Is golf really hard?

[krupa]

Golf is hard.  Fun, but hard.  The difficulty of <insert any other sport> has no bearing on whether shooting a low score in golf is hard or not.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, 70sSanO said:

Your point is well taken.. but tennis at a high level, say 100... 120mph serves coming to either the right or left of you can be impossible, and not just hard for most people.  I would venture to say that if you took a professional level serve, the average tennis player would just stand there and not have any hope of returning the shot.

I bet the average person could return a serve from a pro more often than they could hit a 235-yard 5-iron over water from a fairway bunker.

Because they're not doing the latter thing EVER.

Silly comparison, and yes, "Golf is Hard®."

[onthehunt526]

Golf is hard. Because you can pull something off once or twice. Repeating it is another story all together. Doing the same thing over and over is the hard part.

[Lihu]

11 minutes ago, iacas said:

I bet the average person could return a serve from a pro more often than they could hit a 235-yard 5-iron over water from a fairway bunker.

Because they're not doing the latter thing EVER.

Silly comparison, and yes, "Golf is Hard®."

Both are nearly 0 odds, but I agree that carrying a 5i over 235 yard of water from a fairway bunker is pretty elite. The average person has no idea how good are the pros in golf and tennis.

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Both are nearly 0 odds, but I agree that carrying a 5i over 235 yard of water from a fairway bunker is pretty elite. The average person has no idea how good are the pros in golf and tennis.

Even Michael Jordan batted .200 or something against professional pitchers. He's never even gotten to a scratch handicap in golf. Hell, MLB pitchers bat .150 or whatever.

I've played tennis against some top pros when I lived in SoFla. I could return serves. I still have never hit a 235-yard 5-iron from a fairway bunker, and I don't know that I ever could or would unless I traveled to the moon or had a downhill hole in Colorado.

[Lihu]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

Even Michael Jordan batted .200 or something against professional pitchers. He's never even gotten to a scratch handicap in golf. Hell, MLB pitchers bat .150 or whatever.

I've played tennis against some top pros when I lived in SoFla. I could return serves. I still have never hit a 235-yard 5-iron from a fairway bunker, and I don't know that I ever could or would unless I traveled to the moon or had a downhill hole in Colorado.

I would argue that you are definitely not the average golfer, and probably not the average tennis player to be playing against some pros.

When I hear average I think the average person playing either sport.

[saevel25]

14 minutes ago, Lihu said:

Both are nearly 0 odds, but I agree that carrying a 5i over 235 yard of water from a fairway bunker is pretty elite. The average person has no idea how good are the pros in golf and tennis.

It's not even close to zero odds on the tennis. You give a guy 1000 attempts to hit a tennis serve back and I bet he would return a few of them. 

You take an amateur, who can't drive the ball past 210 yards, they are not hitting a 5 iron 235 yards ever. 

 

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Lihu said:

I would argue that you are definitely not the average golfer, and probably not the average tennis player to be playing against some pros.

When I hear average I think the average person playing either sport.

@Lihu, my tennis experience is limited to playing in a summer rec program one year and getting lessons through that with some local teen girl who was "pretty decent." That's it.

I played against them because they were buddies from, actually, the Apple Store. Lots of tennis players live in the Boca Raton area.

And yeah, the fact that I could return serves against top ranked tennis players (not often, but one or two out of ten, and by "return" I just mean pop over the net for an easy smash winner ) but have never and will never, despite being a far, far better golfer than tennis player, hit the golf shot I illustrated is kind of my point.

Tennis is easier than golf.

Never mind that in tennis your opponent can screw up too, and there's only one of them (or two, but then you have a partner), while in golf, if you have one opponent it is yourself or par, and if you have multiple, it's often a hundred other players, none of whom can screw up and give you a birdie.

[bplewis24]

Golf is hard for me.

Hope that helps.

[Lihu]

3 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

It's not even close to zero odds on the tennis. You give a guy 1000 attempts to hit a tennis serve back and I bet they would return a few of them. 

You take an amateur, who can't drive the ball past 210 yards, they are not hitting a 5 iron 235 yards ever. 

 

Don't forget from a fairway bunker. Sure no way.

 

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

@Lihu, my tennis experience is limited to playing in a summer rec program one year and getting lessons through that with some local teen girl who was "pretty decent." That's it.

I played against them because they were buddies from, actually, the Apple Store. Lots of tennis players live in the Boca Raton area.

And yeah, the fact that I could return serves against top ranked tennis players (not often, but one or two out of ten, and by "return" I just mean pop over the net for an easy smash winner ) but have never and will never, despite being a far, far better golfer than tennis player, hit the golf shot I illustrated is kind of my point.

Tennis is easier than golf.

Never mind that in tennis your opponent can screw up too, and there's only one of them (or two, but then you have a partner), while in golf, if you have one opponent it is yourself or par, and if you have multiple, it's often a hundred other players, none of whom can screw up and give you a birdie.

Cool.

 

I think we all agree that "Golf is Hard" no matter how you dice it, it's very hard. Learning to swing at your own maximum is also very very hard. Not to mention that that maximum is probably 30% to 100% shorter than golf pros.

[Patch]

Golf vs Tennis. I have a cousin who is a retired tennis instructor. In his day he was very, very good. He can not play golf to save his backside. He has never beat me in 30 years. I on the other hand can't beat him in a tennis match. Never have, probably never will. 

As fo golf being hard, I think to a certain point it is. One problem with golf being so tough is that there is not another human opponent to play against. A golfer only has themself, course conditions, and the weather to play against. That's the defenses a golfer has to play against. Their offense is only their talent to play at what ever level they can achieve. 

Speaking of talent, I think some golfers talent levels are going to be lower, or higher than other golfers. Some will never break 100, some not 90, some not 80, and some like me who never will break par. Those golfer with less talent will find the game harder than those with more talent for the game. 

I also think we amateurs tend to make golf harder on ourselves by trying to absorb all the infomation that is available on how to play the game. Their are so many different avenues of of swing instruction, this too tends to make the game tougher than perhaps it should be. 

Yeah, golf is hard, but only as hard we make it, based on our own amateur talent levels. 

[70sSanO]

I'm sorry to have ruffled any feathers.  Actually I'm sorry for even starting this thread.

In no way was I trying to say that tennis is harder than golf or that golf is easy.  Golf is NOT easy.  It is hard.

John

[GangGreen]

Golf is not hard to play, but it is certainly hard to play well.

Sure, anyone can grab some clubs and hack there way around a golf course and, for many, that's perfectly fine.  For most, though, the enjoyment comes from how difficult it is to truly get better.

[Lihu]

39 minutes ago, 70sSanO said:

I'm sorry to have ruffled any feathers.  Actually I'm sorry for even starting this thread.

In no way was I trying to say that tennis is harder than golf or that golf is easy.  Golf is NOT easy.  It is hard.

John

No seriously ruffled feathers. You shouldn't be sorry for starting the thread at all.

 

15 minutes ago, GangGreen said:

Golf is not hard to play, but it is certainly hard to play well.

Sure, anyone can grab some clubs and hack there way around a golf course and, for many, that's perfectly fine.  For most, though, the enjoyment comes from how difficult it is to truly get better.

True, and the same could be said of tennis or any other sport.

[Golfingdad]

37 minutes ago, 70sSanO said:

I'm sorry to have ruffled any feathers.  Actually I'm sorry for even starting this thread.

In no way was I trying to say that tennis is harder than golf or that golf is easy.  Golf is NOT easy.  It is hard.

John

Yeah, I think people latched on too hard to your tennis analogy.  What I took from your post is similar to what I take from the guy who wrote this article, which is from the OP in this thread: 

Basically, I think what you might be saying, is why do we, immediately at the outset of taking up the game, define our ability based on how we compare to an elite or scratch level golfer when we don't do that in the other sports.  I think the answer is partially simply because we can - because it's an individual sport where it just works that we get to (kinda) compare ourselves to elite level golfers even if it's not in everybody's best interests to do so.

 

[Gator Hazard]

For real. It's a stupid easy game. Stupid ball sits on the ground. It's not even moving and you have your choice of up to 14 different clubs of your choosing to hit it with. Really? How hard can it be to hit a stupid little ball sitting on some grass with a crooked stick?  Seriously!  It's child's play!

This Saturday? It only took me a 115 strokes to put the ball in that tiny little hole eighteen times. Golf bores me now.   On to the next challenge. 

[Patch]

1 hour ago, 70sSanO said:

I'm sorry to have ruffled any feathers.  Actually I'm sorry for even starting this thread.

In no way was I trying to say that tennis is harder than golf or that golf is easy.  Golf is NOT easy.  It is hard.

John

Never thought you were. 

[Coronagolfman]

Golf is a hard game to learn - once you have some basic skill in making contact with the ball it becomes easier but getting that initial level of skill established can be quite daunting for somebody just starting out.

I've tried to get both of my sons interested in the game - the older one did take a couple of lessons and is able to get the ball airbourne most of the time; the younger one doesn't like lessons and has a very difficult time with the concept of a turn and staying down on the shot.

Both of the boys played ice hockey for about 7 years and all I can say is that I tried to skate a couple times but never could get the hang of it, much less expect to hold a stick while doing so.

So between the 3 of us I think there is a pretty good understanding that some ports take time to learn before one can expect to be proficient.