{"id":1359,"date":"2006-06-02T20:09:07","date_gmt":"2006-06-03T01:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/uncategorized\/on_furrows_whining_and_winning\/"},"modified":"2006-06-02T20:09:07","modified_gmt":"2006-06-03T01:09:07","slug":"on_furrows_whining_and_winning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/b\/swing_thoughts\/on_furrows_whining_and_winning","title":{"rendered":"On Furrows, Whining, and Winning"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s no whining in golf. Unless, of course, you’re a PGA Tour pro at this week’s Memorial Tournament. This week, some (most?) pros are busy whining about the furrowed bunkers<\/a>. They’re “unfair.” Players “weren’t warned.” They introduce “luck” to the game. And on and on…<\/p>\n

\"Muirfield
The golfers at this week’s Memorial Tournament will play under the same conditions, so what’s the beef?<\/p>\n


\nIn the podcast<\/a> we’ll release tomorrow, I make a simple point:<\/p>\n

When I was a junior golfer, I loved playing matches in the rain because I knew<\/em> that the conditions were the same for both my competitor and me and I also knew<\/em> that he’d be thinking about the rain (or wind, etc.) more than I would be. I felt this gave me an advantage. He was worrying about the conditions while I was worrying about getting my ball in the hole.<\/p>\n

So long as the conditions are the same, I feel that the guy worrying about, complaining about, and thinking about something they deem “unfair” will be at a disadvantage to the guy who simply says “these are the conditions I have: how can I get my ball in the hole in the fewest strokes?”<\/p>\n

These aren’t run-of-the-mill Tour players complaining, either. Nick Price, Ernie Els, and Davis Love III are among the most vocal, and they’re major winners, albeit ones not playing all that well this year.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Sean O’Hair adopts an “I’ll just try to avoid the bunkers this week. Isn’t that the point?” approach that seems to be paying off.<\/p>\n

Is it any wonder O’Hair’s first-round 67 put him in the lead?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t care if they fill the bunkers with aluminum pop tabs – the conditions are the same for every golfer. Just go play!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[98,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hot_topics","category-swing_thoughts"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Furrows, Whining, and Winning (Hot Topics, Swing Thoughts) - The Sand Trap .com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/b\/swing_thoughts\/on_furrows_whining_and_winning\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"On Furrows, Whining, and Winning (Hot Topics, Swing Thoughts) - The Sand Trap .com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"I don't care if they fill the bunkers with aluminum pop tabs - the conditions are the same for every golfer. 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