By Forrest Blake
After watching the moving Beautiful Mind, I began researching John Nash’s Nobel prize winning thesis on game theory. It will be very difficult to condense all of his brilliance into a concise email. My goal is to give you a few good points to think about out of the volumes of information I have reviewed.
Nash believed that the human mind could accomplish anything with mathematical ideas. We are going to focus on his strategy from his perspective. Nash describes cooperative games to mean a situation involving a set of players, pure strategies, and payoffs. He visualized a transaction as the outcome of either a process of negotiation or else independent strategizing by individuals each pursuing his or her own interest. Instead of defining a solution directly, he suggested developing a strategy that ask what reasonable condition would need to be satisfied, given the any division of gains. He then posited four conditions and, using an ingenious mathematical argument, showed that, if the axioms (needs of the parties) held, then unique solution existed that maximized the product of the participants’ utilities. Essentially, he reasoned, how gains are divided reflects how much the transaction is worth to each party and what other alternatives each have. This gives him the highest possibility of successes by mathematically analyzing the likelihood of the individual result. Therefore, predicting the future outcome of any negotiations.
Clearly, golf is a game. Does the Game Theory apply? The answer is . . . YES. If we visualize the outcome of any round based on historical situations, then the result will be similar to the last 100 rounds we played. The only way you change the equilibrium of your golf game is to change the strategy. This could be taking a course management lesson or changing your swing at GolfTEC. It possibly, might be as simple as changing the environment and taking a vacation in Scotland.
“If you’re going to develop exceptional ideas, it requires a type of thinking that is not simply practical thinking.” John Nash
By Forrest Blake
Forrest Blake Wow what a day at Valencia Country Club last Friday. The front 9 I was working on my take away and couldn’t make solid contact with the ball. What I realized is that trying to get the club outside caused me to push my hands out and effect the top of my swing. So, on 12 I gave up and made sure my right arm was tight to my body, which gave me a solid shoulder turn and my game came back. I need to hold firm with my theory that the place to practice the golf swing is at GolfTEC and once you are on the course the only thing you focus on is the target. I learned this from Dr. Joseph Parent the author of Zen Golf in several personal playing lessons.
The only way to play decent golf is to become a veracious student of the game. In order to improve, every time you play a round there needs to be some soul searching. If you are thick headed, gruff, or find your aggravation level peaks if you cannot master things quickly, there may be a better use of your time than chasing a little white ball around a golf course. Golf tests your body, mind and character. This is why so many people love this game.
It‘s so hard!
Part of the reason is all the exactness of variables needed to play average golf. Great golf is a whole different discussion. There is less of a margin of error than in most other sports. Think about the physics of golf. We are attempting to deliver a strike at over one hundred miles per hour at the center of the clubface, which is at the end of a forty-five inch shaft into the back of a ball. And we need to do it within one or two degrees of square to hit it into the fairway. When you play St. Andrews in Scotland, you need to factor in the thirty-five mile per hour wind, as well as the rain and the cool temperatures.
To find out more about playing Great Golf go to GolfTEC. To book golf travel to Scotland go to Fairway Vacations. To join “Golf’s Social Network” go to MyGolfPeople.
If the economy stay bad for a few more years. Maybe can shift our thinking to where success can be measured in ways other than relentless acquisition. Certainly you’d have less stress if you weren’t lying awake at night wondering how to pay for all that stuff. Golf is a great departure from the grind of the day. Playing more golf can relax your mind and create a focus on what matters or golfing friends and our own mental sanity. For lessons go to GolfTEC. For golf travel go to Fairwayvacations and for social networking around golf go to MyGolfPeople.
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