The Kokopelli Golf Stance

Among the things I learned at the World Scientific Congress of Golf last week in Phoenix: A golf swing becomes automatic only once it's safely lodged in the brain's basal ganglia. The Official World Golf Rankings are significantly biased against members of the PGA Tour. And researchers are divided on the relative contribution to club-head speed of wrist flexion/extension and ulnar/radial deviation. (If you don't quite grasp that last one, don't worry. I won't be coming back to it.)

The WSCG is something like the Olympics of golf research. It's been held every four years since 1990 (with one delay), starting out in the Athens of golf, St. Andrews, Scotland. This was its second time in Phoenix. Roughly two-thirds of the presenters were full-time academics (the rest were golf professionals). This might lead some to suspicions about how faculty members are spending their research hours, but for several reasons golf proves to be an excellent subject for study.

One is that golfers stand in one place when they do their thing, and initiate the action on cue rather than react to an object or person coming at them, as in most other sports. Thus they can be wired to the hilt and every little motion and brain wave pondered.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577299702668540234.html?google_editors_picks=true

Not all of the studies at the conference point to immediately practical benefits, but this one did. Vickers's advice is that when you've adopted your stance and are ready to putt, gaze calmly and steadily at the hole (or target spot) for about three counts, bring your eyes back to the ball in one count and fix your eyes on the back (or top) of the ball for two counts. Then make the stroke and continue to gaze at the ground, where the ball was, for at least one more count.

Here is a golf ethics question for you.

What if you were playing in the club championship tournament finals and the match was halved at the end of 17 holes. You had the honor and hit your ball a modest two hundred fifty yards to the middle of the fairway, leaving a simple six iron to the pin. Your opponent then hits his ball, lofting it deep into the woods to the right of the fairway.

Being the golfing gentleman that you are, you help your opponent look for his ball. Just before the permitted five minute search period ends, your opponent says: "Go ahead and hit your second shot and if I don't find it in time, I'll concede the match."

You hit your ball, landing it on the green, stopping about ten feet from the pin. About the time your ball comes to rest, you hear your opponent exclaim from deep in the woods: "I found it!". The second sound you hear is a click, the sound of a club striking a ball and the ball comes sailing out of the woods and lands on the green, stopping no more than six inches from the hole.

Now here is the ethical dilemma:Do you pull the cheating bastard’s ball out of your pocket and confront him with it or do you keep your mouth shut?