Do you really play golf?

[cougar2588]

im with mellojoe on this one. this is my first year playing golf, and i also am not afraid to fluff my ball up when its burried in the ruff, or give myself a club length if im underneath or close to a tree. and im not ashamed to admit it, i give myself 2 mulligans per round of 18 (one on the front and one on the back). and guess what, if i duff a second or third shot that i know i should have hit better, ill take a ball out of my pocket and try again from the same spot. im not going to go golf and hack my way down everyhole, i know i wouldnt enjoy it.

i will say that as i have gotten better this year, i have taken less and less mulligans and re-do's and im proud to say that. but im not ashamed to admit that i still take a few every round. and everyone that plays with me knows that i do take a few mulligans and re-do's and they dont get mad. they all understand that im just a beginner. its different though when your hiding it and trying to get away with it when no one is looking.

and lastly, i think its completely rediculous to judge somebody by how they play a pick up game of golf. its a game, they are out there to have fun, we aren't pros. if your playing for money and they are still cheating, well thats a different story...

[JessN16]

When "cheating" at golf becomes a commentary on someone's character in general, it is when someone "cheats" when the score matters to someone other than themselves.

A friendly round on Friday mornings is different than a tournament, even the local Rotary Club scramble.

I'll give you a partial list of times I differ from the rules (and only when I'm alone or playing with people who all agree beforehand this is how we're going to play):

1. Play all hazards, losts and OOB as laterals (stroke penalty plus drop at the last point of land it crossed before exiting play) in order to keep from clogging up the course.
2. Free movement (but not completely out into the fairway) if the ball comes to rest on rocks or tree roots. I'm not breaking my wrist or a clubhead in the name of casual golf.

That's basically it. Sometimes my group used to play a mulligan but typically only when we didn't get a chance to warm up.

But even if my group decided it wanted to carry 27 clubs in the bag and putt with croquet mallets, guess what? It's our game, it's our money, it's our time and we'll make whatever use of it we please.

In a tournament or competitive environment? I'm a walking rulebook.

But to say someone is a bad person if they move a ball a few inches during a practice round is way over-the-top.

Jess

[traviswise]

I can't stand playing with people that don't play legit. Why waste your time?

[JessN16]

  traviswise said:

I can't stand playing with people that don't play legit. Why waste your time?

Then don't play with them. No one is forcing you to. Get it established what kind of rules your group will play under and stick with them.

If I'm playing with someone who wants to be a stickler about the book during a casual round, sometimes I'll acquiesce to their wishes, but sometimes I'll pass on playing with them. It should be clear from this thread that different people enjoy golf in different ways. The rulebook, while it governs the entire game, is only enforceable across different players when in a controlled setting (i.e., a tournament). During casual rounds, the group on Hole 14 doesn't need to be concerned with what the group on Hole 7 is doing. If we'd play our own game and not worry ourselves with what Random Guy five holes ahead of us is doing, we'd all enjoy it. Sounds like the best approach to me. Jess

[Jay-Bird]

  bigoak said:

A lot of people are hitting golf balls with golf clubs on a golf course but are not really playing golf. Hit the ball where it lies. no "do overs", no amnesia when it come to your stroke total, no gimmies, no picking up to identify your ball and suddenly you have a good lie and a clear line to the green. and on and on.

Amen!

  Rugger said:

This is quite possibly THE dumbest thing I've ever heard. You're trying to tell me that the way a golfer, an AMATEUR/pick-up golfer, plays the game tells you about his character? What a crock. I suppose the pastor and couple of naval officers I play with occasionally are seriously lacking in the character department because they sometimes opt for a do-over or free drop.

Being a pastor or naval officer doesn't automatically make one's character strong. If you think otherwise, you're logic is flawed. The rules of the game of golf are clear. Would you give a pass to your pastor and naval officer buddies if they demanded fourth strike in baseball, or took three steps in basketball. It shows CHARACTER when you take the o.b. penalty and the triple bogey even if your group says "nah, we'll give you the bogey..."

Play it down.

[Rugger]

I don't even know what to say here. This thread is completely stocked with stupidity.
If I was playing someone and we were playing to beat eachother then yes, gimmes would be a no-no; but for the GAME and the FUN of golf I could give two shits if my partner tosses his ball out in the fairway. If you were playing pickup tennis, would you call foul if your partner double bounced and kept playing? No, you wouldn't, because that would make you an ******* for being a rules-snob during a PICK UP GAME.

[AlCzervik]

how many threads have we had on rules? search function

[Eore]

  Jay-Bird said:

, or took three steps in basketball. I

that actually happens quite a bit, just watch an nba game when i'm playing in a tournement, i want people playing by the rules. thats important. i follow the rules all the time except in a casual round when i don't hit a provisional and cant find the ball. if the course is backed up i'm not walking back to the tee to slow up the round. but if a group of hacks like me wants to improve there lie or take it out of a bunker because they don't want to be hitting 8 shots from there, fine. i play with a few people who are worse than i am. they move the ball. its fine. its not my score. and if you cheat in golf, that does not mean that you character is flawed. its a game. if i were to cheat at monopoly by taking an extra hundred out of the bank does that mean that my character is flawed, too?

[Jay-Bird]

  Eore said:

if i were to cheat at monopoly by taking an extra hundred out of the bank does that mean that my character is flawed, too?

yep... cheating is cheating.

[iacas]

  Rugger said:

I don't even know what to say here. This thread is completely stocked with stupidity.

This is your only warning: stop posting in this thread. Your opinion's been heard, and in

my opinion , you're being a bit of an ignorant ass yourself, so... glass houses, black pot, and all that...

[Billiam]

  iacas said:

This is your only warning: stop posting in this thread. Your opinion's been heard, and in

I think you should stop posting in here too in my opinion You can't get mad at me because you said the exact same thing to him oh yeah, and this is your only warning too hehe

[JessN16]

  Jay-Bird said:

yep... cheating is cheating.

Well, it's not quite that simple.

What we have here is the failure to differentiate between "cheating" and playing golf away from the rules as written in the book. While that might sound like the same thing at first blush, it is not. "Cheating" implies gaining an unfair advantage, or a deliberate attempt to deceive or defraud. It would be cheating if Player A "finds" a lost ball by dropping another one down his pants leg, a la Odd Job in the James Bond movie "Goldfinger." It is not cheating to do the same if Player A is playing by himself, or with Players B, C and D that also agreed to condone the behavior ahead of time and participate in it themselves. In this instance, dropping a ball where one was lost takes on the flavor of a local rule, much like the one in effect at a golf course I played in Florida that allowed free drops if the ball rolled within 20 feet of an alligator. It would be cheating, too, if Players A, B, C and D made a pact during a tournament for the entire foursome to play by their own set of rules, because they would be doing it while being judged against the performance of others on the course under the impression they were playing by the book. That's why cheating is relative to the scope of the group within which the act is done. If the entire group agrees to play, say, by rules 1-499 but not rule 500, there is no act of defrauding because no one has been defrauded. On a larger scale, this is how old rules get changed over time; we keep the ones we like and change the ones we don't. Likewise, if it's a group of one, he can throw the ball into the cup if he so chooses. He has defrauded no one -- although I question why anyone would want to play golf modified to that extreme. We also should realize that this issue manifests itself most often in the OOB/lost ball rule. I do play by strict rules of golf from time to time and, even though I'm a very fast golfer (if not a very good one), there is no way I can play a round with three other people of my handicap level and do it in 4 hours flat. Yet on several courses I've played, prior to the round while getting instructions from the starter, I've been threatened with removal from the course if my group "slowed down play." So then, I'm left to choose between getting removed (which has yet to happen -- although my group has been shadowed by a marshal on two occasions) or bending the strict rules of golf to keep from backtracking to a tee box 2-3 times a round. The real debate comes if/when the golfer reports his score when it was not played by strict rules. But that raises another interesting point: If you turn in a scorecard showing 80 but you probably shot 90, who have you defrauded? Only yourself. You're robbing yourself of shots you'd otherwise get in a tournament. In that case, the "cheater" will eventually get his, by his own hand. In the end, though, it's the act (or lack of an act) of defrauding that really draws the line between "cheating" and "alternative play." If I want to go out tomorrow and count two strokes for every one I really hit, that's nothing more than an alternative scoring system (Stableford, anyone?). Now, if I submitted it for handicap purposes, that's a different story. Jess

[nykfan4life]

I play by all the rules when I'm keeping score. If I'm not keeping score, its because I want to practice ie - trying out a new club, course is empty and I want to try something a couple times, etc. But I, agree, I'm not really playing golf, I'm just practicing, I just happen to be on the course, and its almost always by myself.


Also- in my hs golf team's league, it is a rule that you don't have to do stroke-and-distance, you just drop it where you think it went. There are some real hackers in our league, and it would take forever otherwise. I take advantage of this, and do not consider it cheating. But I don't count these games towards my handicap.

[CG031]

Unless your playing in a tournament, or for money, or sometype of thing where your posting and official score, I could care less if you cheat it or not. Personally, I don't. But if a 36 handicap wants to take a mulligan, god for bid let him. So many times at my home course these hackers hit the ball 2 feet off the tee. Just let them do a do-over to get the ball out there and get the pace of play moving again.

Golf, like I said, unless played competitively, is also meant for PERSONAL enjoyment. If you want to take gimmie's and mulligans, do so. Just don't tell me you shot a score at the end.

[Jay-Bird]

Jess - that was very thorough and compelling. I agree with you. I was only considering the competitive scoring aspect of the game. I was only considering writing down a score and keeping a legit handicap.

[Lefty39]

If your just playing a casual round of golf, not a tournament, or money match. It shouldn't matter how you play, because your spending your own money. As long as your having fun thats the important part. If that means fluffing a lie, taking a mulligan, or the old foot wedge. It shouldn't matter because our using money, to play the way that makes you happy.

[JessN16]

  Jay-Bird said:

Jess - that was very thorough and compelling. I agree with you. I was only considering the competitive scoring aspect of the game. I was only considering writing down a score and keeping a legit handicap.

Thanks. I appreciate the civil discourse.

I can definitely see your side of it as well. My father taught me to play golf off the blues at our home course and I played strict rules from age 8 on up, every time I played with him. Nine-hole rounds literally took 4 hours. I shot several nine-hole rounds over 100 as a child when playing with him, but that was just Dad being Dad. Where I really got off the all-rules-all-the-time bandwagon was when I got serious about playing a lot while I was in college. I was invited to join a foursome (which eventually became my regular foursome and we're all still close) and for awhile, I tried to have us all playing strict rules. It probably wasn't my place to do that. But they did go along with me for awhile. Then I began to realize that we were turning into the slow group. Rounds took 5 hours or more, through no one's fault but our own. Eventually I agreed to try it their way. That's when things got really fun again, because we were no longer looking over our shoulder for the marshal or the group behind us. We stopped shooting 110s and instead were breaking 100. As that happened, confidence levels rose and we started breaking 100 not because of mulligans, but because we were getting better. There is a huge debate raging on this very thing in bowling right now. Lane conditions for league bowlers are set up to be very easy. The conditions you see on ESPN on Sundays, the ones the pros use, are completely different. A lot of the old-timers want to put everyone on the toughest conditions imagineable, while others are arguing for some distinction to be made between the recreational/league bowler, and the competitive tournament bowler. The reason I spoke up in this thread was I felt people were being demonized, and when it got down to a discussion of how someone's character relates to taking a drop near an OOB stake, I felt it had gone too far. The guys who are the true cheaters -- the ones who report 90s when they're actually capable of breaking 80, the ones who cheat like gangbusters in scrambles, etc. -- they're the ones who have a character issue. The guy out there who doesn't report his cards to the USGA and is just trying to have a good time with some friends -- his character has not been impugned. Jess

[spaceghost]

i am a real beginner when it comes to golf (i am answering this question in self-interest because i am trying to build posting credits to be able to ask newbie questions about golf, practice and the equipment in the forum). i don't own clubs and just began taking group classes a month ago. i try to practice all of the aspects i have learned in class at least twice a week outside of class. i spend most of my time chipping and putting, have only been on the driving range a hand full of times and most of that has been hitting a 7 iron. i hit a driver for the first time last tuesday, but probably only spent a third of my bucket with the driver. i have played an executive par 3 course once and today for the first time went out with two other friends to play a full 18 hole golf course.

just going to take a quick break here and say that i have competed in various sports from 4 years old through college. i understand the integrity of the game and that it is the rules and penalties for breaking those rules that shape the game. that said there are also times where i am playing those same games with or against friends outside of competition and the rules change; penalties, fouls, even out of bounds can go out the window. whatever helps increase our enjoyment for the game and the time spent with our friends.

so back to today. i didn't keep score for most of the holes and some i would have lost count of anyways (got caught in the sand a couple of times), but best believe that i know when i parred a hole (and i was even proud of a few bogeys). there were times today when the tee shot was straight down the fairway, others when it went left or right, straight up in the air or two feet in front of me. some of those times i would take a second or even third tee shot (after that i still dropped next to the next worse ball on a hole). we weren't holding anyone up so what is the rush. i had some amazing second and third shots and a couple that went into the woods, the water or some other place i hadn't intended, if it was playable i would play it, but i even hit some provisional balls then. on and around the green we played it where it was (hit a couple great putts, missed a couple of gimmes). i tried to hit out of the sand traps as many times as it took me to do so (one great shot out and three feet from the hole, and sometimes i felt like i was going to have to re-rake the entire trap). sometimes my friends didn't feel like playing out of the sand (it didn't have any effect on my game). at the end of the day i got some sun, hung out with friends, learned about life insurance, learned that i need to get away from my fear of messing up the course and try to hit down on the ball more even if that means taking a piece of turf with it, i lost 10 balls (which makes me pretty happy because i brought 24 with me and was prepared to lose every one of them). do i have my handicap accurately calculated? nope. do i care? nope. did i pay attention when the marshall told us that the while tees have a ____ slope rating? obviously not. i'm not saying i won't want to get there, but today was about playing and not competing and i can't wait to get on the course again.