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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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HAHA!!
Obvious that none of you have ever been near professional caliber players, courses, or training.
The best do have off days, but generally they are as consistent as any other professional athlete. The swing in score, or placement in a tournament is very narrow for the top players. You could compare a foot slipping off a hold, to a misstrike. Recoverable.
I come from 3 generations of golf professionals, I have played with the best, caddied for the best and held a 2 handicapp during my competitive years.
Golf is hard, to compare it to climbing is impossible. Anybody can walk up to a 5.8 and make it to the top.
Try hitting a golf ball with no instruction...
The level of focus, body control and stamina (yes I said it, you wouldn't know) to stay at the top is rivaled by very little in the professional sports arena.
Though, this info is lost to the land loving libs and the fact that golf is associated with fatbastards and beer.
The main core at the elite end of the spectrum are in incredible shape and bang way more whores than any climber,....
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Golf pretty much requires you find your inner robot and have him strangle your inner monkey.
Ho, that got me... Perfect healyje
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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The level of focus, body control and stamina (yes I said it, you wouldn't know) to stay at the top is rivaled by very little in the professional sports arena.
Though, this info is lost to the land loving libs and the fact that golf is associated with fatbastards and beer.
The main core at the elite end of the spectrum are in incredible shape and bang way more whores than any climber,....
Puhhlease! Top golf players are freaking amazing at . . . playing golf. They're not physical specimens in any sense of the word (how do you think they would do at a Survival of the Fittest type competition? Or really at any type of athletic competition?) The "stay at the top" for top golfers can be for decades--how many 40somethings would win at any sport requiring true athletic skill (rather than skill at the particular game)?
Compare top golfers and top tennis players strictly as athletes--it's a joke.
I've played crap loads of golf, think it's very tough and can be very fun if you're in the right mood, and concede that top golfers certainly have "something" that explains their success, but that "something" is more like the skills to be good at darts, pool, bowling, whatever than a real sport.
Oh, and be happy with the right climbing girl--not too jealous of the golfers who "bang way more whores."
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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The level of focus, body control and stamina (yes I said it, you wouldn't know) to stay at the top is rivaled by very little in the professional sports arena.
Funniest thing I've read here in a long time. Golf is a game--like darts--it's not an athletic endeavor by any stretch. And yes, I do play golf.
Curt
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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The best do have off days, but generally they are as consistent as any other professional athlete.
mucci, you're nuts. If that were so, then we'd have very consistent final groupings on Sundays.
Take a look at tennis. Now those guys are consistent, very often you get semi-finals with the last 3 or 4 in the top 10. Often, the finals are between the #1 and #2 ranked players in the world.
Now look at the Sunday pairings in golf. Let me know when you get a string with the top 10 in the final two pairings, let alone the final two within the top 5. Like, Never!
Poor Ricky, a nice walk with Tiger. Too bad he dropped a 10 over par on Sunday. Sunday at the Masters last year, our boy McIlroy? How do you go from unreal to undone overnight. Nahh, consistency in golf is fleeting at best.
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LilaBiene
Trad climber
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Ah, Tony, you made my day! Jumped on the commuter bus, nabbed a seat and, lo and behold, there's golf on the Taco Stand menu and some good chuckles, to boot. :D
Being far too novice in the climbing world to make any serious comparisons, I have just a few modest observations to offer...
1) Both past times require an inordinate number of "tools" (read into that as you may), but when it comes down to it, you only really need a handful. Eh-hem.
2) Both are apparently riddled with written and unwritten rules, and even more folks who are more than willing to tell you when you've gone off course.
3) Both require (for the most part) good company, i.e., buds you can laugh with, laugh at and who can also serve up a sweet dish of payback (because you know it's coming!).
4) Both really suck when it starts to pour, the wind starts spiraling or when it is too bloody hot out to move, all of which lead to distraction, but especially the heat, which means that instead of contemplating your next shot, your mind is calculating how long it will be until the bevvie cart shows up again. But then, I suppose there's only been one big wall bevvie cart and I hear that went down in flames.
5) You can typically recall with excruciating clarity your last great outing when you were in the zone...but the fog starts rolling in when you consider how long it's been since you last practiced. Ah, humility.
6) Being stuck behind weekenders is a slow, agonizing death.
7) Dudes tend to have very low expectations for the female species. Drive on up to the forward tee box before I've teed off and I WILL out drive you. No idea whether there's an equivalent in climbing.
8) Both seem to require an obsession with numbers and measurements. Being a relativist, I ignore numbers, except to the extent it might mean more fun (i.e., a bigger challenge).
9) Both would appear to require decent hand-eye coordination, but since I missed the day that got handed out, I've been happily making do with kinesthetic perception.
10) The worst days (when the elements and your body seem to be conspiring to make you quit) are usually the best days...because in order to come out on the other side, you have to dig deeper than you ever thought you could.
11) Being fond of odd numbers, I'll end with this thought. Though both require constant analysis, forcing your brain to take a back seat usually means you'll ultimately get where you want to go...
Damn, I miss playing golf!
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cintune
climber
Midvale School for the Gifted
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Friend of mine once compared bouldering to golf. I laughed at first, but he explained how in both you keep trying to do something just right, fail frequently, and then if you're lucky it all clicks and you get the same sort of rush from having pulled it off in good form.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Sorry to be negative, but as a lifetime outdoor sports person, I always thought I might warm up to golf when I got old.
I got old.
I have not warmed up to golf.
I think the problem is:
I really like people.
Except!
When I am in the outdoors:
I hate most-other people competing with me for the outdoor experience.
Also,
I really don’t enjoy:
Packs of males in their 20's-50's, getting drunk in a restaurant I’m dining in, and loudly celebrating their
“Big day of golfing.”
The lowlife poseurs remind me of climbers celebrating cheating death, around a campfire.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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"Most of what I do in climbing came intuitively so I approached golf the same way - wrong! Absolutely EVERYTHING I wanted to do intuitively was dead the opposite of what was required. Golf pretty much requires you find your inner robot and have him strangle your inner monkey."
What healyhe said is correct.
Golf is incredibly difficult because NOTHING about the correct way to hit a golf shot - from put, pitch to full swing - is "natural."
Every novice and recreational golfer makes exactly the same mistakes because they do what "feels right" to accomplish the task. I've spent time trying to figure out why and think I have the answer.
There is only one sport and physical motion that has total skill transference to golf. Sport = throwing the discus; physical motion = cutting grass with a scythe. Since very few people regularly spend any time in those physical activities, no one starts to play golf with a good base of "transferable skills." Hence, everyone sucks at golf for the same reason from the get go; they've never done anything which requires the same motions. The common element in the three activities are: you can only throw a discus, cut grass with a scythe and hit a good golf shot if you perform the action using the rotational power of the torso and back to generate AND CONTROL the power behind the motion WHILE leaving the hands,wrists, arms, elbows and shoulder sockets essentially out of the equation. No way can anyone do these three things using only the hands, wrists, elbows, arms while keeping the body/torso static and inactive. Yet this inversion is exactly what has to be "unlearned" to make a proper golf stroke. That's the "inner robot strangling the inner monkey" of healyje's brillant analogy.
Climbing has plenty of mental gymnastics but none involve the physical execution of the act of climbing being devoid of "naturalness." To the contrary, we are naturally hard wired with tons of circuitry attuned to climbing. We are 98+ per cent genetically the same as one hell of a great climber, Mr. Chimpanzee. Climbing mental challenge involve struggling against the instinct that's screaming, "Get the hell off this rock and back onto the ground ASAP!" If we can conquer that fear, we've got an abundance of natural talent and skill to accomplish the physical task at hand. Not so with golf.
I find both climbing and golf are a fascinating combination of mental and physical challenge. The mix in each is very different; cross transference of skills between the two is virtually non-existent.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Professional golfers try to become robots, but they are always monkeying with their swings. The monkey is always there, whispering in your ear.
"The search for perfection, your own predilection, goes on and on and on and on.......)"
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 8, 2012 - 12:22am PT
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well, i was at the mt. baldy trailhead once, getting ready for the hike with a friend and a fella steps up:
"i'm a professional golfer, and i like to hike to stay in shape. would you fellas mind if i tagged along with you? i don't want to get lost on this mountain."
we had a fine time--nice fella. yes, it was good conditioning for him. he wouldn't have gotten it from golf.
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Reeotch
Trad climber
4 Corners Area
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Golf has absolutely nothing to do with climbing.
How can you seriously consider yourself a climber if you play golf?
I mean come on!
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michaelj
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Mucci must be smoking crack. Do you seriously think you could take the top ten golfers in the world, put them at the base of Nutcracker and expect them to get to the top on the sharp end? How about the Cassin? How about Tiger following Bachar around for a day?
To me the most obvious difference is that climbing (the kind I like anyway) takes place in the mountains and involves an engagement with the primal forces of the planet; there are consequences for mistakes. Golf takes place, um, on a lawn.
Personally I don't think I've ever seen a golf course that didn't look like a blight on the earth. Not as bad as a shopping mall, to be sure. But, especially in an arid state such as California, every golf course I've ever seen has been an aesthetic crime against the native landscape.
I'll stick with sports that require two balls.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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this is a joke...right?
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Heyzeus
climber
Hollywood,Ca
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The best book I ever read to help me climb better was a golf book- 'Golf is not a Game of Perfect'
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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Golf is difficult. A scratch golfer is probably as rare as a solid 5.13 climber.
Curt
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 8, 2012 - 01:39am PT
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golf began very much as a landscape game on the raw scottish heather. mary, queen of scots, was an early devotee. as the game became more popular, it evolved to the current primped landscape of fairways and greens we're familiar with, but that wasn't where it began. "play the ball where it lies" was part of the landscape challenge.
at the risk of drifting my own thread, i'm rankled every time i drive by a place that likes to call itself angeles national golf course, on the east side of the foothill freeway smack in the bottom of tujunga wash. this place was built over the howls of the local sierra club, taking out acres and acres of habitat for three endangered species. meanwhile, they close williamson gorge to climbing because of the mere proximity of an endangered species. i'd suggest, as a compromise, that the golfers raze their posh clubhouse/restaurant, put the spineflower back in the fairways, let the grass die so's their chemicals stop polluting the wash, and golf among the gravel and rattlesnakes. they might appreciate their own game even more.
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mucci
Trad climber
The pitch of Bagalaar above you
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That was a pretty good one, even for me.....
Now who said there is no fitness in golf?
Just sayin'
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Anybody can walk up to a 5.8 and make it to the top.
Oh?
The Needle's Eye?
Fantasia, (either Vedauwoo or The Leap)?
Sunfighter, el cracko, Soler?
The Bowels of the Owl, at Lumpy?
The Narrows on Steck Salathe?
Tricouni Nail?
Texas flake?
The ear?
Double Cross?
Obviously you're not a bowler
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