the purest form of golf

I often read that many people consider that links golf is superior to parkland... but that clearly isn't the case.

Links golf is a form of the game that encourages and rewards thin and topped shots under the guise of playing a 'bump and run'. That clearly isn't part of the game... but a way in which the lesser player can get away with his lack of ability.

It is also an excuse for the laziest of greenstaff to maintain a level of employment whilst not doing any work as they have to leave the environment in a natural state. Which usually just means a bit scruffy and bare in a lot of places.

Now parkland golf is all about accuracy. With their testing layouts demanding long carries over hazards to tight flags hidden behind deep rough right up to the edge of the green. Those test a players skill and mettle by providing almost impossible to play shots which are required to stop on a sixpence from 220 with a long iron. Truly the purest form of the game.

In addition it would appear that the course designers have realised that parkland is by far the better part of the game as they have virtually deserted the design of the lesser links courses in favour of producing more and more fine parkland layouts.

Let me guess, you play at a parkland course right?

LJ in 30 minutes time:

http://www.kidprintables.com/coloring/summertime/fishing.gif

I have no idea where to start but I will pick up on your last point. There is simply no links land left to build on in the UK and if there is you will not get permission to build a course on it. So it is not choice but necessity that means more parkland courses are built these days.

There is plenty of Linksland left. Donald Trump found some quite easily.

I'm not going to bite

LJ, when you say "player can get away with his lack of ability", are you implying that women have no place in golf?

MustPuttBetter wrote:LJ, when you say "player can get away with his lack of ability", are you implying that women have no place in golf?

Absolutely not. They have a place in golf which is demonstrated by their acceptance at parkland courses across the UK. Many Links clubs ban them from the premises... which further demonstrates that Links golf is not the purest form of the games as it excludes many segments of society.

Ha ha good answer!
I was hoping i could induce a Gael inspired witchhunt for LJ!

MustPuttBetter wrote:Ha ha good answer!
I was hoping i could induce a Gael inspired witchhunt for LJ!

The Donald Trump statement will manage that anyway.

LJ I can't wait to read some of the replys, this is going to be great At first i thought this articvle was LJ with his tongue firmly in cheek again, but actually its well worth discussing.

I've only had the opportunity to play 3 links courses, and enjoyed them all. Silloth is magic and worth the hours sitting in the car, Thorpeness is not bad and whitby is a course I play a few times each year. The original Whitby links is ok but it's only really good features are the cliff top holes with the dramatic back drop. I enjoy playing them all, and it makes a nice change to experience a different style of golf. Yes a thinned shot can be rewarded, but you can also be punished for a long approach that kicks the wrong way after landing on an undulation.

I don't think I have the experience to say one form of golf is superior to the other, so will sit on the fence. I'm sure there will be a few of Mac's neighbours rattling your cage shortly.

MustPuttBetter wrote:LJ, when you say "player can get away with his lack of ability", are you implying that women have no place in golf?

They don't, mind. We're cutting down a perfectly healthy tree just so that the women can have an easier tee-shot on our 3rd.

Pandering to the lowest common denominator should not happen.

sounds a bit daft Merc... can't they just move the tee?

LondonJonnyO wrote:sounds a bit daft Merc... can't they just move the tee?

They could do something - even make it a par 5 for them - without having to cut down the tree.

MustPuttBetter - you know the 3rd, what do you think?

Although, I'm not sure if you've played off the whites before - the yellows are in quite a different position.

The backwards logic of golf clubs baffles me at times. It will probably alter the character of the hole completely... and there is half a chance that removing the tree will destroy the challenge of the hole.

I would offer alternatives to the committee before its too late!

LondonJonnyO wrote:I often read that many people consider that links golf is superior to parkland... but that clearly isn't the case.

Links golf is a form of the game that encourages and rewards thin and topped shots under the guise of playing a 'bump and run'. That clearly isn't part of the game... but a way in which the lesser player can get away with his lack of ability.

It is also an excuse for the laziest of greenstaff to maintain a level of employment whilst not doing any work as they have to leave the environment in a natural state. Which usually just means a bit scruffy and bare in a lot of places.

Now parkland golf is all about accuracy. With their testing layouts demanding long carries over hazards to tight flags hidden behind deep rough right up to the edge of the green. Those test a players skill and mettle by providing almost impossible to play shots which are required to stop on a sixpence from 220 with a long iron. Truly the purest form of the game.

In addition it would appear that the course designers have realised that parkland is by far the better part of the game as they have virtually deserted the design of the lesser links courses in favour of producing more and more fine parkland layouts.

I have seen many a lesser player with no abilty struggle around a link course, and I have also seen some with some abilty struggle also.
Its a different form of the game, where you need to adapt. However if you cannot adapt your game to play on a links, you may wish to stay playing parkland courses just like our American cousins.......

Setup... At the moment I can't adapt my game to anything... I couldn't hit Gaddafi with an ICBM I'm that inaccurate right now.

LJ

Do you really believe what you said in your original post?

LondonJonnyO wrote:The backwards logic of golf clubs baffles me at times. It will probably alter the character of the hole completely... and there is half a chance that removing the tree will destroy the challenge of the hole.

I would offer alternatives to the committee before its too late!

This is the hole:

The men's white and ladies tees are approximately where the word 'Score' is. You can see the front of the yellow tee just above where it says 'Aerial'. The green is shown by the white circle. The white/ladies tee is high above the fairway. The lowest of the red and white concentric markers (about 105 yards from the center of the green) is located on the left of three trees which you face on the tee-shot. It is the smaller (but still substantial) tree immediately to the right of this that's for the chop.

https://2img.net/h/oi53.tinypic.com/29z6bh2.png

Of course Mac. Links golf is a waste of land that could be used for something far more appropriate. Like dogwalking.

Merc. No active link there.

LJ

I have no idea if you are being serious here or trying to provoke me but all I can say is we clearly differ greatly on what we perceive to be courses good for the game.

The thing is you can be tested to the same degree on a links course as on the shots you describe on a parkland course. It may be harder to see the shot or know what to do but is that not what makes the game interesting. Why do you need a large lake to prescribe how you hit a shot?

Believe me some shots on a links course require a very high level of accuracy if you want to get close to the pin. Once you miss a green on a links course the fun can begin, on a typical parkland layout reaching for the LW may be the only option.

I like options and strategy, you clearly like to be told how to play the game.

Not at all. Links courses are often drab and dreary places with little colour and no real backdrop with which to lose oneself. They tend to be grey and lifeless places where people tell you how to dress and the players could be stamped from a mould they are so monochrome in both dress colour and playing style.

Further to the need for accuracy. How? There are two basic recovery options. A chop out of a hole in the ground or a texas wedge. Hardly inspiring stuff.

Parkland offers far more of a challenge with short cut run-off areas, deep and shallow bunkers allowing for greater shot choice out of the sand, deep rough requiring that lob wedge (although I don't use that shot very often), more challenging pins to fire at, a variety of wildlife due to there being plants on the course other than gorse, greater scope for panoramic views due to the elevation changes and finally a greater proportion of golfing challenges due to not being reliant on the weather to make it difficult.

Lj your posts really need to be taken very lightly as you insist on making things up.

The dune networks on which many links were built on or near to can harbour some of the most varied levels of wildlife. Take the bird sanctuary near gullane or the sea bird centre near North berwick. If you want lots of wildlife get your self to 17 mile drive and see everything from squirels to sea otters. Playing pebble or montery peninsula is like being in a wildlife park.

Pebble isn't a links course however. It's parkland. On the top of a cliff not linksland.

LJ

It is called pebble beach golf links. Secondly make sure you distinguish between parkland courses and inland courses. Very different things.

Just because an american says something doesn't make it so. They said Saddam had WMDs for example.

And yes. Parkland and inland are different. Pebble is very much parkland in my opinion however. Based on having played it.

Being next to the sea doesn't make it a links.

Merc - that's the drivable par 4 isn't it?
I think removing the big tree would indeed take the challenge out of it. If i remember rightly it's around 270-280 yards but it a fair bit downhill? It's probably actually reachable with a firm long iron (or hybrid in my case) but you are forces to hit driver if you want to go for the green so you can get over those trees. Remving it would i suspect make it quite an easy birdie for players better than I

I think that we all know what LJ is getting at when he refers to a links course - tight and fast fairways and greens, pot bunkers etc etc. Lets not get caught up in an argument over what defines different types of courses.

I'm not sure where I sit on this one. I agree with LJ that Links golf is probably not the purest form of golf with a good shot having just as much chance of turning out good as a bad shot. However, that would not distract me from the fact that a lot of Links courses do offer something very special that parkland courses cannot. I've played a lot of really top parkland courses and as much as they might provide a fairer challenge golf-wise, a lot of them do not feel very natural and as such do not have an aura about them. Links golf is all about feeling part of the history of the game and although that does not mean as a course type they are better for a game of golf than a parkland, as a golfing experience they are right up there.

If LJ does not get that feeling and aura of playing a links course then imo it is only him that is losing out. However, from a purely functional point of view, he is correct that links golf does not provide the best example for a pure form of the game. What he doesn't appreciate is that not everyone wants a round of golf to be all about playing golf...

Tell me this isn't in some senses a links course, and I felt the soil was heavily sand based in most areas.

https://2img.net/h/i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee380/s0456769/Pebble%20Beach/P1020055.jpg

https://2img.net/h/i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee380/s0456769/Pebble%20Beach/P1020045.jpg

https://2img.net/h/i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee380/s0456769/P1020047.jpg

Notice the group in front in the bunker short and right, they were very bad.


https://2img.net/h/i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee380/s0456769/Pebble%20Beach/P1020042.jpg

Looks like a manufactured links to me.

Has the soulessness of a manufactured American parkland and the location of a lumpy bumpy links course. Maybe it could go down as the worst of both types?

Mac. Those shots show that a course designed at any point can have links like features. They plant the right grasses, setup the bunkers as per a linksland course and a few other things... but just because it shares some features with a links... it doesn't make it a links.

example. The 12th hole at my course is a shortish uphill par 5 with mounding left and right and gorse along the left side of the hole in places. It has swales and hollows at around 250ish from the tee at the sides of the fairway. At around 100 from the green there are a series of bunkers moving across the fairway that are pretty deep and penal. And a highly contoured green with a nasty little trap on the front right side and a few gorse bushes left. The fairway is cut very very tight and the rough is long enough to let the ball drop down a bit. All in all it's very links like in nature.

But the course really isn't a links. Not by a long way.

LJ

lets not get bogged down arguing over pebble, as I will concede it is not a true links. I only brought it up as it was a seaside location where I remember seeing so much wild life.

of course there is wildlife in the sea. It's one of the most abundant areas of life that there is... but that doesn't mean that there is lots of life on a grey linksland course.

MustPuttBetter wrote:Merc - that's the drivable par 4 isn't it?
I think removing the big tree would indeed take the challenge out of it. If i remember rightly it's around 270-280 yards but it a fair bit downhill? It's probably actually reachable with a firm long iron (or hybrid in my case) but you are forces to hit driver if you want to go for the green so you can get over those trees. Remving it would i suspect make it quite an easy birdie for players better than I

It's not even a driver to the green, but it's a small landing area.

I don't think it will affect the better men players as they would usually have no problem getting over - it is S.I. 15 after all. I now take a driver and aim for the 13th fairway - remove the risk of the not getting over.

I can't see the link. Blocked by the office netnannies.

Sounds a dodgy decision though. Can't they just move the ladies in front of the tree?

IMO, if you want to see wildlife go to the zoo.

Most links courses have a great sense of history about them that is not evident in most parkland courses and this for me is the great appeal in playing them. It is not about the test of golf or the little luxuries that come with a lot of parkland courses like good practice areas and fine dining restaurants. Links golf is where the game began but parkland golf is where the game has gone. They both have a lot to offer in very different ways...

our herd of zebras has real trouble blending in due to their stark black and white features not blending in with the shades of grey. the elephants however are a bu&&er to spot...

LondonJonnyO wrote:I can't see the link. Blocked by the office netnannies.

Sounds a dodgy decision though. Can't they just move the ladies in front of the tree?

Yup - they could do a lot of things

graeme wrote:our herd of zebras has real trouble blending in due to their stark black and white features not blending in with the shades of grey. the elephants however are a bu&&er to spot...

do you get a free drop or have to play it as it lies from the resultant pats?

LJ

Funny story, in a comp once, I made a guy play from a dog turd. We did not know the rules so I told him he had to play from it or get a penalty. So he just went for it, sadly it only splattered the bottom of his trousers. Was hoping for more.

McLaren wrote:LJ

Funny story, in a comp once, I made a guy play from a dog turd. We did not know the rules so I told him he had to play from it or get a penalty. So he just went for it, sadly it only splattered the bottom of his trousers. Was hoping for more.

And you say dogs are a bad thing on a golf course.

The thing was I must have been about 14 and him about 40/50, why the hell did he listen to me. I think because he was a high handicapper and I lowish he thought I would know better.

It's also a good reason to always carry a phone with video capability. Definately one for the archives that.

good article LJ completely agree that most links courses are more luck than parkland courses. Played Pyle & Kenfig in a match last sunday, you had to pitch it 10 yards short with a wedge to have any hope of stopping it on the green.

local rule lj, you play the ball as it lies. well, if you want to enjoy all that wildlife, them's the breaks. it has led to the development of "the swooshie" a seive-like club which is designed to minimize splattering, yet yield the results of an open-faced SW.

Just back from a long weekend playing Royal St David's and Aberdovey. There was no reward for topped or thinned shots. The wind was tricky to say the least, and the courses magnificent. Highly recommended.

LJ, i have no tolerance for phones on the golf course and cannot condone the use of them i any way

LJ

A question, the course you describe in the original post is probably only suitable for 5% of golfers (if that). A links could be just as tough but still allow all levels of player to play it. I think that is an important factor of any course, why do you not?

MustPuttBetter wrote:LJ, i have no tolerance for phones on the golf course and cannot condone the use of them i any way

Not even to provide high class youtube viewing of a man, a ball and a pile of doggy poo?