At the prompting of a golf buddy I watched the first episode of Netflix golf documentary series, "Full Swing," last night.
This episode focuses on the personal competition between Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, two of the top "young" golfers of the past decade. Those of us who follow the game understand that Spieth was on top of the world in the mid-teens but figuratively fell off a cliff, from which he may be slowly climbing back. Thomas has had more success recently and is by every measure doing better than Spieth right now.
But the thing that struck me most was the artificiality of this competition. In my view, they are not competing against each other, because in their sport (as in bowling and a few others), they are competing against the venue - in their case, the golf course. They compete against the venue at approximately the same time (they are rarely paired together, simply by chance), and they can compare their scores at the end of the day (or tournament) to assess which one did better, but they are not competing against each other, as would be the case in, for example, tennis or boxing. There is no defense, no 'mano a 'mano in golf. In fact, if one of them competes in the morning and the other four hours later, they are playing "on a different course," in effect, because the course conditions change as the day goes by.
And the other striking thing, as I have previously stated in this forum, is that in golf you don't improve with practice, unless you start with major flaws in your swing. Professional golfers spend hours and hours and hours, not only practicing, but stretching and doing golf-specific exercises, and none of them ever actually gets better. They have hot streaks and cold streaks, but they never improve permanently (or as permanently as anything happens in sports). Spieth, as a good illustration, has gotten measurably worse over the past six years or so. Not that he is "bad" in any sense of the word, but his scores are measurably higher (worse), year in and year out.
I will probably continue watching the series, with the hope and expectation that it focuses on other golfers in each episode. If you are a golf nut, I think it's worthwhile.
This episode focuses on the personal competition between Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, two of the top "young" golfers of the past decade. Those of us who follow the game understand that Spieth was on top of the world in the mid-teens but figuratively fell off a cliff, from which he may be slowly climbing back. Thomas has had more success recently and is by every measure doing better than Spieth right now.
But the thing that struck me most was the artificiality of this competition. In my view, they are not competing against each other, because in their sport (as in bowling and a few others), they are competing against the venue - in their case, the golf course. They compete against the venue at approximately the same time (they are rarely paired together, simply by chance), and they can compare their scores at the end of the day (or tournament) to assess which one did better, but they are not competing against each other, as would be the case in, for example, tennis or boxing. There is no defense, no 'mano a 'mano in golf. In fact, if one of them competes in the morning and the other four hours later, they are playing "on a different course," in effect, because the course conditions change as the day goes by.
And the other striking thing, as I have previously stated in this forum, is that in golf you don't improve with practice, unless you start with major flaws in your swing. Professional golfers spend hours and hours and hours, not only practicing, but stretching and doing golf-specific exercises, and none of them ever actually gets better. They have hot streaks and cold streaks, but they never improve permanently (or as permanently as anything happens in sports). Spieth, as a good illustration, has gotten measurably worse over the past six years or so. Not that he is "bad" in any sense of the word, but his scores are measurably higher (worse), year in and year out.
I will probably continue watching the series, with the hope and expectation that it focuses on other golfers in each episode. If you are a golf nut, I think it's worthwhile.
