Caution It Will Play Harder

I think average golfers are really confused when they watch Golf Channel and the analyst is describing why this particular golf course removed all the rough from around the greens and made it all closely mown chipping areas. The reason: “to make it play harder”. I think most people are convinced that makes it easier. Let me help you understand.

This winter I was sick of cable, I really wanted to become a “cord cutter” and the decisions on which way to go were tough. Did I want a Roku, or AppleTV , or Amazon?  Will my family get the most out of Sling, Hulu or You Tube TV? What was the local channel situation? would we need to augment with Netflix or something? Who was going to lose their favorite channel? Could phones be turned into TV’s? What about having only 3 people watching at a time, and how much DVR space is there?

Why It Really Does Play Harder?

Chipping areas are streaming, and deep rough is cable TV. There used to be only one choice, cable (aka, just chop it out with your 60 degree wedge). Now there’s: do I putt, do I pitch, should I flop, I could always bump and run, what if it snags, what if it doesn’t run out, what if it checks (aka streaming choices)? What makes something harder is the paralysis of choice. All these options are good…well… until you decide to do the wrong one. Everything we do can be tied back to golf. That’s why I like golf… and golf is a great teacher. If I ran the local Firestone store, I’m not sure my analogies would be as interesting.