By Tom Doak

作者：汤姆 多克

翻译：张旭 高缘网博客：http://www.igolfyou.cn/976

It's actually Rule 13-1, but it's the most fundamental tenet of golf -- we play the ball as it lies. It's also the reason many see golf as a game which builds character, for it's good practice in life to have to accept responsibility for one's previous actions. You can blame anything you want for your errors -- a bird chirping in your backswing, bad karma from a previous life, or just a bad lie -- but then you have to go play the next shot from wherever you hit it.

原球位打球—实际是这是规则13-1，但却是高尔夫最基本的信条。这也是很多人把高尔夫看作是一项很有特点的游戏的原因，这对生活也是很好的锻炼，人必须对之前的行为负责。你可以为之前的错误找任何理由—一只小鸟的叫声影响了你的挥杆，报应皆有前因，或是一个不好的位置—然而之后，你还是不得不从你落球的位置打下一杆。

Those running for President would have us believe that the spirit of golf is the American ideal, that we all have to negotiate the same course, and we get what we hit. It all sounds very good. But American golfers are suckers for unrealistic promises, just as voters are. We'll buy any new piece of equipment that promises another 20 yards. Our country clubs spend gratuitously to keep their courses in near-perfect condition. And in recent years, our architects spend millions to enclose and define every shot with mounds, while smoothing down every bump in the fairways, attempting to eliminate blind shots and bad bounces from the game.

这些事情对总统来说，他会让我们相信高尔夫的精神就是美国人的典范，我们不得不和同样的球场谈判，结果源自我们怎么样来打球。这些听起来都非常不错。但是美国的球手却不会对这写不切实际的承诺买账，就如同他们投票一样。我将会买任何可以承诺出能多打20码的球具。我们的乡村俱乐部花了大量精力将球场维护的近乎完美。而且最近几年，我们的设计师花费几百万美金将每一杆围在山包中间，平顺球道里面的起伏，试着消除盲洞和对打球不利的起伏。

The result? Instead of building character, we're raising a generation of coddled champions who can't even shrug off a bad lie and dig themselves out of a divot.

结果？ 除了建造特色，我们正在抚养沉溺在大奖赛中的一代人，他们无法在不好的落球位打球，要削掉一块草皮才可以把球救出。

We see the evidence in major championships and the Ryder Cup, against foreign golfers who grew up on imperfect courses, and learned to deal with them. That's the way the game was invented -- the original American ideal, that you can change your own destiny if you'll only work hard enough. In Scotland, the links have no trees to stop a wild shot from being swept away by the wind to perdition. But there are also none to stymie a potential recovery.

我们已经在大型锦标赛和莱德杯中看到相关证据，那些在不完美球场里成长起来的外国选手就学会了如何处理这类救球。这就是高尔夫这项游戏怎么被发明的——美国人的最初典范就是只要你足够努力，你就能改变自己的命运。在苏格兰，林克斯球场因为没有树挡风，球会被风吹偏。但是那里也没有潜在救球的机会。

Since the 1950's, American golf design has gone away from that ideal. We seem to expect the course itself to mete out justice, with water hazards and bunkers placed in tough but fair positions; but then, we groom the bunkers to permit easy recoveries. Modern American golf design is modeled on the same principles as our ailing criminal justice system -- we build more water hazards [prisons], but they only house the disadvantaged, while the elite receive suspended sentences.

二十世纪五十年代之后，美国高尔夫设计就偏离了上述理念。我看起来是期望球场符合我的公正标准，水障碍和沙坑摆放困难但却位置却公平；然而之后，我们调整沙坑以便容易救球。现在美国球场设计是建立在与我们病态的刑事审判制度同样的模型之上——我们设计了更多的水障碍（监狱），但是他们只是给大众提供的，却没有对精英进行审判。

But there a now a handful of American designers who see things differently. We've been called minimalists, but the essence of the movement is not in the limited use of earthmoving, so much as a return to golf's original values. These are:

但是现在很多美国球场设计师看法不同了。我们被称为简约设计师，起伏的核心与其说是限制土方量的多少，还不如说是回到了高尔夫的原始价值。内容如下：

One of golf's primary appeals is that it's a natural game, and it's more enjoyable when we are playing against natural hazards.

高尔夫其中一个吸引人的地方就因为它是一项自然运动，当我们在自然障碍 中打球的时候，更能让人享受其中。

A variety of stances in the fairway is a key challenge of golf, and Nature is much better at providing this variety than the hand of man.

高尔夫里面一个关键的挑战就是人在球道里面有不同的站姿，大自然比人更能提供这种变化。

Shotmaking -- the ability to control the flight of the ball -- is the ultimate expression of golfing ability, and soft, flat greens reduce shotmaking to artillery practice.

精确击球——控制球飞行的能力——是高尔夫打球水平的终极表现，平缓的果岭使得人们减少了对精确击球的训练。

Judgment of the shot is as important as execution, and defining the target areas with artificial mounding reduces the value of judgment. Except for visual barriers to eyesores off-site, earthmoving should be confined to features which come into play in the golf holes.

打球的判断和打球的表现同样重要，用人工化的山包确定目标区域减少了判断的价值。除了对现场之外的眼中钉造成视觉障碍，土方工程应融入到球道打球的特色中。

The sad part is that American golfers have become so used to pandering designs that they don't even understand some minimalist ideas. The whole point of golf architecture is to discover and then present to the player challenging shots inherent in the landscape, but today anything remotely challenging is quickly criticized as unfair. A green which tilts slightly away from the line of play is a natural challenge unto itself, but many golfers are so accustomed to having all the greens tilted back toward them to receive a shot that they believe a fallaway green is a gimmick.

让人失望的是美国球手已经变得习惯了这种迎合的设计，这种设计师却不理解一些简约设计的理念。球场设计的整个观点就是在景观中去发现、展示这种挑战性的打法给球手，但是今天任何远距离的挑战都会很快被批评是不公平。一个果岭向打球线相反的方向倾斜本身就是一种自然的挑战，但是很多球手习惯了让所有的果岭轻轻的向其倾斜以便接球，他们认为一个散开的果岭是给人耍花招。

Gradually, many of the things which can make a golf hole interesting have been removed from modern designers' palettes. Today, even our best designers seldom produce a great golf hole, because they apply so many standards of fairness that all their holes begin to look and play alike.

渐渐的，很多可以让一个球道更有趣味性的东西 就被现代设计师剔除了。今天，即使我们最好的设计师也很少设计出伟大的球道，因为他们用了很多公正的标准以至于他们的很多球道开始看起来和打起来都很类似。

It's easy to talk about working with the land, but most architects use the land as an amateur interior decorator uses furniture, as raw material to be moved around the room until everything looks perfect. Many modern designers now pay lip service to minimalism, but then back away by saying that they seldom are given pieces of land with natural features to use, and that the concept is applicable to only 10% of new golf courses. Either they are wrong, or I am very lucky to keep finding land which allows it.

根据地形设计，说起来很容易；但是多数的设计师对土地的利用如同一位业余的室内装饰家利用家具，要把所有的原材料挪到边上直到所有东西看起来非常完美。很多现代的设计师打着简约设计的幌子来收费，然而回去之后就说他们很少能够拿到有自然特色的场地，同时这种简约设计的理念只用到了10%的新建球场。那要不是他们错了，那就是我们很幸运一直可以找到运用简约设计理念的场地。

The minimalist's objective is to route as many holes as possible whose main features already exist in the landscape, and accent their strategies without overkilling the number of hazards. Sometimes, though, the best solution for the course as a whole may require major earthmoving on a handful of holes to connect the others. That's minimalism, too. And the key to success in those instances is to move enough earth to make the artificial work appear natural, not to move as little as possible.

简约设计师的目标是尽量将已有的特色景观保留到规划中的球道当中，同时不会由于过多的强调战略性而过分清除障碍。有时候，尽管球场作为整体的最好解决方案或许要求几个道的土方量较大以便与其他球道衔接。那着仍然是简约设计理念。例如这些情况，成功的关键是搬运足够多的土方使得人工化的工作看起来更自然，而不是尽量减少土方。

In general, though, the minimalist moves earth to reduce severe slopes, not to create them. If you want to judge whether a particular designer is really comfortable in the minimalist style, ask him what he does when a hole has no natural feature to build upon. The real minimalist will respond that he's never faced that situation -- he'll always find something, whether it's the length of the hole, or a small hump, existing vegetation, or simply the direction of the prevailing wind -- and expand upon that to create an interesting golf hole.

总体来说，尽管简约设计师搬运土方以减少陡坡，而不是创造陡坡。如果你想判断一位特定的设计师是不是擅长简约设计风格，问他当一个球道没有自然特色可以利用的时候他会怎么做。简约设计师的回答将是他从来不会遇到这种情况——他总会找到一些东西，不管是球道的长度还是小山丘、自然植被、或是最简单的盛行风的方向——增加它直到创造出球道的趣味性。