I Hate Losing

[adamgoodman]

Preseason golf team started today, and I regretfully report that I am a part of one of the most talentless teams I have ever seen in my life.

When it comes to golf as a whole, I hate to lose more than anything.

Which leads me to this question:

What do you hate the most in golf?

That horrible duff?

Slicing?

Missing the short putt?

Share the hate.

[Johnnyooze]

Everything i did today. Bad slices. duffing. chipping 3 TIMES to get on the green and then 3 putting. 4 putting. Shot a 51 on an easy 9 hole course. F**king worst day of golf ive had this year. I did have some good shots. But as usual, theyre over shadowed by the bad ones.

[pope1086]

I absolutely hate 3 putts. But then again I also hate anytime I duff. I have to look around and make sure people on other holes didn't see me.

[golf4fun12]

I hate 3 wood from the fairway.

sucks about your team. I know they take the top 6 scores and add them up or something like that. I don't know another way they could do it, unless they had match play and add up the winners from both schools to see who wins.

[nleary9201]

I hate the misinformation that seems rampant in the golf world. When I first started playing everyone said "drive for show, putt for dough."  Hmmmm then I noticed that most of the longest hitters were the best players. Now 20yrs later everyone is all about length off the tee.  Sean Foley--Dislike this little Napolean type guy.  Glad he is working with Tiger who I also dislike.  Tiger had everything in the world anyone could want and chose to live his life as a complete d-bag. Why can't high profile athletes and celebs (charley sheen for istance) just live a clean life?  But we continue to wait in line for the autograph and hang on their every word.

[saevel25]

three putting or worse

[nleary9201]

More things I hate  -- Golfisms --- Those phases I hear almost every round I play.  Like -- "never leave a eagle putt short"" Brilliant --- Duh !!  Seems most golfers think some strokes are more important than others. They all count as ONE.  I would make just as much sense to say "never leave a double bogey putt short".  Hate it when guys say that. Like I was trying to leave it short

Another one is "you gotta hit it" when describing a putt left short. When no kidding. Again I was trying to leave it short on purpose.  Come up with something original for once.

Our wonderful highly paid golf announcers always saying the word "little" when describing a golf shot. " Phil hit a "little" 6 iron layup then a "little" 60 degree wedge to 6 ft.  Quit saying "little" all the freakin time, geez its annoying.

[saevel25]

Yeah, but how many times do people leave an eagle putt short. What i like is that invading a players mind, and then they jack the eagle putt 5 feet past the whole.. ;b

your wrong on that, when looking at par, which is the standard for each hole. If you hit a bad approach shot, you still can get up and down for par. But if you miss a par putt, then you don't get a 2nd chance. So really, certain putts are more important, when you have a goal in mind for the whole. Most people don't get birdies or eagles, so the anticipation makes the putt more imporant. Its easier for some people to double bogey than make a birdie. So, you want the putt to at least have a chance at the hole, and the only way to do that is to make sure you don't leave it short. It makes perfect sense with regards to anticipation of something good. If your on a double bogey putt, your probably pissed off enough not to care if you hit it short or not.

[shades9323]

  adamgoodman said:

Originally Posted by adamgoodman

Preseason golf team started today, and I regretfully report that I am a part of one of the most talentless teams I have ever seen in my life.

You should have seen my golf team in high school.  We had no single digit HC's.  I was the best at about 11-12.

[Patrick Gilmore]

I hate it when I flub a simple shot. The tap in you swipe at, the short chip etc. Because you know you have thoughtlessly given away strokes it really takes the fun out of a round.

[ghalfaire]

I hate the "other" that creep into my scores & statistics upon occasion.  I hate them because they usually are the result of a "stupid" and not a failing of my swing.

[awmgolfer]

I completely understand. I coach our high school golf team. Over the previous two years we had a combined record of 18 - 2 but last year I lost most of my golfers to graduation. I knew this year was going to be tough because not many kids were playing in the lower grades. I started 3 8th graders last year but they can't play on the high school team and they will be single digit handicaps pretty soon. We went 0 - 9 last year. I had two strong golfers but the other 3 were pure beginners and have a lot of hand-eye coordination issues, tough season and I felt bad for my two seniors who both are strong. It's just how it goes sometimes.

I like how our matches are scored though. Each player up to 5 can take two points. 1 point for match play and 1 point for stroke play. Then you take the top 4 scores out of the 5 and add them up, the team with the lowest total gets 1 team point for a possible total of 11 points. Seems to work really well. Just hang in there and focus on your game, high school sports teams always follow an up and down pattern with strong years and weak years, I'm sure your team will come out of it once you get some of the players a bit more experience :)

[nleary9201]

I disagree with your observation that one stroke is more important than another (provided we are playing stroke play). A stroke is a stroke.  I think when players focus on "par" it is really detrimental  to their game.  I think some players might play extra safe on a hole to get a par when it might be an easy hole they should birdie, or they have a 4 ft putt for triple bogey and sluff it off as meaningless because it is for triple. So they don't concentrate on it and miss it. The stroke add up the same no matter what relation they are to par on any given hole.  17 pars and a quad is the same as 14 pars, 2 birdies, 1 eagle, and a triple bogey.

[TourSpoon]

I think that nothing invokes a sense of self righteous rage like a missed two footer. The golf gods can be cruel at times.

[nleary9201]

Hey Golf Coach awmgolfer -- Tell me a little about how you coach your team.  Here is my issue.  My son - now graduated played golf for 4 ys. in H.S.  Myself, and other parents were shocked at the "casual" attitude of the golf coach.  Practice usually consisted of playing 9 holes.  I talked to some other parents from other schools who had a similar experience.  Why isn't golf structure more like other sports.  There weren't drills ie - hit 200 greenside chips then 100 putts.  In basketball which my son also participated in he might have to shoot 100 foul shots in practice which would be similar to 100 putts.

[turtleback]

Being on the green on regulation and then throwing away the par by 3-putting.  As a bogey golfer pars are precious to me and to throw one away like that just kills me.

[shades9323]

  nleary9201 said:

Originally Posted by nleary9201

Hey Golf Coach awmgolfer -- Tell me a little about how you coach your team.  Here is my issue.  My son - now graduated played golf for 4 ys. in H.S.  Myself, and other parents were shocked at the "casual" attitude of the golf coach.  Practice usually consisted of playing 9 holes.  I talked to some other parents from other schools who had a similar experience.  Why isn't golf structure more like other sports.  There weren't drills ie - hit 200 greenside chips then 100 putts.  In basketball which my son also participated in he might have to shoot 100 foul shots in practice which would be similar to 100 putts.

When I played HS golf, our practice was just playing 9 holes.  Maybe it is this way because the team shares the course with all the other golfers at that particular club.  Unless they have huge practice areas 10-15 players(team) is going to hog up all the practice green space from all the higher paying members.

[awmgolfer]

It's been a learning experience for me to say the least. I work in a very small school, we have under 200 kids in high school so I don't have the ability to do tryouts and things like that, I take anyone that walks onto the course. Practices are VERY structured. When I played golf in high school it was as many said, 9 holes and the coach sat in the club house and never gave one pointer. We were on our own. I don't want kids on the team to have that experience. We also start on the putting green and go through a number of different putting drills, I change them day to day to keep things different and to focus on different areas. We then move out to shots within 20 yards of the green, varying distance and again, different drills. I have set drills for Monday through Saturday. After that, which we usually spend about an hour or so on the putting green between putting and chip shots, we move over to the driving range and focus on a certain set of distances each day. Only one day a week do we work on things over 150 yards. Each day I pick a span of about 50 yards and we focus on that using a variety of targets.

The way our course is setup we can easily play a round of 4, 9, or 18 holes. Some days we will only play four holes and work on some things on the course and some days we will play nine as they still need to get on course experience. For Saturday we do a traditional warmup starting on the putting green and then hitting a few balls on the range to get things going and then we play 18 holes. Every time we play holes on the course I switch it up, we alternate between the red, white, and blue tees. I also use monopoly money in some of the rounds and bet on the shots to help put some pressure. I also do fun little bets with them for a soda in the club house or something like that. I did one once where I said I would caddy a fun round for them sometime. I really work to keep flexibility within the structure so things don't get to routine and it really seems to work well. The team I will be having this coming year, our season is in the fall due to northern Maine weather, but I will have a solid so I am really excited. The big excitement though is I have a group of kids that love to play and play a lot. Also, when we play on the course I am right there with them and I usually will play against the entire team so they get that additional competition feeling, but they also see how I approach certain shots.

The big thing that makes it all really easy is the course owner is awesome, he treats the kids like gold and will go the extra mile for the team. The members also love seeing the team around the course so it's just an overall great time. Most the kids I have on the team are also in the music program which is what I teach so I get to see these kids over the summer more then their parents do..lol. Plus I get to know them from 4th grade through 12th grade, if they stay in band so between that and golf I get to form a great bond with the kids. I just love it if you can't tell..lol!!