Have you ever dabbled in that Artificial Intelligence thingamabob, ChatGPT? Of course you haven’t.
If you’re anything like me – and by that, I mean a ham-fisted, technological oaf - you’re probably still getting to grips with the high-tech, cutting edge complexities of the pumice stone.
Anyway, the other day, having read a morale-boosting article about Artificial Intelligence eradicating the need for jobs altogether, I decided to give that ChatGPT lark a go.
It can basically write stuff for you, whether it’s an essay, a wedding speech or the sombre valedictory address you’ll deliver when you’ve been made redundant and kicked onto the scrapheap by Artificial bloomin’ Intelligence.
Out of curiosity, I asked it to ‘write a golf column in the style of Nick Rodger of The Herald’.
Within five seconds, it had generated a lengthy piece called, ‘The Golf course – a sanctuary of performance and reflection’ which began with the sentence, ‘as the sun rises over the dewy links, casting an ethereal glow upon the rolling greens, golfers are not just trying to lower their handicap; they are engaging in a profound personal journey that transcends the sport itself.”
It was chin-stroking, thought-provoking, eye-opening and enlightening stuff. And in that respect, ChatGPT had completely failed in its task of writing a column in the style of Nick Rodger. Not so intelligent after all, eh? Emboldened, I went back to wrestling with my pumice stone.
It’s onwards this week to the Dunhill Links Championship, that annual, cash-soaked, celebrity-infused birl around the Old Course, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns.
How the time hurtles by. It’s a year since the event was ravaged by an unrelenting downpour that left all three links flooded. The scenes from Carnoustie in particular, after the Barry Burn had burst its banks, were quite extraordinary.
Even more extraordinary was the fact they managed to get 54-holes completed and squelched to some kind of soggy conclusion on the Monday.
There was still so much water swilling around, the prize giving ceremony was attended by represenatives from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
As for this week’s forecast in the parishes of Fife and Angus? Well, there’s nothing, thankfully, that looks too concerning.
Over in the US at the weekend, the deadly hurricane that wreaked havoc in Florida also whipped through Georgia and caused considerable damage to Augusta National, the home of the Masters.
Officials there, quite rightly, expressed their thoughts, first and foremost, for the wider Augusta community that had been devastated rather than their course.
It, no doubt, will be spruced up in the time it takes you to say, ‘a restoration unlike any other’. The greenkeepers will certainly earn their corn.
But they do everywhere. Not so long ago, it was ‘Thank a Greenkeeper Day’, but it really should be a show of year-round appreciation for those tireless endeavours. It can, of course, be a thankless task, particularly given the way the weather is going.
In the cradle of the game, for instance, the summer can be so fleeting, it passes in the brief outpouring of a resigned sigh.
Many course custodians will tell you that they are losing the seasonality aspect of the job. Grisly weather can be par for the course in the winter but now that meteorological misery seems to be more frequent during the height of the season too.
Data gathered by the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) during the 2023 campaign found that July had 150 per cent more rainfall than usual.
Putting the ‘course closed’ sign up, especially in the summer, tends to see the approval rating of a greenkeeper plummet quicker than Sir Keir Starmer’s popularity. For the long-term health of the course, though, needs must.
Speaking recently to David Orr, the head professional at Whitecraigs, he told me that the course had been shut for four days in August.
“Bonkers,” was how he described the infuriating Scottish summer. “And a worry for the industry.” Many other courses will have been in a similarly sodden situation.
In an often over-burdened, and undervalued, job, it’s perhaps not surprising that a BIGGA investigation the other year revealed that more than a third of greenkeepers surveyed said they were actively seeking employment outside the industry.
The work of the greenkeeper is never done. In many ways, the challenges posed by a changing climate continues to showcase their valuable skills.
In this country, though, they’d prefer it if it was a bit drier. But there’s nowt we can do about the weather, is there? Not even Artificial Intelligence can help with that.
AND ANOTHER THING
We may have spent most of this column lamenting changing weather patterns and damaging downpours, but every cloud has a silver lining.
It was so wet for the European Challenge Tour’s Swiss Challenge over the weekend, the trophy that Barassie’s Euan Walker eventually got his hands on just about had moss growing on it.
The event was cut to 36-holes due to rain but the Scot’s closing 66 gave him the second Challenge Tour title of his career.
Walker has narrowly missed out on promotion to the DP World Tour in each of the last two seasons having just finished outside the top-20 on the rankings.
After this timely triumph, though, it may just be third time lucky.
