My attitude with bad results in golf tournaments

[kafka01]

Hey,

i would like to get some input about my attitude when i play bad in a tournament and if you guys think its not very good sportsmanship or if its okay to behave like this.

I play in Germany, and we only count rounds to our handicaps which we play in offical tournaments. If we dont play our handicap it increases 0.1 strokes - that will happen if i return my scorecard or not.

Today i played in a tourney- and i played horrible the first 9 holes (9 stablefords and 18 on the back). I´m over that point to realize that something like this can happen in golf and that it is normal - and i dont mind at all. I am also not the guy who brings down the flight - i stay polite and finish off my round.

But afterwards i decided to not hand in my scorecard and throw it in the trash. Then the "tournament referee" showed up and started talking about bad sportsmanship and bad attitude to me - and that really send me over the line. I have to pay like 30€ just to play in that tournament and my standpoint is that golf is NOT a teamsport and it is completly my business if i hand in my results or not and it is my handicap and the club or other people in the club shouldnt care at all what i play or not.

When i practice golf or play golf i want to have fun, and the last thing i want to deal with is this kind of bs so at the moment i´m pretty angry about that situation, and i would like to know how you guys think about that topic?

[Bourbon and Coke]

So you threw away your card to keep your handicap lower?

That really undermines the point of the handicap system, but you're only hurting yourself.

I agree that it's bad sportsmanship. You agreed to play the tournament, but you don't want to follow the tournament rules.

[kafka01]

So you threw away your card to keep your handicap lower?

No of course not - my handicap will go up 0.1 if i hand in the card or not - i just show up as a "No return" and my scores dont get posted but it still increases the hcp.

I totally agree - if this would be a way to keep the handicap equal to prior the round it would be unfair.

[Chambokl]

I also agree that it's bad sportsmanship. I don'T care about HDCP but the people working there are probably looking everywhere for your card thinking they might have lost it. They probably wasted ½ hour going through the pile of cards thinking that they miss it.

Come man, you play, post your score and be it.

Tournament are usually harder, pin placement, rough, green are faster, etc...

[chingali]

Just hand your card in next time and be done with it. Everyone else (pretty much) would have returned their card so why should you be any different?

[Soup Fan]

I think you need to pick a side. If you are just in it to have fun then it should not be a big deal to hand in a scorecard that you are unhappy with. If you are taking yourself seriously enough to keep your handicap, though, I think you should do it by the books and include every round you have.

I mean, if I took all the best rounds I have ever had and used it to calculate my handicap, it would be a hell of a lot better than the mid 30s. Because I want to calculate it accurately to reflect how I am playing right now, though, I use the most recent rounds on rated courses I have.

Because golf is not a team sport, you're really only doing yourself a disservice and if the rules give you the option of not turning in a card then I don't think anyone has the right to just scold you out of the blue about it, but if you are here looking for feedback I think you are going to get more people who side with the "tournament referee" than yourself.

$0.02

[kafka01]

Just hand your card in next time and be done with it. Everyone else (pretty much) would have returned their card so why should you be any different?

Okay, its not that easy - unfortunately. I play now since close to 2 years and to get the hcp. down to 10 you have to play/practice a lot obv. and win a lot of tournaments (i think i won 50% of tournaments i played in).

Alltogether it seems that a lot of people at this club (its kind of a old fashioned not very open minded with a pretty old age structure - guess i picked the wrong club) find my progress suspect and rather see me fail than succeed to a better hcp. And if i post a bad round - no kidding - if i go to the restaurant the next days or if they see me on the driving range these guys have nothing better to do than to talk me up (not in a nice way). At one point you root for your playing partners that his/her puts drop, on the other hand, they seem to feel joy when you fail - to me, THAT is bad sportsmanship, so i feel that i dont owe anything to these guys or this club. I actually try hard to just keep out of any social activities at the club, just minding my own business enjoying the game but its getting harder and harder with this kind of stuff going on. So the problem might be deeper than actually described.

[kafka01]

I think you need to pick a side. If you are just in it to have fun then it should not be a big deal to hand in a scorecard that you are unhappy with. If you are taking yourself seriously enough to keep your handicap, though, I think you should do it by the books and include every round you have.

Like i said before - if you start the tournament but dont finish or dont hand in a card you will get up your handicap by 0.1 automatically (0.1 is the standard your handicap increases if you play bad, there are not bigger steps upward) - its really just about posting scores public.

The german handicap system is quite different to the one in the US. We are not able to just submit every round we played - which in my case would be fantastic, then i probably could post like 150 rounds a year and get a true and fair handicap and it would adjust much quicker to practice progress. But unfortunately we only can post offical tournament rounds - if you play a lot of tournaments you might be able to submit 20-25 round A YEAR - and that is not very much imo. I read in golf digest that a average golfer is capable of underplaying his handicap in about 10-15% of his rounds - the rest is either equal handicap or his/her handicap goes up. And to get into low figures you need an obscene amount of tournaments (since when you reach a certain hcp your hcp will only decrease 0.1 for every stableford point you overplayed) - and every tournament costs between 10-50 € entrance fee - even if you are a member at this club. So yes - i think the USGA handicap system would fit me much better but unfortunately iam stuck with the german one...