What to Say?

[criley4way]

When you are out playing with friends and they hit a decent shot but not their best what do you say?

 

What do you say when they congratulate you on a less then good shot?

 

Apparently I am too hard on myself and too nice to others??

[DaveP043]

In the first hand, I might say "That's OK", as opposed to praising a great shot.  I try to understand my playing companions' game before I heap a ton of praise on them.  And when someone praises my own semi-decent shot, I might say "Thanks, not my best, but it sure could have been worse."  The thing I do my best to avoid is heaping praise on a shot that turns out to be horrible.  

[Eric C]

Depends on whom I am playing with.  With regular golf buddies I'm either keeping my mouth shut or making fun of you.  If you're someone I don't know then I don't say a word.  

If you congratulate me on a poor shot I just ignore you.  I play with guys that will retort with a "no it wasn't" or whatever ... they know far better than I do how good their shot was, and I find it's best to say nothing at all about fellow player's shots unless it really was a great shot.

[billchao]

16 minutes ago, criley4way said:

When you are out playing with friends and they hit a decent shot but not their best what do you say?

If I know their skill level and know for certain it's a slight miss, I usually say something like, "That'll work " or "That's just fine there."

If it's a complete stranger and I can't quite tell then I'll probably say, "Shot," or stay silent.

19 minutes ago, criley4way said:

What do you say when they congratulate you on a less then good shot?

"Thanks."

[DaveP043]

The more difficult question, what do you say to someone you don't know well when he's made a simply awful shot?

[billchao]

Just now, DaveP043 said:

The more difficult question, what do you say to someone you don't know well when he's made a simply awful shot?

Nothing.

[FlyingAce]

I don’t usually comment on anyone’s shots- good or bad, unless I know that person really well and it was really a good shot.

[djake]

Q1) if it's one of my friends I usually give them a backhanded compliment like, dang you just missed that one, like a1/16th of inch off center.  But still, nice shot.

But I do like to give compliments to people on nice shots.

Q2) No matter how I think I hit the shot, when i get a compliment i always say "Thank you".  And i appreciate it.  

Regarding your final statement, yes we can tend to be to hard on ourselves.  We remember the really nice shots and want those to be the bar and that is good.   That's why when I get a compliment on a ok shot I appreciate it and use it to see that shot thru their eyes.  It helps. 

And when I give a compliment to someone and they grumble about it not being as good as expected I will usually answer and say yump your right, sorry about that but it could have been a lot worse also.  Like in the pond or OB or not passed the Ladies tee.  Enjoy it wasn't your best but it still was a nice shot.

If I just got paired up with someone and just meet them if they hit what looks like a nice shot I might say, hey that looks really nice.  Is that a nice shot for you?  Because if it isn't I can't wait to see what you can do.  And I say that with a very sincere tone.

[pganapathy]

Any decent shot elicits a "Good Shot" from me.

Any bad shot elicits a "Hard Luck" from me.

A bad shot that has a good result elicits a "That's one way to do it" from me.

[nevets88]

Those mediocre shots make me think of the phrase from Dyatlov in HBO's Chernobyl:

"Not great, not terrible."

It kind of works for golf. A nuclear power plant, not so much.

 

[RayG]

50 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

The more difficult question, what do you say to someone you don't know well when he's made a simply awful shot?

I wait for them to say something. You can tell a lot about someone by their reactions to a miss. "Hot Headed 24 who had no business going for that 200 yard carry over water" guy who says: " DAMMIT!!!... I just missed that... (a top no more than 10 feet into the water)" . I just say - "yup".

"Casual fun guy who does the same and holds the pose" says "Really got a hold of that one!", I might say "so did the water". 

I have more fun with casual guy...

[mcanadiens]

When playing with anyone I don't know, I keep quiet for a few holes. After getting a sense for the type of golfer they are, I complement only the truly decent shots and say nothing on anything else.

 

[Darkfrog]

1 hour ago, criley4way said:

When you are out playing with friends and they hit a decent shot but not their best what do you say?

I mentally categorize my own shots as; good, good enough, okay, and bad, so usually I will use similar language to good enough or okay when a friend hits a decent but not great shot perfect shot.

I prefer to say positive for the most part, however sometimes if a buddy slices a ball into oblivion, I like to casually mention that they over-cut it just a bit or something of that nature.

1 hour ago, criley4way said:

What do you say when they congratulate you on a less then good shot?

Usually I just say something neutral, like that's not in a terrible spot.

[djake]

1 hour ago, DaveP043 said:

The more difficult question, what do you say to someone you don't know well when he's made a simply awful shot?

Depends:

If it is one of my regular golfing buddies then there is a vast number of responses that fly towards that person, with laughter ensuing.  And usually later in the round at no specific moment commentary about the terrible shot comes up again.

If it is someone I have just meet I say nothing.  If this person is the type that slams clubs, tosses them and swears a lot I will not play golf with them again.

Edited November 11, 2019 by djake
i actually caught a misspelling of a word