The Early Save-Green-Reading-Book Arguments Need Work
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Kudos to Jim Stracka for speaking and GolfDigest.com’s Daniel Rapaport for disclosing the magazine’s partnership with Stracka Line in this story about the surprise green reading book news.
The bad news? The arguments against require taking on the PGA Tour, not the big bad governing bodis, and assume the books would be banned from practice rounds (highly doubtful). But we don’t know the specifics because this aggressive bit of Player Advisory Council rulemaking has not been fleshed out yet. The details will be tricky since the Tour is not normally one to intervene in rules of golf issues.
But I don’t think these arguments will hold up.
Stracka also expressed concern that the banning of the books on the PGA Tour would confuse the hordes of amateur golfers who use them. The ban, it would seem, would only apply to the PGA Tour, and the books would not be made illegal in the Rules of Golf. It’s also not yet clear what, exactly, the ban would cover, or how it would be implemented.
“They’ve tried to avoid bifurcation forever,” Stracka said. “What they’re doing is, they are bifurcating the Rules of Golf. They are creating a new set of rules for them and one for everybody else. And that’s just bad for the game."
The PGA Tour is supposed to be entertaining and watching people look at a cheat sheet is tedious. They also make players wear pants during tournament days in the name of the “product.” It’s refreshing they are going to lead instead of follow on something that adds cost and time to the game, despite claims of one college golf study suggesting green reading books speed up play.
Why, then, would the players vote as they did?
“My only guess it there were a couple influential players who basically convinced the other players on the committee to say yeah, let’s get rid of these books. Why, I have no idea because most of them use the books! It’s mind-boggling.”
Maybe some actually care about how the sport is played, rewarding skill, making players and caddies resort to using eyes, and know it looks ridiculous?
