holding yourself accountable for bad shots.

[mirv]

i'm sure we've all met people who, when either they hit a bad shot or watch you hit a bad shot, they chalk it up to anything except it being a flaw in the swing or stance or grip or whatever. and then if you get saddled with a real winner, not only will they rant about a piece of equipment or the course sucking, they'll turn around and do something like break a club. good times. they'll say things like...

"the wind got ahold of that one..."

"that ball just sucks. doesn't matter how good i hit it, it won't fly straight."

"this club sucks, it doesn't matter how good i swing it, the ball won't fly straight."

"i need new golf shoes, i'm sliding all over the place."

"i need a new golf glove, this one is old and sucks and it's letting the club slip around in my hand."

any of those factors may be true to an extent, but am i wrong in thinking that ultimate responsibility lies with the person swinging the club? if the ball is slicing, it's a lot more likely that the person swung out-to-in or didn't release or just held the club with the face open or their stance was open or their shoulders were open - there's any number of things that could be doing it, and i'd be willing to bet that it just being a bad ball is not a likely candidate.

i think my single greatest leap in trying to learn how to be a better golfer was when i quit blaming clubs or trees or unlevel tee boxes or whatever else i could find and started telling myself "i did that. that was my fault. that was me. okay, so... how do i correct it?"

anyway. this sort of thing annoy anyone else half as much as it does me? often times i'll get saddled with a random partner on the course and they'll pull this kind of behavior, and it takes a lot of self-control to not go "no, YOU did that" after they hit their sixth consecutive banana ball.

[Fraser]

but am i wrong in thinking that ultimate responsibility lies with the person swinging the club?

Absolutely, it is the old adage that 'a bad craftsman blames his tools'. This is why I've stuck with the same pretty old (by most players standards) clubs to me 98% of the eventual outcome of the shot is the guy or girl holding the stick.

The only time I'll blame consistent bad shots on something other than myself is if I head to the range and forget to take my golf shoes, as the other shoes I wear do make a difference...I put them on and I'm fine again. My wife was looking to take up the game earlier in the summer and her mother let her take her old 1980s clubs down the driving range. I decided to have a go with the irons and could hit them not too differently to my own ones. Straight and about 10% less distance than my T-Zoids. Equipment doesn't make nearly enough difference as some people would like you have them think.

[Eeryck]

Personnally I blame most of my bad shots on the various golf gods:

Tee Box God: He seems to require several golf balls into the trees before he is satisfied and allows the ball to go straight.

Tree Gods: Depending on how much I have driven my car I can be in their favor or they can be against me. They have some possibility to offset the tee box gods and give a "members bounce"

Fairway Gods: These are the most fickle and often require that I sacrice a large piece of the big ball and leave the little ball where it was but now in the dirt instead of on the grass. They seem to expect their sacrifice just when it seems things are coming together and completely randomly.

Green Gods: If I repair divots and be respectful of the green they are very gracious and let me 2-putt. If I get careless they will change a break from 2 balls left of the hole to 3-balls right of the hole and demand a 4-putt.

Equipment Demon Posession: This happens ocassionally and the evil spirit must be cast out by spending an entire round in the bag on the golf course but never hitting a shot. In really bad cases they posessed equipment must spend a round in the garage.

As long as I make the proper offering to the golf gods I find they allow me to have a decent round and otherwise don't affect my ball flight from my normally flawless swing.

-E

[M2daRizzle]

me and my friends have fun with bad shots and like to blame them on obscure things. For me its always either the color of my tees or that my left shoe is tied tighter than my right. My friend has a problem with his golf glove, it always is messing him up during his swing causing bad shots. Obviously we are just messing around and know that bad shots are caused by crappy swings, but its a lot of fun to act like we are seriously mad at stupid things, especially when we get paired up with strangers.

[bogeyhitter25]

I personally hate people that do this (but are serious). My friend does it ALL THE TIME. Like this one time it was him, myself, and another kid. It was like my 2nd time ever going and I think I shot around a 110 (of course giving myself some strokes) and he has two Kangol hats, one white, one black and he wore the black one. It was probably about mid-60s for temperature, so pretty moderate. He shot a 115 and blamed it completely on how he was sweating more since he had a black hat on, and also blaming his ankle that he had a minor sprain on 2 years before. It was ridiculous.

[Fourputt]

Doesn't bother me in the least. I couldn't care less what someone else thinks or says about his game. People delude themselves all the time, and not only in golf. Why should I let it bother me? I have enough to think about with my own game, and allowing myself to be distracted over such an inconsequential thing as that isn't going to help me be where I want to be.

I'm honest with myself about my game. I don't see how you could even know what to work on if you weren't. But if a friend or acquaintance wants to make excuses about his game, he's welcome to have at it. It's a free country, and it's no skin off my back.

[OHgolfnut]

Oh, man...what a topic...

I can't stand anyone who acts so foolish. It's pathetic. Getting angry, blaming everyone and everything but themselves. I won't play with anyone who acts such a way(s).

Ummmmm...wasn't it Jay Williamson at Q-School this year who acted like a little 2 year old? That guy doesn't deserve to have his card.

[FortAsel]

Ya know, the other day, I was at the driving range, and not hitting the ball very well.

Then a guy comes to me and starts giving every kind of advice he can possibly make up, and I'm almost pissed. I tell you 5 more seconds, I'd ask the guy to go and get his advice up his a$$

[flopdarock]

i just go with the flow... cuz some guys i get hooked up with take it deadly serious... or act like they do as to avoid embarassment or something... ill just be quiet or agree with them a few times... but it gets irritating if its throughout the whole round...

ill make a bunch of bad shots and be pissed at myself but i wont take it out on my gear cuz i like my gear and cant afford to buy new crap everytime i play bad

[traviswise]

Personnally I blame most of my bad shots on the various golf gods:

Great post.

I too don't take it that seriously, bad shots happen. If I was a scratch golfer it would be one thing but this is a past time for me not a job.

[goblue107501]

The way I see it, if you hit the center of the clubface with a good swing then good things will happen. It doesn't really matter what equipment you use. It took me a long time to figure this out and I used to always be mad at something other than myself for a shot gone bad.

I am a pretty relaxed player and if I get upset the blame is 100% me. I know if I didn't hit the ball well. I get the most upset when I have an easy shot and don't execute it properly...again only myself to blame.

My only exception is bad greens. I can hit a good putt, but then it hits something or hops along the way and doesn't go where it should or loses speed and never has a chance. Many times the ball will be affected by something on a bad green that you just can't see.

[Fat Slice]

Doesn't bother me in the least. I couldn't care less what someone else thinks or says about his game. People delude themselves all the time, and not only in golf. Why should I let it bother me? I have enough to think about with my own game, and allowing myself to be distracted over such an inconsequential thing as that isn't going to help me be where I want to be.

That is by far the healthiest attitude to have and, by and large, it's the one I have. To the degree that I fall short, I am trying to improve myself and really REALLY not care what anyone else does.

[PiKapp23]

I believe that 'most' of the time a bad shot is because of the player - that is, something they have done wrong. However, golf is a game where outside agencies and the course itself can have an impact and the rules of the game do little to protect the golfer from this. These type occurances include hitting the flagstick and having ball rebound into water hazard; hitting perfect shot and having it land in divot; or or having a ball catch a uneven spot in fairway and bounce into trouble. For most golfers these are just considered to be part of the game (because sometimes those same bounces benefit us) or 'rub of the green' as the old golf adage goes. I may not be happy when these things occur, but I accept them just as I would if I hit a bad shot.

It's interesting, though. I was reading something a while back about professional golfers and how they handle bad shots and bad breaks. If you've ever watched pro golfers after they have hit a bad shot many immediately start looking for things to blame, such as caddy, wind, fans (patrons at Masters), bad bounce, bad luck whatever. I always thought this was kind of classless, but in what I was reading the author (I don't remember who it was or what book) stated that for many players their confidence is so shaky that if they have to admit these bad shots are their fault it can cause a loss of confidence or cause doubt to enter their mind on shots later. For them they need to believe they did everything correct but just got a bad break or something else caused bad shot. Even Tiger does this. I'm sure you've seen him throw grass in air to check wind after he hit a bad shot. Sometimes it's because something changed and sometimes it just to remove accountability for the bad shot.

[rebby]

I hear this a lot more often on the gun range shooting pistols than I do on the golf course. The gun is at fault, or the sights, or (often times) the ammo. What I usually do in this case is say, "You don't say? Lemme try..." I'll then proceed to dump a mag into the 10 ring. When I hand it back I always ask, "Would you like me to help you fix YOUR problem?" (I'm a firearms instructor)...

Unfortunately, this technique doesn't work as well on the golf course. If somebody was blaming their "driver of the week" with a high torque R flex shaft for their slice, having me swing it would likely only reinforce their hatred in the club.

[SubPar]

During a competitive round it is a tactical necessity that you not get "down" on yourself. You see guys looking at the fairway divot, or the wind or the surface of the green after a poorly struck shot because it does not serve you well to blame yourself for poor shots at that time. You file it away for reference later on the range, but during the round you are better off blaming anything but yourself.

Nothing kills a round like negative selfimage.


SubPar

[JonnyGolf]

Personnally I blame most of my bad shots on the various golf gods:

Wow, that's some cool paganism.

[JonnyGolf]

I hear this a lot more often on the gun range shooting pistols than I do on the golf course. The gun is at fault, or the sights, or (often times) the ammo. What I usually do in this case is say, "You don't say? Lemme try..." I'll then proceed to dump a mag into the 10 ring. When I hand it back I always ask, "Would you like me to help you fix YOUR problem?" (I'm a firearms instructor)...

That's a funny analogy. I can remember my brother and I shooting left-handed with iron sites and still shooting better than the guys with the full set-up. It's the Indian, not the arrow.

[JonnyGolf]

I hold myself 100% accountable for bad shots. And, if I fail to execute a shot that I have, I can get pretty upset with myself. For bad breaks, I figure they offset all of the good breaks I get. I'd much rather have a good swing with a bad outcome than a bad swing with a good outcome. If I've made one good swing, I've got some more coming. And, if I've made a bad swing... So, if I hit a great shot and it goes OB because it bounces off a sprinkler head (yeah, it's really happened to me!), c'est la vie. I'll hit another great shot and make birdie.