Time for golf to decommission the DMDs

Golf Correspondent

Tuesday 17 April 2012

When it comes to new technology, this correspondent has a bumbling habit of embracing the latest inventions with the kind of painful awkwardness not seen since Captain Hook experimented with contact lenses.

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Nick Rodger

It's bad enough trying to fathom out how to wring your semmit dry in a hand-cranked mangle, after all, without the added hassle of simultaneously attempting to upload a picture of the creaky process on to Facebook.

Of course, teenagers love their technological trinkets. In these innovative times, when the pockets of most folk possess more gadgetry than Q's potting shed, it was hardly surprising to see countless Distance Measuring Devices (DMDs), during last week's Scottish Boys' Championship at Murcar Links.Back in 2006, the Royal & Ancient and the United States Golf Association made some revisions to the bible of golfing dos and don'ts and sanctioned the use of these contraptions through a 'Local Rule' that could be adopted by individual committees at their own discretion. The R&A and the USGA do not adopt the said rule at any of their events, it has to be said.It was the Professional Golfers' Association that first took the DMD plunge in 2008 and gave the green light to the use of these GPS thingymebobs in all its regional and national tournaments."With rangefinders, it saves all the fiddling about and consultation of the yardage book, hence speeding up play," was one of the official justifications back then.The amateur scene swiftly followed, with the English Golf Union leading the way among the home bodies. Now it's the turn of the Scottish Golf Union. This is the first season that the SGU has allowed the DMDs in all its championships and it will be interesting to see what, if any, difference will be made to the funereal pace of play. Judging by some of the scenes witnessed during the Boys' Championship, won by Aberdeen's Craig Howie, it won't be much.On an amble out on to the course (yes we do venture forth from the press room occasionally) this reporter was greeted by a familiar sight on the fairway.A player walked up to his ball, trudged over to a marker, went back to his ball, guddled about for his DMD, lifted the electronic binoculars to his eyes and began analysing his target in the kind of attentive way that Bill Oddie would perhaps examine the nesting habits of a distant Heron. Having taken the reading of the pin to the nearest centimetre, the device was tucked away again, a rummage for the yardage book took place and its pages were leafed through before the eagerly anticipated approach shot was then paced out. And the end result of all of this meticulous preparation? A seven-iron straight into the bunker. At least it had been mapped out to absolute perfection, though.There is enough faffing about in golf at the best of times and, as far as a fair few observers can see, these DMDs are simply adding to the plethora of plooterings. Whatever happened to the art of the players' own nous and sense of judgment?AND ANOTHER THING . . .We Scots have often been lampooned for our defeatist attitude but Sergio Garcia recently made us look like glowing beacons of hope and optimism with his statement of resignation at The Masters.In an astonishing, downbeat assessment of his major ambitions, the Spaniard made some eye-opening comments. "I'm not good enough, I don't have what it takes to win a major," he whined. "After 13 years, I've come to the conclusion that I have to play for second or third place. Everything I say, I say because I feel it. If I didn't mean it I couldn't stand here and lie, like a lot of guys do. If I felt like I could win, I would do it." The words were in stark contrast to those uttered 13 years ago when he pushed Tiger Woods all the way in the US PGA Championship before settling for second place."It was really fun, most of all," he said with wide-eyed, teenage exuberance. "It was joy, it was pressure, it was, I will tell you, the best day of my life." In the 54 majors Garcia has contested, he has finished in the top-10 on 17 occasions, with five of those placings being top-threes.At just 32, the five-time Ryder Cup player should still have his peak years ahead of him. It's surely far too early to be giving up all hope of major success.It's almost a year since Seve Ballesteros passed away. The great Spaniard was a fighter, both on the course as a passionate performer, and off it, as a devastating brain tumour became his biggest adversary.Garcia, once the heir to Seve's throne, needs to show some of that same fighting spirit to lift himself out of the doldrums.

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Time for golf to decommission the DMDs

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