Gents, as I proceed to lead a more active life, I have gotten back into the grand game of golf. I am fortunate, living in the Northern Virginia/D.C. Metro area to have access to several very good courses, one of which is not but two miles from my house. Today, I spent some time at the driving range with my friend's Adams Speedline Driver hitting balls. I find this to be therapeutic, as is the entirety of the game itself.
One gentleman was hitting balls fairly far, but the trajectory was low, and the sound his club made was a solid "thwack!", compared to my hollow sounding "ping!". My interest was immediately piqued. I had to ask him what he was using and, as it turned out, his driver was made from persimmon wood, and it was made by a company out of Kentucky called Louisville Golf. I asked him if I could try it out and I was stunned. The feeling off the clubhead was solid as a rock, but there was more to it-there was some soul behind it. There's something to be said for the old-fashioned way of doing things; they might not be the quickest or the flashiest, but often they're the best. That, I'm sure, has a lot to do with why we shave the way we do.
I decided to talk more with him and as it turned out, he had persimmon fairway woods and persimmon putters. I tried them all out and was flat-out blown away by their performance. I wonder, have we been selling the soul of sport out to technology? I mean, steroids are a form of technology; they're a synthetic boost to performance. What, then, can be said of aluminum baseball bats with nitrogen bladders in them to make the baseball fly off the bat faster than a wooden bat ever could? What about the aforementioned; a driver in golf with a metal clubhead the size of a grapefruit?
Now, I'm not advocating that Tour de France riders use bicycles made with stainless steel frames or that American football players wear the old leather helmets or anything like that; many technological advances throughout sport have added greatly to the level of competition and performance. It would seem, though, that sport is subject all too often to marketing pitfalls and ego-driven commercialization. "I won the old-fashioned way." has changed to "Chicks dig the longball." Instead of sport with some level of integrity, sense of tradition and looming large degree of difficulty, there seem to be some technological advances that have made many aspects of sport too flashy, too commercial, and in many ways, too damn easy. How hard can it be to hit a golf ball with a driver whose clubhead is so big that it has its own gift shop?
This thread, like the original post, is broad and tangential. Feel free to post your thoughts on the soul of sport.
One gentleman was hitting balls fairly far, but the trajectory was low, and the sound his club made was a solid "thwack!", compared to my hollow sounding "ping!". My interest was immediately piqued. I had to ask him what he was using and, as it turned out, his driver was made from persimmon wood, and it was made by a company out of Kentucky called Louisville Golf. I asked him if I could try it out and I was stunned. The feeling off the clubhead was solid as a rock, but there was more to it-there was some soul behind it. There's something to be said for the old-fashioned way of doing things; they might not be the quickest or the flashiest, but often they're the best. That, I'm sure, has a lot to do with why we shave the way we do.
I decided to talk more with him and as it turned out, he had persimmon fairway woods and persimmon putters. I tried them all out and was flat-out blown away by their performance. I wonder, have we been selling the soul of sport out to technology? I mean, steroids are a form of technology; they're a synthetic boost to performance. What, then, can be said of aluminum baseball bats with nitrogen bladders in them to make the baseball fly off the bat faster than a wooden bat ever could? What about the aforementioned; a driver in golf with a metal clubhead the size of a grapefruit?
Now, I'm not advocating that Tour de France riders use bicycles made with stainless steel frames or that American football players wear the old leather helmets or anything like that; many technological advances throughout sport have added greatly to the level of competition and performance. It would seem, though, that sport is subject all too often to marketing pitfalls and ego-driven commercialization. "I won the old-fashioned way." has changed to "Chicks dig the longball." Instead of sport with some level of integrity, sense of tradition and looming large degree of difficulty, there seem to be some technological advances that have made many aspects of sport too flashy, too commercial, and in many ways, too damn easy. How hard can it be to hit a golf ball with a driver whose clubhead is so big that it has its own gift shop?
This thread, like the original post, is broad and tangential. Feel free to post your thoughts on the soul of sport.
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