Would You Rather Be Lucky Or Good?

[jamo]

Since no one's shooting at me, I'll take good over lucky. 

[1badbadger]

6 hours ago, CarlSpackler said:

I'll take good. There is no such thing as luck.

Watch this video and tell me there is no such thing as luck...

Edited March 4, 2017 by iacas
Please embed videos

[MrGolfguy67]

Good, easy answer. To me 'good' means par shooter, I'd take that any day.

I'm mediocre now and get lucky fairly often but still shoot 80+ most of the time. If you're good you don't need luck to shoot a good score.

[Patch]

Well I have been lucky 5 times. That said, I have been good for longer periods of time. 

[CarlSpackler]

44 minutes ago, 1badbadger said:

Watch this video and tell me there is no such thing as luck...

https://youtu.be/x1KLd-WcGVE

Luck is humanizing a random chance event. If your ball hits a tree, it can ricochet any number of directions, but it's controlled by physics. 

[1badbadger]

36 minutes ago, CarlSpackler said:

Luck is humanizing a random chance event. If your ball hits a tree, it can ricochet any number of directions, but it's controlled by physics. 

I'll buy that.  But if it ricochets and goes into the hole, that would be fortuitous, would it not?  Or if it ricocheted into a water hazard,  it would not.

[CarlSpackler]

36 minutes ago, 1badbadger said:

I'll buy that.  But if it ricochets and goes into the hole, that would be fortuitous, would it not?  Or if it ricocheted into a water hazard,  it would not.

It goes where it goes. Good bounces equal out with bad ones. "Luck" is a wash. 

[mcanadiens]

Luck is a rare and fleeting thing that goes sour at least as often as sweet. 

Good is something I don't know anything about, but it sounds nice.

[boogielicious]

I'd rather be good. I don't really believe in luck for myself.

However, I do have a close friend who is about an 8 HC. He is pretty good, but also the luckiest golfer I've ever played with. And it is not just me who says that.

1. If he hooks or slices a drive into the woods, it bounces out.
   1. I have personally seen this a couple dozen times. Sometimes it baffles all logic because you saw the shot go 30 yards into the woods 40 feet up and then it ricochets out at the last second.
   2. It is like that commercial with the golden retriever.
2. If it is windy, the wind will die down when he gets on the tee.
   1. This one is comical because when we play, the opposite seems to happen to me.
3. If his drive hits the cart path, it will keep bouncing down the path toward the hole even if it was curving away from the fairway before it hit.
   1. Once he did this and got literally 80 more yards. Pretty good for a crappy drive.
4. Overshoot the green with water behind? The ball will hang up on the last blades of grass.

We've been friends since the 7th grade. It used to annoy me, but now I just find it funny. He'll slice the drive into the trees and I'll just say, "Wait for it. Ah, there it comes out. Good ball."

[jkelley9]

This seems like an obvious answer.

Even if I was a very lucky golfer, I would enjoy the game MUCH more if I were a SKILLED golfer.

I'm sure many of us can agree that we would take those nice, clean, crisp shot feels that consistently land near our target rather than hitting even a handful of flub shots and the "lucky" shots landing very near the hole, bouncing off a tree into the fairway, or making hole-in-ones or something.

I'd pick the pureness of a clean, consistent golf shot to my balls bouncing of trees and rocks into favorable areas.

Not knocking your question. I just feel like it's an easy answer for me  I like your Napoleon reference btw. Kudos.

[mistermuhl]

Luck is merely opportunity meeting preparation. Sure you may get a kick off the tree. But either way, you have to be skillful to get into any position. If you escape out of some brutal situation it was luck. It was simply you being as prepared as possible. If you get the best kick of you life into a fairway or onto a green, you simply made a good shot in the right place. I don't like the way people always jump to blind luck. Everyone deserves more credit than they get but that is definitely the nature of the game. 

[Wally Fairway]

14 hours ago, CarlSpackler said:

Luck is humanizing a random chance event. If your ball hits a tree, it can ricochet any number of directions, but it's controlled by physics. 

Generally speaking, I think that the good luck shots are more memorable than the bad luck shots, and therefore seem to happen more frequently. So perception is that there are players with good luck.

[NJpatbee]

I am lucky and still a 17 HCP.  I'll take good.

[Valleygolfer]

17 hours ago, 1badbadger said:

Watch this video and tell me there is no such thing as luck...

Both golfers hit their balls to only spots that they would go. No luck. Just mathematics.

[RH31]

I'll take those lucky bounces, lucky hole outs, all day long......

 

[1badbadger]

3 hours ago, Valleygolfer said:

Both golfers hit their balls to only spots that they would go. No luck. Just mathematics.

Can a player predict he will hit the green with his shot? Sure. Can he predict that he will hit his shot within 10' of the hole?  Yes. Can he predict that he will hit the green past the pin, use the slope to hit a ball already on the green and carom into the hole? No. If he can't repeat that shot again, there is more involved than physics and math...it's luck.

[Valleygolfer]

2 hours ago, 1badbadger said:

 If he can't repeat that shot again, there is more involved than physics and math...it's luck.

Luck would be the exact same shot could be hit and a possibility of a different outcome. Sorry no luck for you on this.

[ghalfaire]

Most sane folks would like to be good over lucky.  Me, I'd like to be both.