Wrong Ball

[alleztom]

Playing on the weekend I did something stupid on the 3rd hole - I was playing a different brand of ball to usual, hit it into a fairly shaggy lie, identified the brand, not my number or orange stripe :(, and hit a playing partner's ball of the same brand.

Call the penalty, undo the damage, escape with a triple (from where the tee shot was I was chipping out so likely to make bogey anyhow). Question is how do you guys deal with a situation like that? I felt like I was actively managing my state of mind throughout the round - always thinking 'doesn't matter, just shoot what you would have shot and wear the 2 extra etc'. I know the right thing is to consider the past is the past - but how do each of you do it?

[freshmanUTA]

As far as I know, It's legal in the rules of golf to pick up a ball for identification purposes, but it has to be replaced as close as possible. 

You guys must have had pretty similar shots that hole eh?

[alleztom]

  On 8/1/2016 at 1:23 PM, freshmanUTA said:

As far as I know, It's legal in the rules of golf to pick up a ball for identification purposes, but it has to be replaced as close as possible. 

You guys must have had pretty similar shots that hole eh?

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Yeah - it was a silly thing to do, I was about 3 yards past him. Hindsight being 20-20 of course I double check it was mine but I didn't.

The question is more - you did something stupid (other things might be pull an 8i OOB, or run a 15' putt 15' past the hole) - how to cope with it?

[freshmanUTA]

  On 8/1/2016 at 1:28 PM, alleztom said:

Yeah - it was a silly thing to do, I was about 3 yards past him. Hindsight being 20-20 of course I double check it was mine but I didn't.

The question is more - you did something stupid (other things might be pull an 8i OOB, or run a 15' putt 15' past the hole) - how to cope with it?

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Ah, my bad. Missed that.

My coping method is a quick f-bomb, a smack of my club head against the bottom of my shoe, then try to act like that something never happened.

[Piz]

Last Saturday I took a 7 on a par 5 after hooking a tee shot out of bounds.  To help assuage my disappointment I scored the hole 5+2.  I didn't want to write a 7 on the scorecard when, to my thinking, I had played the hole in par after taking a two stroke penalty.  

[alleztom]

  On 8/1/2016 at 1:40 PM, Piz said:

Last Saturday I took a 7 on a par 5 after hooking a tee shot out of bounds.  To help assuage my disappointment I scored the hole 5+2.  I didn't want to write a 7 on the scorecard when, to my thinking, I had played the hole in par after taking a two stroke penalty.  

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Nice!

[DaveP043]

  On 8/1/2016 at 1:16 PM, alleztom said:

Playing on the weekend I did something stupid on the 3rd hole - I was playing a different brand of ball to usual, hit it into a fairly shaggy lie, identified the brand, not my number or orange stripe :(, and hit a playing partner's ball of the same brand.

Call the penalty, undo the damage, escape with a triple (from where the tee shot was I was chipping out so likely to make bogey anyhow). Question is how do you guys deal with a situation like that? I felt like I was actively managing my state of mind throughout the round - always thinking 'doesn't matter, just shoot what you would have shot and wear the 2 extra etc'. I know the right thing is to consider the past is the past - but how do each of you do it?

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Golf is like life, a bit.  You make a mistake in real life, you have no choice but to accept the consequences of your actions.  You try to make the best possible decisions and effort right now, and going into the future.  You also try to learn from your mistakes, so you don't repeat them.  But you can't go through life beating yourself up for a mistake you made, that's simply not productive.

In golf, the same applies.  Make a good choice right now, to make the best possible score from here on out.  Learn from the mistake, so you don't do it again, but don't beat yourself up for the mistake.  Exactly how to accomplish this, I think that's going to be a little different for each player, but I've had a lot of practice at putting my mistakes out of my mind, its starting to come naturally to me.

[Joe92385]

  On 8/1/2016 at 1:30 PM, freshmanUTA said:

My coping method is a quick f-bomb, a smack of my club head against the bottom of my shoe, then try to act like that something never happened.

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Mine is the same, except I add a beer to the equation (except on the incredibly rare occasion when I'm trying to be very serious).

[iacas]

What's to "cope" with?

It's just a game. You goofed. Your life will largely remain unchanged. Make a mental note, learn from the mistake, and move on and enjoy the rest of your day. What's done is done.

[JonMA1]

  On 8/1/2016 at 1:16 PM, alleztom said:

Playing on the weekend I did something stupid on the 3rd hole - I was playing a different brand of ball to usual, hit it into a fairly shaggy lie, identified the brand, not my number or orange stripe :(, and hit a playing partner's ball of the same brand.

Call the penalty, undo the damage, escape with a triple (from where the tee shot was I was chipping out so likely to make bogey anyhow). Question is how do you guys deal with a situation like that? I felt like I was actively managing my state of mind throughout the round - always thinking 'doesn't matter, just shoot what you would have shot and wear the 2 extra etc'. I know the right thing is to consider the past is the past - but how do each of you do it?

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I'm the same way @alleztom. In my case it's probably a personality trait/defect. 

Relative to all the horrible mistakes that are possible to make in life, seems like playing a similar but different ball out of the rough would be easy to blow off. But when I did the same thing a couple of years ago, it bugged the $^*# out of me as well.

Really, as others have stated, it's crazy to worry about the little things like that.

[alleztom]

  On 8/1/2016 at 5:25 PM, iacas said:

What's to "cope" with?

It's just a game. You goofed. Your life will largely remain unchanged. Make a mental note, learn from the mistake, and move on and enjoy the rest of your day. What's done is done.

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That's fair. I understand that life is bigger than golf - the question was asked within the context of this round.

I suppose the question becomes what are peoples' 'moving on' strategies. I know you've said before @iacas that you downplay the importance of 'mental skills'. I can see where you're coming from, and agree to a point, and definitely think you're on the correct site of that argument. I wholly agree that mental skills wont have an 80s shooter shooting 70 etc. I also think that this is said by someone who (from what you write on I believe that you do) has quite a strong mental game (unconscious competence is something that is mentioned a bit elsewhere on this forum). However I think that improving at golf takes mental skill as well (ie being a stupid monkey is a mental skill). The idea of 'what's done is done' makes sense - and answers the question.

1) definitely noted. 2) 100% learned from. 3) this is the tough bit for me, thus the question. 4) I did enjoy the day, I play with people whose company I really enjoy so that's not a problem.

  On 8/2/2016 at 12:03 AM, JonMA1 said:

I'm the same way @alleztom. In my case it's probably a personality trait/defect. 

Relative to all the horrible mistakes that are possible to make in life, seems like playing a similar but different ball out of the rough would be easy to blow off. But when I did the same thing a couple of years ago, it bugged the $^*# out of me as well.

Really, as others have stated, it's crazy to worry about the little things like that.

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It's also crazy to think that a good mental game will fix your swing - some people do though. It is probably one of the few things in life I get a little neurotic about.

[Yukari]

I don't take it too seriously.  I try to avoid any possible mental errors up front by always marking my golf balls.  If I do something bad, like duck hooking a tee shot OB, I would initially get angry at myself for such a bad shot, but then accept it and move on.  Life is too short to dwell on small things.  I got bigger problems than have to worry about a bad shot on a golf course.

[Elrey Desol]

i used to get really frustrated when i was young(er), to the point where i'd do something dumb early in a round (e.g. hit one into the water or OB) and have it grind on me for the rest of the day.

my best friend with whom i played a lot, and who is a much better golfer, once told me, "Dude, you're not good enough to get that mad" and it's stuck with me ever since.

i suppose that could translate to the situation referenced in the OP?

 

**eta** - not suggesting the OP isn't a good golfer/player.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Elrey Desol

[Fairway_CY]

I always believed I had the ability to just 'let it go' and move on.  It never really bothered me for too long when I would have something happen during a round, even if it hurt an otherwise solid scoring round.  

Sunday, however, I was playing in the 2nd round of a 2 day tournament and I was in 3rd place sitting 3 strokes behind the leader (and 1 behind the 2nd place player) with 5 holes to play.  I had just made up 2 strokes in the previous 2 holes and was feeling pretty good about my situation.

On the next tee, I slightly pulled my tee shot.  We all said that, even though it was in the left rough, it would be found because it was wide open on that side.  A playing competitor hit his ball WAY further left than I did and we easily found his ball in the rough up the left side.  Mine was never found.  I had to go back to the tee where I hit a bomb way up in the fairway.  I was still stewing as I stood over my wedge from about 45 yards.  I ended up tugging the shot to the far left side of the green, leaving myself a 47 footer (give or take) for bogey.  I three-putted for a triple and it killed my chances.  

I put a cold towel over my face on my way to the next tee to try and calm down, but I don't think I actually calmed down and let it go until after my tee shot on the 11th hole (our 17th hole because of a shotgun start).  I ended up in 4th place... finishing 4 strokes behind the winner.

It taught me that, while I may be able to let something go in a casual round or when something isn't really on the line (winner earned a nice trophy, their $375 national championship entry paid for and a $200 Visa gift card)... I let that single shot get in my head and it stayed there for way too long.  

My advice to myself Sunday night was to finally teach myself to actually play one shot at a time and not let the outcome of one poor shot hurt anymore than it has to.  How I will get that to happen... I haven't figured out yet.

So, to answer your question... all I can say is that was a tough break and a lot of us have been there before, so don't be too hard on yourself.  I suppose experience helps with these things and learning how to handle them during a round, but I'm not there yet.

CY

[Papa Steve 55]

Just to make you feel better, a month ago a guy in my foursome played a shot from deep rough and hit his cart with it. Then realized it was the wrong ball.....

[UnfairWay]

It's easy to say "forget that shot and move on to the next one" but it's a lot less easy to do it in reality. Telling yourself to do it doesn't necessarily achieve that. So the question is, how do you move on?

Personally - the fact that I am not a very good golfer really helps. I've been playing just over a year, I always tell myself I went into this knowing it's a bloody difficult game and I cannot expect not to hit poor shots or I will never enjoy or get anything out of it. I appreciate others on the forum expect more from themselves and/or are playing at higher stakes, so this doesn't work for everyone!

i have played various other sports at more competitive levels for most of my life though, so I do know a little bit about coping with pressure and recovering from mistakes etc. One thing I always try and do is go back to basics, just focus on the technique and muscle memory. This has two advantages, a) hopefully ensuring a correct technical action (in golf, the swing); and b) more importantly, it gives you something to focus on 100%, which blocks out all distractions for those few seconds - including the last poor shot. Often, I simply pick one aspect of the action (something I regularly have trouble with) and focus entirely on that thing.

May not work for everyone, but works pretty well for me across various sports.

[CarlSpackler]

It is what it is. At least you fessed up and took the penalty instead of rationalizing that it didn't make much of a difference and neglected to penalize yourself. I suppose it would sting more if you were a shot or two away from breaking your career round. The important thing is to learn from it and move on. Also, thanks for posting here as a reminder to the rest of us to id our ball before playing the next shot.

[Slice of Life]

  On 8/1/2016 at 5:25 PM, iacas said:

What's to "cope" with?

It's just a game. You goofed. Your life will largely remain unchanged. Make a mental note, learn from the mistake, and move on and enjoy the rest of your day. What's done is done.

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If I got mad every time I did something stupid on the golf course, I'd be a pretty miserable person.