Rose Colored Glasses

[bkuehn1952]

First, I am no different from everyone else when it comes to thinking about "what could have been" after a round.  Still, it is interesting, at least to me, how many of us describe our rounds: "Would have had an XX except my drive leaked into the hazard on the right", "Could have had a personal best if I hadn't missed 4 putts from 5 feet", etc...  We rarely describe a round where everything is lipping into the hole or balls bounce off trees into the fairway as "I should have shot 82 but a couple bad putts found the hole and my drive on 18 should have been stroke & distance but bounced in bounds.  I shot 78"

We seem to accept fortunate results in stride and focus mainly on unfortunate events that could have (or should have) gone our way.  When I have one of those rounds that turns out decent despite my poor ball striking, I typically ascribe it to scrambling well, which may very well have been true.  Out right dumb luck, however, is rarely acknowledged or glossed over.

Not sure what it means but I imagine I will continue to look at my rounds and think, "If I didn't 3-putt those two holes, I would have...."

[Gunther]

I do the same occasionally but I try to be pretty realistic about the round.  For example, if I miss a 3-footer, I'll think back on a 15-footer I made and say "well, that one should have been a 2-putt so I'm still even."

There are days though, that everything works against you.  I had 6 3-putts in a row on Sat, and 7 overall in the round.  Don't think I've done that ever.  Greens were perfect too.  A couple rounds before I got every bad break:  hit about 5 beautiful approach or pitches that caught the wrong side of a ridge and came off the green and even one that rolled right into a pond (which happens on dormant, fast greens here in TX), 2 plugged bunker lies, a couple bad kicks in the fairway.  It went on and on.  

I didn't kid myself about what I could have scored those days but because I hit a lot of good shots, I wasn't too down on either of the rounds.  For me it's about perspective.

[Marty2019]

13 minutes ago, bkuehn1952 said:

First, I am no different from everyone else when it comes to thinking about "what could have been" after a round.  Still, it is interesting, at least to me, how many of us describe our rounds: "Would have had an XX except my drive leaked into the hazard on the right", "Could have had a personal best if I hadn't missed 4 putts from 5 feet", etc...  We rarely describe a round where everything is lipping into the hole or balls bounce off trees into the fairway as "I should have shot 82 but a couple bad putts found the hole and my drive on 18 should have been stroke & distance but bounced in bounds.  I shot 78"

We seem to accept fortunate results in stride and focus mainly on unfortunate events that could have (or should have) gone our way.  When I have one of those rounds that turns out decent despite my poor ball striking, I typically ascribe it to scrambling well, which may very well have been true.  Out right dumb luck, however, is rarely acknowledged or glossed over.

Not sure what it means but I imagine I will continue to look at my rounds and think, "If I didn't 3-putt those two holes, I would have...."

Absolutely true.   The other day I shot 85, with half a dozen missed putts from 3 to 4 feet.   So, I am thinking, if only for that bad putting, I could have broken 80 for the first time in my life.   Conveniently leaving out the miraculously accurate, Phil Mickelson-like flop shots I managed to hit on a couple of holes.    In reality, I could duplicate those shots maybe 1 in 10 times, but somehow I managed to pull off both of them.   And of course, the time I drove it into the woods and somehow had a clear shot out of the woods.

So, yeah, you are correct in my case.  

[Dave2512]

Not me always self deprecating concerning golf. On any given I feel all but a few shots are playable misses and lucky bounces.

In fact is what can be frustrating I've played what we're basically Ground Hog Day rounds over a weekend and posted scores 6-8 strokes different. I have no doubt when Game Golf developes detailed HBH stats it will show I find trouble on the same holes often. 

 

[14ledo81]

I find myself doing this as well.

I think it is typical human nature.

[dave s]

Anymore, and on my card, it's usually another 92 and 'it is what is is' round.  Pay the man and move on.  I don't wear rose-colored glasses.

dave

[colin007]

I've had a few rounds where I go home thinking "I literally could not have shot a worse score with the way I was hitting it" because of piss poor putting. And on those days I just have to smile and say that at least I struck the ball well.

[vangator]

Golf is hard, so when we score well (not necessarily play well), we take it and run.  Everybody thinks about what could have been instead of what should have been.

[Fourputt]

Not sure of any specific rounds that went like that with several "should have been but lucked out" shots, but I can think of a couple of individual holes.  

One was my second ace, a skulled 6I that careened off a hill left of the green and screamed across the green, hit the flagstick and dropped straight in.  

Another time on a long downhill par 5 I hit my tee shot into the trees on the left, my attempt at a pitch out hit a tree and dropped about 100 feet from where it originally lay, still in the trees, but with a nice opening toward the green.  I smashed a perfect 3W just short of the green and chipped in for birdie.  

No recriminations in either case, I just marked the score and moved on. 

[Dave2512]

I just assumed that's the way all amateurs play except the very best. Even the my fellow championship flight guys in men's league with considerably lower handicaps than mine hit some real WTF shots. What I do now compared to when I was say a bogey golfer isn't significantly different. My misses just travel further towards the target.

I made a birdie last year pushing a hybrid so far right it would have made it OB or into a hole I was 5 holes from getting to. It hit a gas well then bounced off a potty roof on to the green and stopped inches from the hole. All my shots but a few are lucky mistakes.

Right before the weather got us off the courses for a few months last season I played with a couple kids that struggled to break 100. I shot 78 that day and when they asked me what I shot they seemed shocked because it was barrage of poor shots. I caught them about 7 holes in and my best golf was behind me and my +5 on the back was a bit rough. I drained a 60 foot birdie chip to score that way. I have no doubt just looking at my shots they would have thought it was worse.

[MacDutch]

I am a lot better then my handicap, if only my approaches from 250y out of the rough had gone in like they should 

[Pete]

I do this a lot. After every round I pick out exactly the shots that I threw away or the bad luck that cost me. A three putt, 4 to get down from 130 yards or three off the tee. 

The reason I think is because when we hole a 30 foot putt, that is what we were trying to do. When we slice our opening tee shot out of bounds, it is not what we are trying to do. So we are always working backwards from what we are trying to do (perfection).

[mcanadiens]

I usually only think those kind of thoughts when I've really played pretty well. When I've played a typical round or worse, I'm thinking about the type of shot(s) that I struggled with the most.

[PJCdude]

I, like everyone else will definitely play the woulda coulda shoulda game after rounds. Especially when I thought I was gonna break 90 for the first time but 3 putted 14 and 15 (Both were from about 15 feet, but I hit it way too hard trying to get par (on 14) or birdie (on 15) and missed the comebackers)

However, I had two of my best scoring 9 hole rounds late in the season (44 and 46) and on both of those rounds I hit 1 or 2 skulled iron shots that happened to be mid irons on trouble free fairways that rolled up to the green. I hit some good shots (for me) in those rounds too, but I sometimes think about those terrible shots that worked out in my favor and makes me further understand that golf is a game of misses and all about taking the big number out of play....especially as a 20+ handicap.

[Grumpter]

I think people rarely talk about the 'good bounce' days because in my experience it rarely results in someone's best score ever. Usually those are the days they walk away thinking 'that could have been much worse'.

I had one just this past Sunday. After donking my first 4-iron off the tee only 170 yards to the far right leaving me about 170 into the green. I then hit a beautiful punch 4-iron under a tree, over a bunker and rolled it to 10 feet away from the hole then promptly sank the putt. Later in the round I hit my first green side bunker shot of the day that went almost nowhere as the sand was heavier/wetter than I expected. That left me a second bunker shot where I was very short sided. Thanks to very soft greens I put the next shot within tap-in range.

After another wayward tee shot I had 150'ish left into the green, my path to pin on the right side of the green was blocked by a tree (25'ish yards away) and a green side bunker blocked most of the right side of the green. Instead of playing the safe shot to short-left of the green I played a slicing, punched 4-iron that skirted past the bunker, right past the pin and just off the back of the green. Lucky that I didn't end up in real trouble but I like to think there was some skill involved in being able to hit the shot shape I wanted. My goal was to get it in or near that green side bunker.

Lastly on the last hole, par 3 with water before the right side of the green I hit what I felt was a good 6 -iron with a fade that ended up short and in the drink. Took the drop which I chipped to within tap in distance for the crowd pleasing 4. I honestly feel I could have shot 8 strokes higher but wouldn't talk about in the same terms as one of hose days where I scored really well but had a few shots that kept me from having my best day ever. It was just a decent overall score on a day that could have been much worse. It was nice to walk away with a decent score but nowhere near as exciting as almost breaking that lowest ever score.

[jkelley9]

I don't have enough data (yet) on myself to make quantitative comparisons but for example, on my last (2) 9-hole rounds I had a total of 3 penalties from water hazards. That put me up 6 strokes. I shot a 48-43=91. Of course, I thought to myself "if only I had those 6 strokes back, I would have shot an 85." But at the SAME time I had 1.3 putts/hole on one of those 9 and 2 of them were from outside 15 ft, one was actually 25+ ft. I scrambled way better than normal, and caught myself in a number of better lies than average. So I knew in the back of my head that all that considered in, 91 was probably about right. Sure, I'm TRYING to make those long putts, but normally I'm not going to. I also don't usually put the ball close to the hole on my approaches. I'm almost always a minimum of 20 ft. from the hole. Those two 9-hole rounds I was close pretty often. The best is when I get a favorable bounce off of a tree :P Obviously that's luck.