The very first principle about finding lost golf balls is that they are almost always in the rough. It is my contention that those most likely to be able to find golf balls are painters. It don't mean industrial painters, but those who can paint images in a painterly fashion. Such people are more likely to be able to distinguish small out of place blobs or pin pricks in an otherwise neat and tidy landscape. They will be able to find balls in fog, in the wet, in muck, in ponds and in tall grass along streams.
This is because the eye composition of painterly people has more rods than cones. Having more cones enables one to see colours better and to find extremely tiny discrepancies in a landscape or a painting. Having more rods helps one to see things more quickly and possibly crisper or less blurred, since rods hit on the location of things more quickly. You now see why painterly is better. This is because the artist or painterly person is also looking for a way to make the image something that hangs together in a meaningful way, an expression of originality. Such a person will see the ball as an anomaly, and be able to pin point its location as being in the place where something looks like a ball or looks a little anomalous. The downside of being painterly may be that one needs more rods than cones to be a good golfer, since golfing may require seeing something very small and not blurred out of the corner of one's eye when one is in full swing.
You will have guessed that a good eye doctor will be able to tell you whether or not you will be good at finding golf balls, were eyesight the only thing that you needed. In my view, the most valuable asset to finding golf balls is being a novice at golf or being really unskilled. Such people will find golf balls where they hit them. They need only to remember that after one hits a ball, one must never take one's eye off the last place that one expects to find the ball. Last being the operative word here!
If a ball flies into a place that is very uncomfortable, such as a brier patch, or a place of poison ivy or stinging nettles, or a place that is wet, or on the side of a steep cliff, it will more difficult to find. Such places can be expected to hide more golf balls. It is advisable to carry a very fast high definition digital camera with one and as soon as the ball is about to disappear from sight, one takes a picture. Lining up with the point of disappearance and walking in a dead straight line, one can simulate the direction of an errant golf ball. One should always have a long pole scooper with one when playing golf. This allows one to scoop a ball from one side of a stream to the other, from within a thick gorse bush, from a pond or stream, or from a sand pit that is full of water.
My advice to one that wishes to find gold balls as well as I do, is to eat lots of cooked carrots on a regular basis. Cooked carrots are best because the cooking releases the good stuff for your eyesight in the carrots. Eating raw carrots gives you enzymes which may or may not help you, but it certainly means that you won't eat as many carrots. Another thing that you can do is to drink a glass of carrot juice every morning. This not only helps your eyesight, but may also help you to live longer.
If a ball flies into an area of long grass, such as a rough, or a place with snakes, or things that bite, it will be more difficult to find. In England and Scotland there is a bush called a gorse. These are prickly bushes that will almost always contain a few lost balls. Many of the balls will not be visible even if one makes one's way into the center of the gorse.
Scratches to Sketches
Monday 26 November 2007
The Art of Finding Golf Balls
Some things are more like a skill and some things are more like a science or art. The activity of finding golf balls is arguably more like a science or art. My reasoning is that many people lose golf balls, and many of these are highly skilled individuals. Their main interest is in hitting a ball towards a very specific target. The more skilled the golfer is the less likely he will lose a golf ball. When a skilled player lose a golf ball this is due to really difficult conditions. The ball is very well hidden in the more obvious places and closer to the shorter grass, and yet it cannot be found. This takes a lot of skill.
On the other hand, a novice and unskilled player loses many more balls and many of these are in well off the preferred places. I should know because I am a very unskilled player and I lose lots of golf balls. But, here's the rub. I find many more golf balls than I lose. In an average game, I will often find more than a golf ball per hole, which sometimes means that I end up with more than another nine or eighteen balls to play on the next round. You might say that I am developing, perhaps unconsciously, the art or science of finding golf balls. I am definitely not developing much in the way of playing golf. Thus, there seems to me to be more in the way of an art and science going on with my game than the development of a golfing skill. That does not mean that I enjoy the game any less, but that I get more pleasure than the average person who only plays to hit a ball in a hole. I play golf to be artistic, to develop the science of finding golf balls inobtrusively, to demonstrate skill in playing the game of golf by getting the ball in the hole with less shots over time.
If we look up the definition of art in the online dictionary, we find that it means "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance." Another definition is "skill in conducting any human activity." If we look up the definition of skill in the online dictionary, we find that it means "the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well." What you immediately notice is that a skill is not necessarily an art. It would seem that an art is a little more than a skill. It would seem that if one is artistic in something, one is skilled in that something. So being an artful golf player would seem to be of a higher order than being a skilled golf player.
Now what would give the game of golf the element of beauty beyond the mere description of skill. In my opinion, one could say that an artful golfer is a golfer that knows not only how to play golf but also how to hit golf balls so that they can can be easily found. It follows that the less artful golfer may hit a ball into the cup, but that only makes him skilled at golf. To be artful at golf in the way I am describing one must not only hit the ball into the cup, one must also know how to lose the ball in a beautiful or appealing way. Its best, of course, if one doesn't lose a golf ball at all, but if one is destined to lose the ball, one should have a bit of taste in the way one goes about it.
Because I have mastered the art of finding a golf ball, I believe that I am a more artful golfer, not by definition but as a consequence of having developing a finding skill, which I would think is very much more like an art and science than a skill. When I lose my golf ball in an artful way it is so well hidden that I can never find it, but in the process find many other golf balls that were hit in much less artful ways.
The beauty in losing a ball comes from the impact that it makes when others observe you losing the ball. One of the most dramatic ways to lose a ball, is to hit it into a lake or pond. It makes much more of an impression on the observer if one does this within a few feet of the pond. That would seem illogical, but remember that art and skill don't really have that much in common.
Now what am I really driving at when talking about losing one's balls, is the problem that many reviewers of art have with images they are viewing on a canvas. To realize that to be artistic does not necessarily mean that you need to be skilled is to realize that a really good painting does not really have to demonstrate very much in the way of skill. It is enough that it create a slash much like a golf ball plunking in a lake for it to be good art.
On the other hand, a novice and unskilled player loses many more balls and many of these are in well off the preferred places. I should know because I am a very unskilled player and I lose lots of golf balls. But, here's the rub. I find many more golf balls than I lose. In an average game, I will often find more than a golf ball per hole, which sometimes means that I end up with more than another nine or eighteen balls to play on the next round. You might say that I am developing, perhaps unconsciously, the art or science of finding golf balls. I am definitely not developing much in the way of playing golf. Thus, there seems to me to be more in the way of an art and science going on with my game than the development of a golfing skill. That does not mean that I enjoy the game any less, but that I get more pleasure than the average person who only plays to hit a ball in a hole. I play golf to be artistic, to develop the science of finding golf balls inobtrusively, to demonstrate skill in playing the game of golf by getting the ball in the hole with less shots over time.
If we look up the definition of art in the online dictionary, we find that it means "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance." Another definition is "skill in conducting any human activity." If we look up the definition of skill in the online dictionary, we find that it means "the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well." What you immediately notice is that a skill is not necessarily an art. It would seem that an art is a little more than a skill. It would seem that if one is artistic in something, one is skilled in that something. So being an artful golf player would seem to be of a higher order than being a skilled golf player.
Now what would give the game of golf the element of beauty beyond the mere description of skill. In my opinion, one could say that an artful golfer is a golfer that knows not only how to play golf but also how to hit golf balls so that they can can be easily found. It follows that the less artful golfer may hit a ball into the cup, but that only makes him skilled at golf. To be artful at golf in the way I am describing one must not only hit the ball into the cup, one must also know how to lose the ball in a beautiful or appealing way. Its best, of course, if one doesn't lose a golf ball at all, but if one is destined to lose the ball, one should have a bit of taste in the way one goes about it.
Because I have mastered the art of finding a golf ball, I believe that I am a more artful golfer, not by definition but as a consequence of having developing a finding skill, which I would think is very much more like an art and science than a skill. When I lose my golf ball in an artful way it is so well hidden that I can never find it, but in the process find many other golf balls that were hit in much less artful ways.
The beauty in losing a ball comes from the impact that it makes when others observe you losing the ball. One of the most dramatic ways to lose a ball, is to hit it into a lake or pond. It makes much more of an impression on the observer if one does this within a few feet of the pond. That would seem illogical, but remember that art and skill don't really have that much in common.
Now what am I really driving at when talking about losing one's balls, is the problem that many reviewers of art have with images they are viewing on a canvas. To realize that to be artistic does not necessarily mean that you need to be skilled is to realize that a really good painting does not really have to demonstrate very much in the way of skill. It is enough that it create a slash much like a golf ball plunking in a lake for it to be good art.
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Sketches from scratches is a provocative blogspot that has grown out of the Wuh Lax experience. It is eclectic, which means that it might consider just about anything from the simple to the extremely difficult. A scratch can be something that is troubling me or a short line on paper. From a scratch comes a verbal sketch or image sketch of the issue or subject. Other sites have other stuff that should really be of interest to the broad reader. I try to develop themes, but variety often comes before depth.
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