Breakfast ball?

How many of us get rushed and JUST make our tee time, have no time to hit the range and have only a few min's to swing the club before you tee off.  You step up and shank it!!!

Do you or anyone in your group ever say "Ahh just take a breakfast ball"

And do you take it?

I grew up on a course that everybody teed up two balls off the first tee... everybody every time?!

I 've been a member at another club for the past 10 years or so  15 miles away and the thought of that is absurd.

It never bothered me.  I think part of the reason is the first hole at the old club was 467 yards with the smallest darn green.  For most guys that second ball didn't mean a thing they were carding a 5 or 6 no matter how many balls they hit off that first tee.

Only when I'm wearing my FJ golf sandals!

I hate wen people take a mulligan.  It's like, c'mon, you're next one isn't going to be any better!  But what the hell, gotta get your moneys worth while you're out there huh.

Depends on the player. If they completely duff it off the tee, it's likely they'll do better. And if they do badly duff it, as long as they're not counting it toward an official handicap, it's actually better for the course that they take a mulligan because it picks up pace of play. Usually it's better that their second shot is a quick re-tee on the tee box with the potential to get some distance than a from a bad lie with a long iron or hybrid.

I grew up playing with a guy named Dave McGualy, nicknamed Dave Mulligan because he was always hitting a 2nd ball, sometimes a 3rd and 4th. Even saw him get a hole-in-one once with a mulligan. Everybody at the course just dealt with it, nobody ever got upset. The course didn't have a driving range, and it was excepted to hit a mulligan on the 1st hole, Dave it took it to a whole other level. I will say this though, he was always mindful of groups behind and didn't play slow.

We will definitely play a mulligan per 9, and that is just myself and other non-handicapped players, If I'm playing with handicapped players we keep it by the book. We keep the pace of play going much faster this way. Big difference between casual rounds and serious rounds.

Even with my high handicap, no, I don't do mulligans.  Even on the first tee, I don't see the point.  I actually like the challenge of salvaging a good score from a bad drive, and the last thing I want to do is grow dependent on having a second shot.  Gotta learn to play under pressure somehow.

What I could see doing in the case where I don't have a chance to warm up would be to agree ahead that we would take a warm-up drive before the real thing, where the deal is that the first drive is not in play.  This is marginally acceptable by the rules since it's practice on the course (so it's ok for match play, technically illegal for stroke play, though in the case that there's either no competition or everyone involved in the competition is in the same group, I think it's a reasonable case of bending the rules).  But before you swing, you have to decide if you're playing yet or not, no fair waiting until you know whether it was a good shot or not.  With that restriction, I don't see any difference between warming up on the range and warming up on the first tee.

I don't do mulligans, even though most of the guys I play with take one per 9 and are better golfers than me.  I don't expect at this point to win a tournament, or be low scorer of my group, so I'd rather play by the rules and have an accurate score to determine if I'm improving or not.  The other sports I played didn't have the concept of a mulligan, so I don't see the benefit of it for me in golf.

Playing a casual round with friends is as important as playing pickup 1/2 court basketball or 3 on 3 hockey with only one goalie. It's basically irrelevant to anyone but the player. When the new guy can't catch a pass on his stick or dribbles the ball off his foot, his friends and/or opponents will often give him another try to get it right.

New golfers are like that new hockey player who spends more time getting up after falling down than he does shooting the puck. I'm sure your friends respect your insistence to play all the shots and count all the penalty strokes, but I suspect that sometimes they're secretly hoping you'd go ahead and take a do-over or even pick up. It's true.

No argument there Sean, I wasn't talking about casual games, I was talking about when I'm keeping score.  They play the mulligan rule and still report it for handicap, I don't for the reasons stated above.  Once I hit double par on a hole I pick up and it becomes a "not so fun round" for me, and I don't record my score.  I don't expect anyone to endure the pain of my learning the game but myself.

Oh sorry - my bad. I didn't realize they were turning in those scores. They're just setting themselves for embarassment later on.

Not to nitpick on you - but deciding to not count your score once a round starts will only lead you to having a vanitycap. Technically you need to decide before your round whether it is a real round or not. Not the biggest crime on earth, since you are hurting yourself only and no one else.

I understand your point, but the alternative is slow up play for my group and everyone else.  I thought the better thing to do would be to pick up after double par, and not submit a score rather than slow everyone on the course down so I can.  I'm not sure what the best answer is, and open to suggestions.

No problem, I wasn't very clear in my post.  As for my buddies, they tell me everyone (except pros) plays with mulligans and "gimme putts", so it all evens out.  As the new guy I don't argue since it doesn't affect me.

I think ESC takes care of the double par holes. You could take an 8 or an 18 and for the index it's the same thing. Picking up once you hit your ESC total and haven't even hit the green is not uncommon, is it?!? I'm talking about for index purposes of course. In reality, you shoot what you shoot and an 18 is definitely 10 more than 8. History tells me that I needed to spell this out before I get flamed by the Aussies.

Definitely pick up once you hit your ESC on a hole (which is generally going to be a 9 for you now, whether it is a par 3,4 or 5). If you shoot a 15 on a hole it still is posted as your ESC. But post your scores - you never know when you are going to need those strokes in a later tournament / side bet.

At a 27.1, if the course slope is 124 or more your ESC is 9. at 123 or less it is an 8