Your Gamesmanship Stories

[Fairway_CY]

3 hours ago, bkuehn1952 said:

I had no intention of playing over the hazard, regardless of what they did.  Once they hit it into the penalty area I put the 3-wood away and hit a hybrid to the layup area, leaving my partner with a 110 yards approach.  We easily won the hole with a simple 2-putt par.

I did something similar in Kiawah last summer.  I was tied for the lead standing on the tee of the 35th hole (8th hole at The Ocean Course) in a two-day event.  The guy I was tied with and I had both hit tee shots that came up short of the green of the par 3.  I was a little closer to the hole, so he had to play first.  We both brought a few wedges and our putters to the front of the green.  As he debated on what to do, I already knew that putting was the correct play.  I'd played the course a few times previously and I knew that a poor chip was going to come back to my feet.

With that in mind... I took my highest lofted wedge and began going through the routine like I was going to chip the ball.  I went up on to the green and straddled an imaginary downslope.  I even slightly bent my left knee which was on the 'opposite side' of this downslope to make it appear that I was leaning a little bit.  

He had his putter in his hand and, at the last minute, changed to his wedge because, as he audibly said... he was going to "need some spin to stop it once it reaches that crest".  Anybody who has played on those paspalum fairways knows that chipping is extremely difficult and you need to nip it just right.  He did not... and the ball barely got to the green before trickling right back to his feet.  He then blasted a chip that finished 40 feet or so from the hole.

I put my wedge down and putted the ball on to the green.  I gave it a little extra to ensure it was going to make it up the slope in front of me, so the ball finished about 25 feet away.  He was on a very similar line to mine and he hit an aggressive putt that got about 6 feet past the hole.  Seeing the line from his putt, I drained the 25 footer for par... he missed the 6 footer for double and took a triple.  I took a 3 stroke lead to the final hole and won my first ever multi-day event.

It was subtle... and he could have made that decision without me doing a thing... but I like to think I got in his head just enough to cause him to make a poor decision.

CY

[DennisMiller]

I hesitate to call this gamesmanship, because the high level of teasing in my old group was just insane to begin with and there was no betting, so it was all in good fun.

Playing at Kendale Lake Country Club one day, one of the guys stopped at a bathroom between nines. The rest of us went to the 10th tee and teed off. I hit a horrible shot into the left rough less than 200 yards out. I was usually good for 250-275 way back then.

Our friend comes back and in this booming voice he had asks, "WHERE'D YOU GO BIG BOY?"  Smart assed as I could be, I said, "Suffice it to say, you can't get there."

He took a swing like John Daly never dreamed of and hit his ball about 50 yards into the lake. When he saw where I stopped and selected my club, in the rough short of a bunker, he just went crazy. He calmed down and laughed about it after a couple holes, and it's grown to make me the most evil golfer in history as the story has grown.

[Sandy Lie]

On 12/3/2020 at 2:55 PM, saevel25 said:

My typical golf partner in league got chastised by another golfer for standing really close to him when he wanted to putt. He said something like, "So, this is the type of games you like to play". My partner was just being absent minded. He could be that way from time to time. 

I guy I played with experienced the same thing. His way of getting the guy to move was when he missed the putt he exaggerated some anger and turned to swing his putter in anger and stopped short of hitting the guy in the knees.  He never stood close again.

!