Newbie question

[Mopperhoss]

Hello

I'm very new to golf, and I have a question for the more competitive players. It might seem like an odd question, but I assure you I have a good reason to ask it.

Is golf a sport where if you play well, and you execute well, that there are times you do not get rewarded for it by way of scoring better? Similarly, if you do not play well, are there times that you'll score well even though you don't deserve it?

I come from a sport where skill, talent and knowledge are becoming less and less important in determining the winners of a competition. I'm pretty frustrated by it, and may quit - taking up golf in its place. I just want to play something where the players who do best are the ones who earn it because their mechanics are better, their knowledge is better and the work they put in pays off.

Thank you

[mricks83]

Golf is a sport that has all sorts of funny breaks and bounces so be prepared for them. You could hit a perfect drive down the middle of the fairway and because it hits a sprinkler head it kicks into the rough or water. Just keep working and eventually the breaks will even out.

[MS256]

Originally Posted by Mopperhoss

Hello

I'm very new to golf, and I have a question for the more competitive players. It might seem like an odd question, but I assure you I have a good reason to ask it.

Is golf a sport where if you play well, and you execute well, that there are times you do not get rewarded for it by way of scoring better? Similarly, if you do not play well, are there times that you'll score well even though you don't deserve it?

I come from a sport where skill, talent and knowledge are becoming less and less important in determining the winners of a competition. I'm pretty frustrated by it, and may quit - taking up golf in its place. I just want to play something where the players who do best are the ones who earn it because their mechanics are better, their knowledge is better and the work they put in pays off.

Thank you

I don't know how "competitive" I am but in the long run of course the better and more skilled golfers will win more. That said, even the best golfers have bad days and can be beaten by people with less skill. We've all had those days where all of the bounces went the right way and the hole looked the size of a 5 gallon bucket that we couldn't miss, and those days when nothing went right, balls always seemed to land in a divot, and every other putt lipped around the hole and came out.

Skill will usually win but a little luck never hurt anything either.

[Mopperhoss]

Originally Posted by MS256

I don't know how "competitive" I am but in the long run of course the better and more skilled golfers will win more. That said, even the best golfers have bad days and can be beaten by people with less skill. We've all had those days where all of the bounces went the right way and the hole looked the size of a 5 gallon bucket that we couldn't miss, and those days when nothing went right, balls always seemed to land in a divot, and every other putt lipped around the hole and came out.

Skill will usually win but a little luck never hurt anything either.

I want to focus on one sentence in your reply. You say that "even the best golfers have bad days and can be beaten by people with less skill." That, I understand and can handle. However, I'm not talking about a bad day, where they're "off" or not playing to their capabilities. I'm talking more about playing up to your skill, playing well , having a GOOD day, and not being rewarded for it.

Does that happen in golf? Can you hit the ball well, pick the right club, judge the distance well... and it still goes into the bunker, the rough, etc.? And the guy next to you does everything wrong and it ends up 5 feet from the cup?

(thanks for the replies, by the way)

[mricks83]

That's still absolutely possible because of the great unknown in the game...mother nature.

[Mopperhoss]

Anything is possible, but is it a regular occurrence?

[Golfingdad]

I don't know of a sport that exists that doesn't have some sort of luck involved. Golf maybe less than others because there is no opponent directly affecting your game. I'm curious though, what sport is it that you are considering giving up?

[dave s]

Interesting question the original poster raises.  Simple answer is yes, you can hit the ball well and where you want it to go and bad things can happen.  Here are some examples of what old timers refer to as 'rub of the green.'

You can drive one right down the middle and have the ball run through the fairway and into the rough.

You can have a 3' downhill breaking putt that you either make or 3-putt.

You can hit greens all day long and have them roll through the green and come to rest on fringe and right up against rough where getting a putter on the ball is impossible.

You can drive one right down the middle and into a divot.

You can miss quality putts all day long.  Sometimes nothing goes in even when putting well.

My take:  Golf is a real experience game meaning that you have to have been there and done it to understand why it's going well or why it's going bad.  We all hit 'good shots' that end badly.  We hit really bad shots that didn't cost us anything either.  Golf is also a game where you put in a quarter (practice) to get a dime (small improvement) back.

Not sure how 'competitive' your golf game will be, but try to enjoy it.

dave

[Mac62]

Originally Posted by Mopperhoss

I want to focus on one sentence in your reply. You say that "even the best golfers have bad days and can be beaten by people with less skill." That, I understand and can handle. However, I'm not talking about a bad day, where they're "off" or not playing to their capabilities. I'm talking more about playing up to your skill, playing well, having a GOOD day, and not being rewarded for it.

Does that happen in golf? Can you hit the ball well, pick the right club, judge the distance well... and it still goes into the bunker, the rough, etc.? And the guy next to you does everything wrong and it ends up 5 feet from the cup?

(thanks for the replies, by the way)

Yes.  Perfect example from a week or so ago:  On a par 3 hole, I hit a decent tee shot which landed on the right side of the green.  It rolled out 10 feet or so - but unfortunately the green slopes to the right, which meant that it rolled off the right edge of the green and into a bunker.  The next golfer hit his tee shot thin and pulled it left, resulting in an ugly, low line drive which whizzed through the weeds on a hillside that runs along the whole left side of the hole.  His ball then proceeded to kick to the right and roll down onto the green, ending up about 8 feet from the cup.  He ended up scoring par and I carded a bogey.  Stuff like that is why the saying exists, "There's no such thing as a picture on the scorecard".

[dfreuter415]

Originally Posted by Mopperhoss Is golf a sport where if you play well, and you execute well, that there are times you do not get rewarded for it by way of scoring better? Similarly, if you do not play well, are there times that you'll score well even though you don't deserve it?

For me, I like to think that my game has consistency. That leads to scores that you can predict to a certain extent. But, to me, inconsistency is the beauty of this sport. There are days I hit it well, but my score is mediocre. Then there are are days I play poorly, but score well, because of chipping an putting. When you put your game all together, there is an absolute feeling of elation. Nothing like it!  Take the good with the bad and try your best. Isn't that a microcosm of life?

Since you are new, I recommend that you read, "Golf is Not a Game of Perfect." What Dr. Bob Rotella does here in this extraordinary book is to create an attitude and a mindset about all aspects of a golfer's game, from mental preparation to competition. The most wonderful aspect of it all is that it is done in a conversational fashion, in a dynamic blend of anecdote and lesson.

[meenman]

Originally Posted by Mopperhoss

Does that happen in golf? Can you hit the ball well, pick the right club, judge the distance well... and it still goes into the bunker, the rough, etc.? And the guy next to you does everything wrong and it ends up 5 feet from the cup?

(thanks for the replies, by the way)

Let's put it this way. I had a friend the other day that overshot a par 3 by 20 yards, skulled his chip that should have sent it over the green and into the water.

He managed to hit one of our playing partners balls 5 feet from the hole and walked off with a par.

The next hole, he hit a nice 250 yard drive fairly down the middle that bounced off of a sprinkler head and sent him into a bunker.

[Crusher47]

Had a weird break the other day.......

I was chipping onto a green, skulled it a little so the ball rolled faster than I would have liked and would have gone off the green if someone had not left a cigarette butt in the right spot....ball hits the butt and stops....was able to putt for par

[MS256]

Weirdest break I ever got:

Last summer I was hitting into a small island green after a sub-par tee shot that left me with 168 yards on a hole designed for the second shot to be somewhere from 110 yards to 70 yards with a good tee shot.

Hit an 8 iron that should have reached, but didn't, and splashed down about 5 yards short of the green. Then almost looking like a missile launching from underwater the ball came out and landed perfectly beside the pin (about 10 inches).

I have hit many balls in that water and seen countless other people do the same and the water is fairly deep right there so I had no idea how that could have happened. When I got up to the green the water was clear enough for me to see a giant rock right in that spot and about a foot from the surface. The rock is slanted back toward where I hit the shot from so any ball that hits that rock is not going to bounce toward the green, and probably not going to come back out of the water, unless it hits precisely on the back point of the rock. There is probably a 2 inch possible landing area on that underwater rock for the ball to come back out of the water and onto the green.

I figure I've hit so many great shots on that hole that found the water due to a wind gust that the hole owed me one.

Best thing was that birdie won me the side in the money game.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by Crusher47

Had a weird break the other day.......

I was chipping onto a green, skulled it a little so the ball rolled faster than I would have liked and would have gone off the green if someone had not left a cigarette butt in the right spot....ball hits the butt and stops....was able to putt for par

A cigarette butt??  Unless it was one of those new electronic cigarettes I don't see how the ball was going to roll more than another inch or two anyway.

The bottom line is that all of the above examples are rare flukes.  In the long run, this type of stuff is going to help as often as it will hurt (people just choose not to remember the times when it helps)  And, further, in my opinion, unfortunate breaks that happen in golf are a lot more about perception than actual bad luck.  I play with people all the time that blame that one branch sticking out of the tree that knocked down their otherwise "perfect" shot, or the shot that rolls off the false front of the green into the rough.  They blame these things on bad luck, when in reality, its either poor decision-making (trying to flirt too much with that tree), poor preparation (not knowing that the green had a false front), or simply poor execution.  Often times these things have nothing to do with luck.

Also, I second the opinion that you should read Rotella's books.  Having your mind in the right place is really going to help you play good golf (true for anything else too) and its going to help you enjoy yourself too.  I can get pissed off after hitting a bad shot if I want to, but what purpose does that serve other than A) taking away some of the fun of the GAME I am playing, and B) taking focus away from the next shot, thus leading to a higher possibility of continuing down the poor-shot path?

[clutchshot]

I don't know of a sport that exists that doesn't have some sort of luck involved. Golf maybe less than others because there is no opponent directly affecting your game. I'm curious though, what sport is it that you are considering giving up?

Golf is very skilled based. If you make the perfect shot, it will go where its supposed to. There is some luck, sometimes, but you have 18 holes, if you are playing better you will win.