Struggling with difficult courses and computers Here I go again, but I’ve thought about another of life’s weird connections, this one between golf and computers. What possible interrelationship could this writer see between a terminal sitting patiently on a desk and a game played with a dimpled ball on pristine fairways? I say it has something to do with their co-existent needs for fairness and simplicity. The golf people are catching on, but the computer folks seem stuck in the dark ages of electronic complexity. When golf was booming in the 1990s—a phenomenon aided by the emergence of Tiger Woods and the demographic impact of aging, well-heeled baby boomers, thousands of new or rebuilt golf courses sprung up across the nation, with the Chicago area being one of the leading venues for expansion. This was a great time for golf lovers like me because my partners and I had more places to play, better pricing choices and a much easier time making weekend tee times. But a downside was that course architects got their evil jollies from creating courses that were terribly difficult and frustrating for average players. I like challenges, but not when tee shots have to travel 225 yards just to reach fairways or when a narrow landing area lies between a lake and an environmentally-protected plot populated with Canadian geese that enjoy laughing at golfers’ errant shots. In the Chicago Tribune’s 2008 Golf Guide, course architect Rick Jacobson remarked that “...people were building courses that were impossible to play. Every new one was a measure of your testosterone.” Good for him. He sympathizes with average players who hand over $70 to $90 to play, only to suffer from high stress and blood pressure five hours after teeing off. Moreover, marital relations are strained when wives pleasantly ask, “How did you play today? In return they receive icy stares and husbands or significant others in angry, dismissive moods for the rest of the day. It’s bad enough for medium handicappers, but I wonder how many high handicappers, or players new to the game, have either killed themselves by now or traded in their clubs for bowling balls? Even a low handicapper I know complained that his normal low 70s scores were mid-80s on some of the new Chicago area courses. However, it’s been a bonanza for golf ball producers. But now the boom appears to be over. Play is down just about everywhere and golf architects are responding by creating or re-designing links with a better balance between challenge and fairness. This will have the effect of bringing golfers back for more, which is exactly what the golf proprietors were hoping for in the first place. I hope the computer people respond to their market as golf’s big shots are in the process of doing. My wife and I are typical, non-technical baby boomers who are looking for easier operation and usage from the marvelous, screened-box in our little home office. I think Bill Gates once suggested this, but I don’t think his words made much difference. We do a few things very well, but others—like trying to open some types of e-mailed documents—are akin to following those goofy treasure maps they distribute to senior tour groups. Without our competent son and daughters, who by some mysterious genetic alteration in the late 20th century always seem to know which keys to stroke, my wife and I have often been tempted to just shut the system down and invest in discount boxes of yellow legal pads, postcards and BIC pens. Of course, I can sign up for a training program and learn some of the complicated stuff. The sales and marketing people make computer training sound so attractive, especially the television guy who keeps repeating “buy my product!” But I have lots to do in my semi-retirement stage and I am as likely to spend a 40-hour week learning computer functions as I am to devote the same amount of time perfecting 8-12 foot putts. Would they make me a better person? Improved computer and golf proficiencies are important to me, but there are plenty of other issues on my priority list these days. “There are huge technical differences between a Corvette and a bottom-of-the-line Chevrolet,” my auto mechanic said one morning as he struggled with his computer. “But the great thing is that you can start either one with a key and drive away.” I don’t know if computers will ever reach that level of simplicity. But I do hope that something can be done to close the performance (and sometimes arrogance) gap between those in the know and those who are frequently clueless. After all, we aging baby boomers are a big market, just like the large potential market of golfers who get turned on by a few more reachable par 4s. Think simple! Mike McGinty is a Business Ledger reporter and commentator who can be reached at mcginty1507@comcast.net

Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2008 (Archive on Thursday, June 19, 2008) Posted by jstoltz  Contributed by jstoltz

Return