Most of us have the need to occasionally talk about our accomplishments playing golf. When I have a particularly good round, I like to make a quick post to the “What Did You Shoot” thread. I dedicated a blog post to my triumph at a small golf tournament last year. I understand the need to toot one’s own horn now and then.

On another golf site a member sort of sucked me in recently with a title to his thread of “What’s Better than a 5 Hour Round?” The question sort of intrigued me and I checked it out. It turned out to be a 14.8 index player bragging that he and a buddy (twosome), in a cart, at a private course, played 36 holes in 4 hours and 50 minutes. Not exactly the subject I expected but it got me thinking.

Why do so many golfers feel the need to brag about things that are only tangential to the game of golf? I think the answer in the case of the above player somewhat lies in his play that day. He never mentioned what he shot during his speed golf marathon. No, all he wanted to tell the world was that he played two rounds of golf in an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes. He left out the details of twosome, cart and non-busy course and only revealed those tidbits after some questioning by other forum members. Apparently, he had nothing to brag about from his golf game, so he elevated “time elapsed to play” as the important element of the day.

I see the need to brag about driving distance as another way to allow one to brag about something when one’s score might not be too noteworthy. The game of golf is measured by the score, not how long the best drive of the day went. And that is always assuming the person reporting has accurately measured the shot. Golf forums are filled with discussions of how far one hits their drives. Yes, I am always a bit jealous of the other players who average 270 yards of carry off the tee. Then I remind myself that the point of golf is to get the ball in the hole in the fewest number of strokes, not to average XXX yards off the tee. Certainly 270 yard drives greatly help in the quest for lower scores, but if the long drives translate into a score that is not worthy of bragging about, what was the point? I notice that truly fine drivers of the ball tend to not talk about how far they hit it or what a huge distance average they have. Most let their score do the talking.

Now, did I mention that in last weekend’s tournament, on a hole with a water penalty area 260 yards away, I almost drove my ball into the junk, but it missed the trouble to the right. What’s that? How did I finish in the tournament? Okay, I lost by 8-strokes, but did I tell you I hit a 270 yard drive???😉