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The tee shot pressure when someone let's you play through...


Slice of Life
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Gotta love when you're out by yourself, or with one other person and a foursome lets you play through.

I don't know what it is...I can be hitting bad tee shot after bad tee shot, and when I have four people watching me, I bomb it down the center of the fairway. Every time.

Happened on Saturday, was golfing by myself and 3 groups let me play through. I was hitting terrible tee shots all day, and for all 3 holes I played through, I smacked absolutely perfect drives.

I've come to the conclusion that I need a gallery to play well.

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Ryan M
 
The Internet Adjustment Formula:
IAD = ( [ADD] * .96 + [EPS] * [1/.12] ) / (1.15)
 
IAD = Internet Adjusted Distance (in yards)
ADD = Actual Driver Distance (in yards)
EPS = E-Penis Size (in inches)
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Originally Posted by Slice of Life

Gotta love when you're out by yourself, or with one other person and a foursome lets you play through.

I don't know what it is...I can be hitting bad tee shot after bad tee shot, and when I have four people watching me, I bomb it down the center of the fairway. Every time.

Happened on Saturday, was golfing by myself and 3 groups let me play through. I was hitting terrible tee shots all day, and for all 3 holes I played through, I smacked absolutely perfect drives.

I've come to the conclusion that I need a gallery to play well.

Quite possible that your concentration is greatly improved as you don't want to look like an idiot doing a bad shot, therefore enabling you to hit it better?

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Originally Posted by Wardy

Quite possible that your concentration is greatly improved as you don't want to look like an idiot doing a bad shot, therefore enabling you to hit it better?

^^This and/or maybe you play quicker and think less about it when you are playing through??

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Originally Posted by Wardy

Quite possible that your concentration is greatly improved as you don't want to look like an idiot doing a bad shot, therefore enabling you to hit it better?

Yeah, maybe that's it. I'm always nervous, but I'm not sure if I think less, or more...and which one helps haha.

Ryan M
 
The Internet Adjustment Formula:
IAD = ( [ADD] * .96 + [EPS] * [1/.12] ) / (1.15)
 
IAD = Internet Adjusted Distance (in yards)
ADD = Actual Driver Distance (in yards)
EPS = E-Penis Size (in inches)
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It's a distraction for me mostly because they're right behind me and now I have to play at a pace I'm not comfortable with to get out in front of them. usually because they've let the group ahead slip away. I never ask to play through but as a single it happens often. Sat. a twosome ahead actually sat in their cart and waited for me to finish a hole. They waited on me despite having blue sky in front of them, they were sitting at the 3rd tee waiting and I hadn't even played my approach to the 2nd yet.

But I was glad they asked. Both were noobs and they were just playing their 2nd shots on #4 as I passed them going the other way on #6. They knew they were going to be slow.

Dave :-)

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Originally Posted by Dave2512

It's a distraction for me mostly because they're right behind me and now I have to play at a pace I'm not comfortable with to get out in front of them. usually because they've let the group ahead slip away. I never ask to play through but as a single it happens often. Sat. a twosome ahead actually sat in their cart and waited for me to finish a hole. They waited on me despite having blue sky in front of them, they were sitting at the 3rd tee waiting and I hadn't even played my approach to the 2nd yet.

But I was glad they asked. Both were noobs and they were just playing their 2nd shots on #4 as I passed them going the other way on #6. They knew they were going to be slow.

I just started playing last year. My normal playing partner and I are often in this boat (the slow-pokes), and we developed a pretty good sense of gauging how quickly a group behind us was playing and when would be the best time to wave them through. Sometimes it meant we sat around while they were still approaching the green we just cleared because we knew that we would still be chopping away down the hole by the time they reached our tee.

That said, we've improved enough that, if it's just the two of us, we no longer really need to let groups play through, and it's made going out so much better. Not having the pressure of feeling like you're holding someone up is great, and when we went out yesterday, we even had other people offer to let us play through (a redemptive feeling if there ever was one).

So, I don't have a ton of experience teeing off in front of another group, but I still get nervous teeing off in front of the starter. Last month, me and my buddy took a couple classmates with us. One of them was comparable to us in skill and experience, but the other was a straight-up novice. The starter was visably chuckling at him on the tee, and that wound up getting in all of our heads. I shanked my drive into trees 100 yards off the tee to the right.

Sigh.

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Maybe you're shortening up your backswing a little too, not trying to kill it just keep it in play and BAM, sweetspot....

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Originally Posted by Ernest Jones

Maybe you're shortening up your backswing a little too, not trying to kill it just keep it in play and BAM, sweetspot....

Possibly. Knowing my personality though, I'd actually try to hit it further. On the one I played through that's a slight dogleg right, I ripped a fade about 285 right in the middle of the fairway. Left me right at the 150 yard marker for my approach shot.

I would go on to bogey the hole. lol

Ryan M
 
The Internet Adjustment Formula:
IAD = ( [ADD] * .96 + [EPS] * [1/.12] ) / (1.15)
 
IAD = Internet Adjusted Distance (in yards)
ADD = Actual Driver Distance (in yards)
EPS = E-Penis Size (in inches)
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I had a single one we let through, it was pretty painful. He looked like the average golfer that plays a lot. Didn't look nervous, but he proceeded to hit three balls in the water before he picked up his bag and headed for the next hole. Poor fellow.

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I'm in the same boat. I'm a high handicapper. Struggling with my mental game, but I have found out I play my best golf when most get nervous. First tee is ALWAYS my best drive. And anytime I play through a group my shots surprise me. I don't know if its the distraction, or if for that moment I stop thinking of the million things that cause me to shank a shot and have one single swing thought...

"Don't f up!"

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Like others have said the first tee (especially in a tournament where several people are gathered around the tee box) or when playing through I almost always hit good tee shots.

Funny thing is that even though those shots are plenty long enough and straight I usually tend to get more greedy as the round goes along and end up losing both distance and direction by trying to hit the ball farther than I can hit it. The really stupid ones are when I'm playing a hole where there is no great advantage to bombing it and do it anyway.

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I *feel* the pressure . .but it doesn't effect my game in the slightest.  By the time somebody lets me play through, I've typically hit 5 or 6 bad tee shots in a row.  So when I step up to that tee box, I know there's another bad tee shot just waiting to get loose.  Then I just clear my mind and do my thing.  My thing being to slice it into the woods.  Then I say "thanks" and head off to find my ball.

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Originally Posted by TTH83

The starter was visably chuckling at him on the tee, and that wound up getting in all of our heads. I shanked my drive into trees 100 yards off the tee to the right.

Sigh.

Hahaha. I'm sorry but this cracked me up. I used to be a starter on heavily booked days and always enjoyed chatting up the guys as they came up.

I distinctly remember this one guy. Looked and talked like a scratch golfer. Our course offered free yardage books and I always carried a handful and some extra scorecards for those who forgot them. First hole has a forced carry of about 175 from the white tees to a fairway that slopes right to left towards a pond. Fairway bunkers at the end of the fairway about 280 from the tee box. He asks me how far out the bunkers are and I tell him and show him the yardage in the book. He claims there is no way. Apparently the last time he played, he hit a hybrid through the fairway. I told him maybe he should try out for some Long Drive competitions if he is hitting a hybrid 280. He continues to argue with me. I finally just tell them to go ahead and let em' rip and sit down in my cart. He duck-hooked two in a row into the pond and I couldn't help but chuckle.

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Yet again yesterday...a slow twosome lets us play through (He was teaching a friend how to play...nice guys)

170 yard par 3...pull out my 6 iron and smack it 12 feet from the pin.

I told them I'd pay them to follow me around for the rest of the round.

Ryan M
 
The Internet Adjustment Formula:
IAD = ( [ADD] * .96 + [EPS] * [1/.12] ) / (1.15)
 
IAD = Internet Adjusted Distance (in yards)
ADD = Actual Driver Distance (in yards)
EPS = E-Penis Size (in inches)
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Quite possible that your concentration is greatly improved as you don't want to look like an idiot doing a bad shot, therefore enabling you to hit it better?

That's the case with me lol. All of a sudden I remind myself of the basic fundamentals of driving the ball :D

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Last week I hooked my tee shot on a short par-4 and it rolled a long ways, to within 15 yards in front of the tee box on an adjacent hole, with a foursome in the midst of teeing off. I came up to the side and was prepared to wait patiently until they finished, and told them I'd wait, out of their way, but they waved me to my ball and insisted I take my shot. 85 yards out, with a pretty tall tree partially in the way and to a very small, rounded-to-the-point-of-being-convex green (it was like trying to land a ball on a VW Beetle - two days later I had a short, soft chip run off the same green altogether), I stick my sand wedge to 10 feet. The foursome applauded. Come to think of it, I do tend to play a bit better when playing through or in front of an audience. Shortly after learning how to hit a draw, I was playing by myself and a foursome of crusty old stogie-smoking guys told me to play ahead of them as I approached the first tee on a hole with water up nearly the entire right side of the fairway. One of the old guys suggested I "Keep it dry, son." My ball started out arcing over the left edge of the pond, with one old guy mumbling with a bit too much satisfaction "Kersplash!" but then it gently curved to the left and came to rest in the middle of the fairway, 275 yard out. I got so stoked by the compliments from the old guys that I overshot the green by about 15 yards on my second shot.

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Originally Posted by Slice of Life

Yet again yesterday...a slow twosome lets us play through (He was teaching a friend how to play...nice guys)

170 yard par 3...pull out my 6 iron and smack it 12 feet from the pin.

I told them I'd pay them to follow me around for the rest of the round.

The same thing happened to me a few weeks back.  I was playing a nine hole course at a college.  The first hole is a par 3 and my first shot went well to the left of the green.

On my second loop, a foursome where a man was teaching his kids was at the first hole.  They offered to let me play through and I joked about the pressure of having an audience.  Well, this time I put it on the green with my tee shot.  I told them they needed to watch me on every tee shot.

Of course, there are other times when I have an audience and I barely get it off the tee.

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Let me tell you guys who are bragging something.

The people standing on the tee couldn't care less what you do.

They just want you out of their way. They are thinking about their own game.

In the race of life, always back self-interest. At least you know it's trying.

 

 

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Note: This thread is 3910 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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