Achieved My Final Goal This Year But Kinda Frustrated

Kinda venting a little so please bear with me.

My last goal for this year was to break 110 at a golf course which has chewed me up and spit me out the last couple of years (avg score 125+).  I got a chance to play the course today and I set out to make my goal.

The round itself was frustrating mainly because there was a group ahead of us that were really bad golfers.  One of them dressed in the Loudmouth clothes and he alone literally lost 12 balls in the first 9 holes (and wasted 10 min each trying to find them).  The rest of the group was no better.  To make matters worse they were loud, drunk, and had a ipod playing crappy "classic" rock which was really distracting.  When we were on a green and they were on a tee box near us (or vise versa) it was hard to concentrate.  On the front 9 I could not get in a rhythm at at all due to their slow play and was so frustrated I could not focus.  By some miracle I was able to pull out a 53 with some great short game shots and some clutch putts.  On the back 9 we got past them (they said they were going to the club house at the turn and let us play through) and thought we had left them behind.  Unfortunately another slow group on the back 9 allowed them to catch back up so it was more of the same.  It seems like everytime I needed to focus for a critical shot they would roll up and cause me to lose focus.  I did pull out a 56 on the back for a total of 109 so I achieve my goal.

What makes me really mad is I know I left a 100 or lower round out there because of them.  In all I had only 5 bad holes (which ironicly were holes where they had been near while making tee shots or putts) where if I had scored at least a double bogey I would have shot a 99.  I have worked really hard on my game this year and while I did break 110 on this course I am kinda down since I know I could have done better if they had not been so distracting.  The rest of my group, who are good golfers, were fed up with them as well.  They each shot "the worst round" ever on this course they said because they could not focus due to this group.

While I did achive my goal for some reason I am not happy with it because I know I left a better round out there.  Hopefully I can get one more crack at this course and break that 100 mark.

One last note.  When I was walking to my car after turning in my cart I overheard this group next to their car complaining how our group was "pushing them" and that we caused them to play poorly and that they wanted to confront us about it.  However they got real quiet when they saw me coming and gave a few nervous greetings.  Funny how that works.

The only thing you can control is how you react to those situations.  At the end of the day as you know you cant remove strokes from your scorecard for distractions.  Its a pain in the ass but it is what it is.

BTW, do you shoot that high because you take loads of penalty strokes?  If its because of topped/bladed/chunked shots just realize those are unacceptable and you will drop in handicap immensely!!!

you just got to focus on yourself.  Just take in the surroundings and ignore the garbage going on.  Its a lot more enjoyable when you can tune out unpleasant things.

Sounds to me like you shot better because you were forced to concentrate. You didn't lose concentration, you found it. Thank them :) And I don't know about shooting 125 and calling others bad golfers...lol.