Picture this. You're standing on the first tee at Prestwick — no yardage book, no apps, just you, swirling winds, and a lone passenger giving you the side-eye from the adjacent train station.
Somewhere in the air, you hear the ghostly whisper of Old Tom Morris: "Far and sure…" You stand over the ball and mutter to yourself. "Don’t go right, don't go long, it's narrow down there, ignore the wind." You line up and make the swing– maybe not the purest strike, but somehow it bounces safely down the fairway. And you’re off.
There's a special kind of joy in this kind of golf, where every shot's a gamble, every gust of wind a challenge. Where 150 yards doesn’t automatically mean a seven iron, and where there’s more than one way to direct the ball towards your target.
A confession – in real life, I’m a huge techie. And the comfort of today’s always-on life influenced my approach to golf. Years ago, after reading Moneyball, I became obsessed with keeping stats. I devoured golf magazines and bought more than one gadget that promised to improve my scores.
But then I moved to England. I started playing with golfers who cared more about the walk than the score, who wanted to admire the landscape rather than fiddle around with rangefinders or phone apps.
I remember one round in Scotland, on the number two course at Gullane, when the battery in my rangefinder died. For a couple of holes I was lost. And then my partner’s caddy came over to me and whispered to me (cue amused Scottish accent: “The first go at a course is a one-time gift,” he said. “Why ruin the surprise?”
He was right, of course. I’m playing for fun, not to win championships. I’ll only visit many of the great courses I’ve been lucky enough to play once. If I’m glued to an app, or trying to input my greens in regulation, or looking at the pin sheet, I’m missing everything else.
In the internet age, a visit to a new golf course starts long before you step on to the first tee. If you want, you can find hole-by-hole videos, online course guides and YouTube films of ‘creators’ trying to shoot a certain score.
I’ve become cautious in my research, being careful not to learn too much about individual holes before I discover them for myself. For me, great golf content is like a book review – it tells me enough about whether I want to read the book without spoiling the plot. My favourite sources include Cookie Jar Golf and Where Golf Began, both of whom make films that reveal history, landscape and architecture without giving too much away.
One recent playing partner asked my why I only carry nine clubs and a putter. The honest answer is that no extra wedge or long iron will change things for a guy who’s just hoping to make more pars than bogies. And yes, I want to get better – but no-one cares about my greens-in-regulation stats, and most of my favourite rounds never even involved a pencil and a scorecard.
Golf is hard – I get it. And sometime technology can help with hard things – I get that too.
But we are surrounded by technology every day, and it’s all consuming. For those precious hours on the golf course I want to disconnect from the world and tackle the challenge presented by the architect.
Golf creates a bond between the player and the landscape that no device can measure. And in a world racing inexorably to pixel-perfect precision, it’s worth remembering the thrill of hitting a shot blind, guided by nothing more than the feel in your hand and the quiet assurance that golf, like life, is better when things are just bit unpredictable.
About the Author: Bullpens & Bunkers divides his time between the USA and England, and has recently partnered with a boutique travel consultancy XENTRA Travel to introduce American golfers to the joys of golf across the UK and Ireland. Learn more and follow his golf adventures @bullpen24 on Twitter/X or Instagram.
