they are finally reaching the top of the game Diggers. If physical conditioning and fitness can do that for the England cricket team which traditionally relied on talent at the expense of fitness, then perhaps it could do the same for another sedentary "sport" Golf.
Shane Lowry take note.

Over here in NI we saw a full half hour programme following DC post win - right up to several days afterwards and including his meet up with Rory and GMac - not sure all of you would have seen it, so here are some summary points:

1. DC was still totally p1ssed the morning after.. and very funny in the bleary, sheepish way, but he didn't do that much heavy (by NI standards) drinking after that.
2. He fell asleep on the private jet home and looked like a big cherub with a glass of champagne in his hand while his mum, dad and fiancée read magazines.
3. When he got to his home and was greeted by his boys, he was in floods of tears and it was all so genuine it was actually hard to watch
4. The warmth of the greeting he got at Royal Portrush was overwhelming and his donation of the winners medal to the club to sit alongside Fred Daly's from 1947 was a classy act.
5. When he met up with Rory and GMac, he actually had his entire family with him including his kids. At one stage, the kids were at a side table tucking into pizza and chicken nuggets..it looked weird - there seemed to be an extra kid at the end of the bench tucking in too...it was Rory McIlroy.

My view was the celebrations were reasonable, private, heartfelt and more than appropriate for the achievement and sense of accomplishment he must have had.

Probably, am loving the cricket right now. Fancy us to beat anyone at home, though a series against the saffers (OK, I know we have a lot of saffers as well) would be very tight.
Sorry, this is a very off topic post.

SR a valid point and is there any coincidence that Luke Donald himself attributed his improvements on an already good game was down to the amount of time he spent in the gym in the off season.

Or Westwood who said he wishes he'd found the benefits of being in the gym earlier in his career and may not have had the subsequent drop in form he suffered for that period of his career.

There's an old saying healthy body + healthy mind...

Super
Would you class cricket as a sport, I mean for half the match, they sit on their butts in the pavilion, then they might walk out and swish the bat a few times, before walking back into the pavilion, then the next day they come out and stand in the field for most of the day, it sure does take your breath away doesn't it

OP, I certainly wouldn't call it a true sport. Once again it has sporting elements to it and certainly fullfills the strategy, mental and talent aspect, but it's far too pedestrian to be called a true sport in my opinion. 20/20 is quite lively and there's a certain urgency to that but test cricket is a joke.

I dont think there is anything pedestrian about a fast bowler charging in and bowling at 90 miles an hour.
Personally not a fan of 20/20 or even one day cricket so much, much prefer test matches.
Clearly you have a need for a quick sporting fix SR, some would say a very American attitude......

Maverick wrote:There's an old saying healthy body + healthy mind...

Up to a point and with physical fitness and golf there's definitely a balance. Healthy, yes. Gym bunny a la TW of recent vintage, I'd say not.

super_realist wrote:OP, I certainly wouldn't call it a true sport. Once again it has sporting elements to it and certainly fullfills the strategy, mental and talent aspect, but it's far too pedestrian to be called a true sport in my opinion. 20/20 is quite lively and there's a certain urgency to that but test cricket is a joke.

I can see it's like banging one's head against a brick wall here. Can I ask, were you a real bloater in your youth and 'found' fitness latterly? Or have you always been, allegedly, fit?
Cricket is sport by any definition of the word. You try running shuttles with that gear on over a decent short format innings, or bowling flat out as a quick(ish) bowler. Or try batting through a couple of sessions in decent heat.
As for test cricket being a "joke", you obviously don't 'get' it. If so, just say it isn't your cup of tea rather than make out-and-out daft statements.

Diggers wrote:I dont think there is anything pedestrian about a fast bowler charging in and bowling at 90 miles an hour.
Personally not a fan of 20/20 or even one day cricket so much, much prefer test matches.
Clearly you have a need for a quick sporting fix SR, some would say a very American attitude......

Don't say that Diggers, for heavens sake.

NBS that I would agree with when I say healthy body, healthy mind I don't mean muscle bound and over developed in fact i've argued against being in Woods shape as it's not beneficial for golf.

As for cricket. It's not my cup of tea can't stand the game this is why I will stay out of commenting on it as sport!

Mav, I agree, I see Woods absurd physique as equally detrimental. There's a happy medium to a golf physique, and it might well fall somewhere between the barrel chested Westwood to the rakelike Ross fisher but I simply can't see any excuse for being in the laughable shape of Lowry, Monty etc. It smacks of a lack of professionalism and looks like cricket and rugby in the 1980's.

I think you have to find the balance in golf as you need a degree of flexibility and muscle definition in the right places (namely the core muscle). If you were to look at the physique of say Villegas i'd say personally speaking the perfect shape for a golfer however his game of recent months does not back this up! So you could then argue for the shape of a Donald/DJ etc.

The likes of Woods are over developed and Lowry is to but in a completely different way. There will always be those that excel no matter what shape or size they are DC/Woosie/Big Phil but then their not as consistent..

W G Grace is turning in his grave. What about thos numpties that trot up and down a football pitch for 90 minutes.Are they athletes? Is football a true sport because I don't see much strategy and talent in most matches I watch nowadays.

A good sport encumber some form of eye and body co-ordination, that in the best is called talent, like football its eye and feet co-ordination with a great deal of awareness of where the rest of the team are around about you, and a reasonable amount of physical fitness(most of the great players of yesteryear did smoke, so amount of fitness was variable)

With golf,snooker and several other sports its eye and hand co-ordination with a good amount of natural talent thrown in, a certain amount of fitness is also required.

The athletes of track and field fitness is most important, with talent as well.


So to sum up the more you need physical fitness to perform well at your given sport then the less talent required, less physical fitness required then the more talent needed

Faldono1fan wrote:W G Grace is turning in his grave. What about thos numpties that trot up and down a football pitch for 90 minutes.Are they athletes? Is football a true sport because I don't see much strategy and talent in most matches I watch nowadays.

Couldn't agree more...but then I do watch Colchester United FC most weeks!

Blue
Must be a masochist - although at least the new stadium looks OK, compared to the shed you used to have.

Of course golf is a sport, just not one that (necessarily) requires high levels of athleticism. It still involves a significant physical element to the skills used and has a large competetive element - both of which make it a sport rather than (just) a game.

I've no issue with Clarke having a few drinks to celebrate a win that virtually none of us saw coming - as long as the drinking is not affecting his next competition, it's not important. Indeed, it's probably good for his mental well-being to be able to let off a bit of steam.

Heck, go and watch the last stage of the Tour de France - Cadel Evans and his team were drinking glasses of champagne while riding, and those guys are seriously fit (even super_realist would accept that).

I speak with authority on this subject. I follow Bristol Rovers

Can we stop mentioning Colchester United, with me being a Wycombe Wanderers fan.

Anyway each sport has a level of fitness needed for that sport.

dummy_half
I sometimes think you are right! The new stadium is ok, just lacks the atmosphere of Layer Road as unfortunately we rarely fill it

[quote="beninho"]Can we stop mentioning Colchester United, with me being a Wycombe Wanderers fan.

See you in a couple of weeks then!

super_realist wrote:I'm sure they don't take it up to lose weight, but we were asking if it was considered exercise, and given that walking is insufficient to raise the heart rate sufficiently to lose weight for most people, I would say that although it can be loosely described as exercise in comparison to eating pies, it isn't exercise in the true "athletic and sporting" context.

Once again you spout complete nonsense! I am a nice guy so I would let you off this time provided of course you don't continue to say

A: Walking isn't an exercise in the true "athletic and sporting" context

B: Walking is insufficient to raise the heart rate sufficiently to lose weight for most people

Keizo, I see absolutely nothing wrong with either of those statements, unless with B) where we might be talking about your lardy compatriates for whom getting up to go the the fridge for a "light beer" would be considered exercise.

In any event, I'm unlikely to seek approval from this forum's least popular and most myopic of posters before making comments.

Bob_the_Job wrote:Over here in NI we saw a full half hour programme following DC post win - right up to several days afterwards and including his meet up with Rory and GMac - not sure all of you would have seen it, so here are some summary points:

1. DC was still totally p1ssed the morning after.. and very funny in the bleary, sheepish way, but he didn't do that much heavy (by NI standards) drinking after that.
2. He fell asleep on the private jet home and looked like a big cherub with a glass of champagne in his hand while his mum, dad and fiancée read magazines.
3. When he got to his home and was greeted by his boys, he was in floods of tears and it was all so genuine it was actually hard to watch
4. The warmth of the greeting he got at Royal Portrush was overwhelming and his donation of the winners medal to the club to sit alongside Fred Daly's from 1947 was a classy act.
5. When he met up with Rory and GMac, he actually had his entire family with him including his kids. At one stage, the kids were at a side table tucking into pizza and chicken nuggets..it looked weird - there seemed to be an extra kid at the end of the bench tucking in too...it was Rory McIlroy.

My view was the celebrations were reasonable, private, heartfelt and more than appropriate for the achievement and sense of accomplishment he must have had.

Thanks Bob-the-Job. I hope we get to see it here in England, too. They showed the Rory programme during the Open but sadly it was edited to get in some coverage of RSG so we missed the bit of him talking with the lucky chaps who look after his practice course at home. I'd watched it on BBCi-player before. I'm looking forward to seeing this one with the tissues at the ready.

It is on iPlayer now, but only for 3 or so more days if I recall the message correctly.

I watched most of the prog last night. Good stuff. I had some trouble with my broadband (or some other technical problem) so missed the last few minutes though. Will probably try again this evening.

For the avoidance of doubt:

A: Walking isn't an exercise in the true "athletic and sporting" context

B: Walking is insufficient to raise the heart rate sufficiently to lose weight for most people

raycastleunited wrote:For the avoidance of doubt:

A: Walking isn't an exercise in the true "athletic and sporting" context

Agreed. Unless you fancy the 50 km walk at Olympic standard; WR is ~3 1/2 hours which is quite impressive.

raycastleunited wrote:B: Walking is insufficient to raise the heart rate sufficiently to lose weight for most people

Patently untrue and it obviously depends how much you do. Take my dad for instance. Always big (used to play rugby at a good level) and latterly over-weight (drank like an ex-player but no longer doing the exercise!) but when he had an op to remove a brain tumour, he couldn't drive for a year so chose to walk most places around the village he lived in and also up to his golf club (about a mile and a half, uphill). Over about 6 months, he lost at least 2 stone.
Walking is fine. You just have to do it enough (which isn't a lot) and at least pay some attention to what goes in the top end.

Power walking would clearly help you shift a bit of weight, see loads of people in the States and Oz doing it rather than running, Id imagine maybe because its easier on the joints ? Looks incredibly silly though.
Then again to take Clarke as an example, he must walk 1000's of mile a year, and that clearly isn't sufficient to keep the timber off.

Fair enough Navy, perhaps I should adjust that statement to something along the lines of walking being poor in comparison to more vigorous exercises at burning fat. There is however an optimum heartrate for burning fat which is 65-70%of your maximum heart rate, I certainly get nothing near that whilst walking, I doubt many people do. Walking will of course burn fat if you do enough as it still expends energy, what I should probably have said is that it isn't the most effective method and would take a considerable period of time to show results.

I've just watched Darren's Destiny.

I see that the DC programme is on the listings for BBC One (main/national channel) next Mon - 8 Aug 2011, 23:05.

Skydriver wrote:I see that the DC programme is on the listings for BBC One (main/national channel) next Mon - 8 Aug 2011, 23:05.

Thanks for the heads-up Skydriver. I'll look forward to it. Why on earth do they schedule these programmes in the middle of the night . At least I have the recording facility of Sky+ to fall back on. Don't suppose it will be in HD!

Read that Darren said he had a bit of 'flu'after the drinkies.I used the very same excuse yesterday at work.
For sure good golfers come in all shapes and sizes,could be argued that Lowry has 'stability'but basic fitness must help.

Couldn't wait - just watched the programme on BBC-iPlayer. Lots of but in a good way. Will still record it on Monday.

If golf isn't a sport then why can't everyone hit it 300 yards?

DC has reminded us all what makes a great golfer: talent, personality and a strength of mind to get it done when it really matters.