With golf, questions and controversies abound

Sometimes difficult and puzzling questions arise in the world of golf. The answers to some are possible, and to others they are not. I’ll do my best to sort them out.

My first one is, why don’t obviously inept and beginner golfers take lessons?

There are multiple explanations to this. There might be a bit of “know-it-all” attitude involved, as in, “it looks easy so I can do it myself.”

Stubbornness also may be involved. It shouldn’t take very long before a neophyte realizes that picking up a golf club and swinging it to try to get a golf ball airborne is not as easy as it looks.

Another explanation is that it is “too expensive” to hire a PGA professional for a dozen lessons to get someone started as a golfer. It is true that golf is not a cheap sport to get into. But lessons aren’t the main cost: clubs, green fees, golf cart rental, balls, gloves and other accessories raise the price.

Some beginners turn to golfing friends or partners to get started, which is a big mistake, given the fact that almost no recreational golfers are qualified to keep a beginner from getting off on the wrong foot. The fact is that the golf swing is hard. There are 180 bones, joints muscles, ligaments, tendons and nerves that are involved in a proper golf swing!

My second question is, how long will it take before the PGA Tour finally solves the ongoing problem of slow play?

Despite making significant changes recently (and still more to come), like more “Signature” events and limited player fields, the PGA Tour still hasn’t come to grips with slow play. Instead, the Tour and the TV networks are toying around with things like Whoop that monitors heartrates as golfers are playing.

The Tour is still thinking about the use of laser range finders, but that is not the answer. They are reluctant to initiate a shot clock, which is a no-brainer, it seems to me. Augusta National will be timing contestants in the “Drive, Chip and Putt” competition this April during Masters week, which is a new rule.

In a PGA tour tournament, once it is a player’s turn to play, and he is ready to play his ball, he supposedly gets 45 seconds to send his ball on its way. The difficulty comes with the time it takes for a tour player to get “ready” to play. He may choose to walk 100 yards or so to the green to survey what he needs to do and then walk back to his ball.

One solution is to have the caddie run up and take a look and then run back to the golfer. He doesn’t need a Whoop. I am going to leave the AimPoint controversy alone for now, except that it takes precious time and leaves many more footprints all over the green.

Another problem in tournaments is that rulings take far too long. When a player needs help with a ruling, like an embedded ball, it may take several minutes to summon a rules official who is on the other end of the golf course. It should be possible to train a cadre of rules officials so that each group (threesome or twosome) is accompanied by a rules official.

A lot of recreational golfers try to emulate the pros with their pre-play routine, which is a big mistake. It damages the idea of “growing the game.”

Next is that I’m baffled as to why everyday golfers don’t’ fix their divots and ball marks on the greens. I refuse to think that they don’t know any better.

Occasionally we come upon a divot that is so cavernous that one would think the golfer used a hoe to hit his ball. But the divot remains, and the sod is a few feet away. The only explanation is that some people are just plain lazy!

And I’m wondering how hard is it to keep sand in the bunkers?

I now know how the bunker sand gets soaked and becomes somewhat like mud; sprinklers can’t be finely tuned like tournament players courses. But bunkers should always have a layer of soft sand on the top to slide a club under.

My last question is: If God loves me why do I get a buried lie in the sand?