Are golfers more intelligent than other athletes?

[Lihu]

12 hours ago, rkim291968 said:

Chad is that guy who screwed up the presidential election in Florida.   It cost Gore the presidency.  This thread is really pointless but it was fun arguing over it.   Not an intelligent thread IMO.   Oops, there I go again.

You've made several comments where we golfers are making ourselves seem superior. Yet, you've made it clear in several posts that you are superior to the rest of us.

The tone of the bolded statement reinforces the other posts you've made.

Acting superior and claiming that the rest of us are just acting superior is not really a compelling argument.

[rkim291968]

13 hours ago, Lihu said:

You've made several comments where we golfers are making ourselves seem superior. Yet, you've made it clear in several posts that you are superior to the rest of us.

The tone of the bolded statement reinforces the other posts you've made.

Acting superior and claiming that the rest of us are just acting superior is not really a compelling argument.

I think you read a lot into my posts that are not there.   At the end of the day, what I am saying is PGA golfers are not more or not less intelligent than other sports athletes.   

[Patch]

In other sports there is one winner, and one loser. In golf there is one winner, and 140+/- loser most weeks. So, how intelligent is the game of golf by itself? 

[PEZGolf]

1. My answer will be based on my own experiences with male and female golfers and non-golfer athletes.      
2. If someone is a golfer (plays 24+ rounds a year) and other sports, he or she will be classified as a golfer.  
3. If someone is a non-golfer, he or she will be determined  to be an "athlete" only if he or she COMPETES in one of the following sports: baseball, football, soccer, basketball, swimming, gymnastics, ice hockey, field hockey, track or field events (including running the marathon), rugby, tennis, handball, squash, diving, and ice skating. The following are games, and NOT sports: bowling, darts, archery, curling, billiards and pocket billiards (aka "pool"), and shuffleboard.              
4. For golfers, I must play at least 1 round of 9 holes with him or her in competition or in a wager for money or for something tangible and worth money (eg. lunch, beer, a car, a house, a date with a daughter, etc.).                    
5.  For non-golfers, I must engage in a conversation and/or argument lasting at least 30 minutes in which the subject matter is weighty and "of consequence" (including politics, religion, SEX, climate change, science, mathematics,history, music, art, or philosophy----astrology and the "dark sciences" do NOT qualify!).                        

Based on preliminary data, compiled over the past 67 years, my initial conclusion is that golfers are CLEARLY more intelligent than other athletes (and I regard avid golfers as "athletes")!!                                          

This initial conclusion can be contested only if a person meets or exceeds my qualifications: college educated at Harvard College, cum laude in government, and the Stonier Graduate School of Banking (equivalent to a MBA), scratch handicap, winner of 19 golf tournaments, owner of a golf-related business----PEZ  Golf Enterprises, and ESTEEMED Contributor to this Discussion Board

[mvmac]

15 minutes ago, PEZGolf said:

I am going to answer my own question, but first a few qualifiers:                            1. My answer will be based on my own experiences with male and female golfers and non-golfer athletes.      ****2. If someone is a golfer (plays 24+ rounds a year) and other sports, he or she will be classified as a golfer.   3. If someone is a non-golfer, he or she will be determined  to be an "athlete" only if he or she COMPETES in one of the following sports: baseball, football, soccer, basketball, swimming, gymnastics, ice hockey, field hockey, track or field events (including running the marathon), rugby, tennis, handball, squash, diving, and ice skating. The following are games, and NOT sports: bowling, darts, archery, curling, billiards and pocket billiards (aka "pool"), and shuffleboard.               ***   4. For golfers, I must play at least 1 round of 9 holes with him or her in competition or in a wager for money or for something tangible and worth money (eg. lunch, beer, a car, a house, a date with a daughter, etc.).                     *      *5.  For non-golfers, I must engage in a conversation and/or argument lasting at least 30 minutes in which the subject matter is weighty and "of consequence" (including politics, religion, SEX, climate change, science, mathematics,history, music, art, or philosophy----astrology and the "dark sciences" do NOT qualify!).                        Based on preliminary data, compiled over the past 67 years, my initial conclusion is that golfers are CLEARLY more intelligent than other athletes (and I regard avid golfers as "athletes")!!                                           ****This initial conclusion can be contested only if a person meets or exceeds my qualifications: college educated at Harvard College, cum laude in government, and the Stonier Graduate School of Banking (equivalent to a MBA), scratch handicap, winner of 19 golf tournaments, owner of a golf-related business----PEZ  Golf Enterprises, and ESTEEMED Contributor to this Discussion Board

@PEZGolf I guess they didn't teach what a paragraph was at Harvard. Read your PM's dude.

[PEZGolf]

21 minutes ago, mvmac said:

@PEZGolf I guess they didn't teach what a paragraph was at Harvard. Read your PM's dude.

I apologize. I will hit the Enter key for paragraphing in the future. My wife SEZ that I am TI----technologically impaired!  I guess she is right----but then again, is she EVER wrong?

[Lihu]

Good thing, I'm not planning on contesting PEZ's statements, because I don't quite meet the criteria. 

Although badly formatted, it was written pretty clearly. Maybe just a smidgen too strong?

I'd like to add that even golfers I randomly meet seem to appear smarter than the average pickup game with most other sports.

I would also include archery, as the Olympics do. Now,  I've been in an archery club where there are two individuals who organize tournaments and regularly set up targets in front of homeless people's camps. Of course, this was ridiculous, and the reasons I got were that the camps did not belong there. On another occasion some brothers in the same club told the city treasurer one morning as he went for a leisurely stroll that they would shoot him if he came across the range again!  So, I quit archery, but before that I did have a nice conversation with the treasurer while walking along the trails in question about not shutting down the archery range because of a few idiots. . .The irony is that no one else in the club thought these few people were lacking any judgement. Maybe that's why these idiots I exemplified only shoot bows, because they're probably banned from owning and shooting guns. 

Pickup soccer versus meeting random golf partners is not even a question to me. I've never met any golfer who would purposely hurt another individual over a game. I have met plenty of idiots in pickup basketball, football, soccer, especially soccer. I was never the object of the said attacks, but I've seen good players get hurt by obvious attacks. The reason for the attacks? The perpetrator did something stupid and blamed the better players.

There was only one time I saw this behavior on a golf course, and it was two marine drill instructors going at each other. They would probably be prone to doing that anywhere else too. 

In general, golfers are more well behaved and smarter, or at least appear so.

 

2 hours ago, rkim291968 said:

I think you read a lot into my posts that are not there.   At the end of the day, what I am saying is PGA golfers are not more or not less intelligent than other sports athletes.   

It didn't take much "imagination" to deduce what you meant.

[PEZGolf]

3 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Good thing, I'm not planning on contesting PEZ's statements, because I don't quite meet the criteria. 

Although badly formatted, it was written pretty clearly. Maybe just a smidgen too strong?

I'd like to add that even golfers I randomly meet seem to appear smarter than the average pickup game with most other sports. I would also include archery, as the Olympics do.

Now,  I've been in an archery club where there's two individuals who organize tournaments and regularly set up targets in front of homeless people's camps. Of course, this was ridiculous, and the reasons I got were that the camps did not belong there. On another occasion some brothers in the same club told the city treasurer one morning as he went for a leisurely stroll that they would shoot him if he came across the range again!  So, I quit archery, but before that I did have a nice conversation with the treasurer while walking along the trails in question about not shutting down the archery range because of a few idiots. . .The irony is that no one else in the club thought these few people were lacking any judgement. Maybe that's why these idiots I exemplified only shoot bows, because they're probably banned from owning and shooting guns. 

Pickup soccer versus meeting random golf partners is not even a question to me. I've never met any golfer who would purposely hurt another individual over a game. I have met plenty of idiots in pickup basketball, football, soccer, especially soccer. I was never the object of the said attacks, but I've seen good players get hurt by obvious attacks. The reason for the attacks? The perpetrator did something stupid and blamed the better players.

There was only one time I saw this behavior on a golf course, and it was two marine drill instructors going at each other. They would probably be prone to doing that anywhere else too. 

In general, golfers are more well behaved and smarter, or at least appear so.

 

It didn't take much "imagination" to deduce what you meant.

Good post! I too have witnessed STUPID fights at pick-up basketball games! Come on, dudes, it is only a pick-up game, NOT the Finals of the NCAA Division 1 Championships!   By the way, what are YOU doing up at this hour----insomnia?

[Lihu]

I live in the west coast. I'm just relaxing after cleaning up the party mess. . .

[JonMA1]

If I were take a guess based on my own experiences, it'd be tough.

This forum seems to include members with higher than average intelligence. There are scientists, engineers, physicians, attorneys, writers, musicians, and statisticians - or at least many who seemed knowledgeable in those areas. And with few exceptions, posts and discussions are generally more logical than most on the internet.

But if I were to go by behavior shown on the golf courses, not so much. You have garbage discarded into the bushes 20ft away from a garbage can, people unable or unwilling to execute ready golf, players hitting into other groups, old guys (my age) thinking they have a chance with a 20 year old cart girl, and variations of selfishness and inconsideration that just reek of stupidity.

As far as the pros... golfers seem a bit more reserved toward the media and fans, but I don't really know that much about it beyond what I see on TV. Even if that were the case, it might have less to do with intelligence, and more to do with culture. Seattle Seahawks CB Richards Sherman is what I'd consider an intelligent man but would have guessed otherwise based solely on his interviews. I wonder how many other non-golf pro athletes are like him. And the comment Sergio made towards TW a couple of years ago (fried chicken dinner)... pretty lame.

Then you have a couple of posters claiming golf requires more strategy than other sports. I simply don't agree with this. While I will admit that learning the Rules of Golf is difficult, outsmarting a golf course and weather conditions seems easier than anticipating what a human opponent(s) will do.

[Lihu]

59 minutes ago, JonMA1 said:

Then you have a couple of posters claiming golf requires more strategy than other sports. I simply don't agree with this. While I will admit that learning the Rules of Golf is difficult, outsmarting a golf course and weather conditions seems easier than anticipating what a human opponent(s) will do.

Martial arts, boxing and fencing do this to an extreme level, but the movements one makes to block and attack are trained reactions and not methodically thought out movements. It's not "strategy" in a traditional sense. It's more like tactical movements, which are drilled into the "muscle memory".

It's not actually intelligence by a traditional definition, but rather motor skills developed to react to a particular situation.

The football analogy is not quite right. Football is more like a "battle" situation where strategy and tactical skills are separated into many individuals. The coaches are the generals who work out the complicated strategies, and the players are the ones who execute those strategies.  Most of the players don't even need to know how those strategies were developed much less come up with them.

In golf, you have the golfer and his trusted sidekick. That's it. Together, they need to decide what to do to solve all the problems the course presents.

If you average all the players intelligence in the traditional sense of the word, they won't be as intelligent as the player and caddie on average. Most of the football players are, simply put, the best tactical executors in the world. You can then extend this logic to all the other exemplified sports. There are exceptions, but we are talking in generalities and averages.

[Ernest Jones]

Not the ones I play with.

[JonMA1]

40 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Martial arts, boxing and fencing do this to an extreme level, but the movements one makes to block and attack are trained reactions and not methodically thought out movements. It's not "strategy" in a traditional sense. It's more like tactical movements, which are drilled into the "muscle memory".

It's not actually intelligence by a traditional definition, but rather motor skills developed to react to a particular situation.

The football analogy is not quite right. Football is more like a "battle" situation where strategy and tactical skills are separated into many individuals. The coaches are the generals who work out the complicated strategies, and the players are the ones who execute those strategies.  Most of the players don't even need to know how those strategies were developed much less come up with them.

In golf, you have the golfer and his trusted sidekick. That's it. Together, they need to decide what to do to solve all the problems the course presents.

If you average all the players intelligence in the traditional sense of the word, they won't be as intelligent as the player and caddie on average. Most of the football players are, simply put, the best tactical executors in the world. You can then extend this logic to all the other exemplified sports. There are exceptions, but we are talking in generalities and averages.

I won't argue your definition of intelligence @Lihu, but I do believe you underestimate the logic, memory, planning and decision-making necessary for individual team members to compete in sports such as baseball, football and basketball.

There's a lot of effort put into learning what keys to look for in the time before the action starts - it's not all reactionary. In football, it isn't just the quarterback or middle linebacker who make "reads" based on the opponents alignments. Each member of a defensive and offensive squad studies film all week, looking for patterns in their opponent's scheme. These players have to act as one, so they ALL have use the same "if this, then this" logic. Just because some of the keys they're looking for happen quickly, doesn't mean there wasn't a ton of thought put in ahead of time.

Very few of these athletes would be where they are based solely on reactionary skills.

in the end, I know very, very little about professional sports. But I don't find decision-making on the course to be that challenging. Certainly isn't anywhere near the biggest reason for my crappy game.

[Lihu]

You're right that they are not based purely on reactionary skills, so I used the term tactical skills hoping there is a significant enough difference.

Golf played at a high level is much harder than at our levels of play. One stroke errors for an entire round could cost tournaments.

[Golfingdad]

18 minutes ago, Lihu said:

You're right that they are not based purely on reactionary skills, so I used the term tactical skills hoping there is a significant enough difference.

Golf played at a high level is much harder than at our levels of play. One stroke errors for an entire round could cost tournaments.

This is true of every sport and it has nothing to do with intelligence anyway.

 

[JonMA1]

20 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Golf played at a high level is much harder than at our levels of play. One stroke errors for an entire round could cost tournaments.

True, such as it is with a higher level of any sport. I'd call that a wash.

@Golfingdadjust beat me to the punch.

I will say, to help make your point, that if I knew several different ways to flight a ball 150yards, the strategy of knowing which is the best would certainly complicate decision-making.

[Lihu]

1 minute ago, Golfingdad said:

This is true of every sport and it has nothing to do with intelligence anyway.

Not really the same thing. There's a much broader spectrum of skills sets needed for the pro golfer.

 

2 minutes ago, JonMA1 said:

True, such as it is with a higher level of any sport. I'd call that a wash.

@Golfingdadjust beat me to the punch.

I will say, to help make your point, that if I knew several different ways to flight a ball 150yards, the strategy of knowing which is the best would certainly complicate decision-making.

I've not played at that high a level to even imagine what sorts of situations a golfer needs to extricate themselves. Also, not sure this situation would be all that tough a decision for a pro golfer?

[Golfingdad]

2 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Not really the same thing. There's a much broader spectrum of skills sets needed for the pro golfer.

 

I've not played at that high a level to even imagine what sorts of situations a golfer needs to extricate themselves. Also, not sure this situation would be all that tough a decision for a pro golfer?

Uh huh .  Don't play that game again by moving the goalposts.  You said golf is harder at the higher levels ... and it is, but so is every other sport (and non sport) on the freaking planet. The specific type of skil set is entirely irrelevant to that argument.  

And again, that argument has nothing to do with intelligence.