GolfStinks

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Is A Teenage Competitor Good For Golf?

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So by now, most golf fans probably know who Beau Hossler is. If not, he’s the 16-year old playing in the U.S. Open who, after the first round, currently stands at 5-over. Not bad for a 16-year old. Actually, not bad for anyone! I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve approached that number on 9-holes. So for me, a 76? Unfathomable.

Needless to say I find myself, like many other fans of the sport, rooting for this kid to do well. But as I do root for him, I also find myself wondering if that’s a good idea. It’s strange, but as much as I would like to see him do well, part of me thinks this is not good for the sport as a whole. Let me explain myself.

We as Americans, in general, are smitten with sports that are either fast, physical or a combination of the two. Golf, as if it isn’t obvious enough, is neither. Hence golf’s declining audience and participation. So when the likes of a high school junior are able to hang with the pros for a round or two, in a major no less, I can understand how non- or casual golf fans can be turned off by this.

Look at some of those other fast and physical sports. Take football for instance. I would like someone to point out one single 16-year old who could hang on the gridiron for even a few plays with some NFL pros. Imagine handing a football to some pizza-faced kid and having him run up the middle against the Baltimore Ravens D? His career would be over after a play or two.

Basketball? OK, before you go ahead and mention the names, Kobe, Garnett, LeBron and Moses Malone (some of the players who successfully made the jump from high school to the pros), keep in mind for every Kobe, there are three Korleone Young’s, Leon Smith’s and DeAngelo Collins’ (among the unsuccessful jumpers). Further, these players were all at least 18 and playing a sport far less physical than football. Further, one can even make the argument that high school players and college underclassmen making the jump to the NBA have been a detriment to the game.

Even in baseball, only 28 players in the history of MLB have made the jump directly from high-school to the pros. And of those, only a handful can be considered to have had successful careers. Quite simply, even though the sport is not overly physical, the strength and speed of players in the majors simply cannot be matched by 18-year old kids. But in golf, 16-year olds can compete with the pros? And in the case of Matteo Manassero, a 17-year old can make the cut?!

While I, myself, have no real issue with it (and as mentioned, I’m pulling for the kid to do well) I do believe it is a turn-off to fans of the faster, more physical sports that many of us love. After all, this is America. There’s a reason we love football, not futbol. Watching a teenager hang with the big boys, ala Pele, makes the sport seem less challenging and require less experience and less physical ability and prowess. While us golfers may understand that is not necessarily the case, you would have to admit that you can understand where the critics are coming from.

For a sport that is losing spectators and players every year, the last thing they should want is to turn-off any potential fans. Obviously, it’s not the kids fault – he’s just a damn good player. But if the PGA found the way to promote this properly, such as to use his age as motivation for the next generation of golfers, they could have a potential game-changer on their hands.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Admitting When You’re Wrong

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They say it takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong. Well, I’m about to admit it twice, so I wonder if that makes me a giant? Hardly. But I’m the type of guy who has to get things off his chest. That being said, the following two instances are ones I will readily admit…I was wrong.

Ignorance is Bliss
My first dose humble pie stems from a mere two months ago. The post was entitled “10 Golf Etiquette Rules Most Jackasses Ignore” and number 4 on that list was the following:

Excessive Use of Your GPS
Some people question if high-handicappers should own a GPS in the first place, but I’m not one of them – Even golfers who are trying to break 100 are going to benefit from knowing the exact yardage to the pin. But there comes a time when enough is enough: You don’t need your GPS device on the tee-box of a par 5. And if your standing next to the 150-yard marker, you don’t need to check if the course’s measurements are accurate. If you’re truly unsure what your distance is on your approach, by all means break-out the GPS. But using it just for the fun of it on every shot is no fun for the rest of your group (or the group behind you for that matter).

When I wrote that, I whole-heartedly believed every word. The only problem? I don’t and never have owned a GPS device. It was quickly pointed out to me that you can and should use your GPS on the tee of a par 5 since it can tell you how long you have to a hazard or bend in the fairway. I was also reminded of the fact that some courses’ (especially muni’s) yardage tends to be off – in which case using your GPS would come in handy.

In this case, I probably shouldn’t have written about something that I never actually used myself – and as a result, I was called-out on it. But, on the other hand, I believe it still belongs on my list (albeit rephrased) – people can and do over-use GPS devices and that contributes to slow play.

Time to Eat Some Crow
Last September, I penned a post entitled “Indoor Putting; Who Gives a Sh*t?” where I went on a rather lengthy diatribe about the uselessness of putting indoors – especially how there are no breaks in your floor. I also harangued a few different indoor putting gadgets – one in particular called the Puttacup that I criticized for not being able to fit a regulation-sized hole on the device.

In an interesting coincidence (which later turned into pure irony), my brother-in-law sent me a 9-foot indoor putting mat for Christmas. Not wanting my wife to question why I wasn’t using her brother’s thoughtful gift, I set it up in my living room and began putting away. Guess what – my freaking putting has actually improved this year! Seriously, I’m dropping more putts from within 9-feet than I ever have.

To add insult to injury, the hole on the mat was cut a quarter-inch smaller to promote better accuracy – just like on the Puttacup. I’ll be damned! Practicing putts indoors has definitely improved the consistency of my putting stroke and that has translated to more putts dropping out on the course. One crow, devoured.

We realize we here at the Golf Stinks blog are pretty opinionated. While we always try to back our statements up with facts, sometimes we say things that end up being just plain wrong. Please do not hesitate to call-us-out on something you feel we have said in error. Leave a comment, or email us at info@golfstinks.com – as you can see from this post, we’ll (eventually) get around to correcting ourselves.

Why I Suck at Fantasy Golf

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I’ve played fantasy football since 1998 and I’m not too bad at it. I usually make the playoffs and the year our prize money was at its largest, I won the entire league. Needless to say, my overall winnings outweigh my overall entrance fees.

So when a golf buddy asked me to join his fantasy golf league this year, I figured why not? Anyway, there were a few advantages to his league – First; there were only 5 people in it (better odds for me to win). Second; I knew two or three of the people had never played fantasy golf before (same boat as me). And third; it was free – so what did I have to lose?

Despite never playing fantasy golf before, I figured how hard can it be? You just pick the top-ranked players every week and hope the odds pan-out. Au contraire. Turns out fantasy golf is a whole lot harder than it looks.

First of all, you can’t just pick the same players every week, because in my league (Yahoo!) you can only use a player 9 times. So now I have to mix and match. The only problem with that is I have no idea who many of these players are! Stinky Golfer Chris has posted about this issue and he’s right – if the media wasn’t so hung up on Tiger, I may be a better fantasy golfer!

Anyway, not knowing many of the tour players, I’ve relied on the “expert” picks. And when you start reading-up on fantasy golf from the experts, you realize these guys are choosing players each week for a multitude of reasons. For example, they won’t start a player who is hot because he historically doesn’t play well at a particular course. Or even in particular weather!

Now I’m sunk. Not only do I not know many PGA Tour players, but I don’t really follow the PGA Tour to begin with! How am I supposed to know how a particular player has done at a specific course? That’s just too much research for me.

Oh and I’m having a hard time remembering to change-out my players too. In the NFL, players tend to play every week (unless they’re injured or on bye). So if you forget to change your lineup, chances are your team will still be intact enough to give you a shot at winning anyway. But not in golf. Not every player plays every stop on tour, so if you forget to check, you can (like me this week) have no golfers from the previous week playing in the tournament this week! That translates to a big fat goose egg for my weekly score.

But there’s more. In football, there’s only one game a week. In golf, the tournament lasts four days. So there’s an opportunity to switch starters with bench players after the first, second and third rounds. The problem is, I can never remember to do it! I’d set my lineup on Wednesday and check how I did on Monday…only to learn two of my four starters missed the cut on Friday! That led me to set a reminder on my phone for Friday night at 10 PM to make sure my starters actually make the cut for the weekend!

It doesn’t matter – I have no business playing fantasy golf. Of the five that started-out in our league, only three have kept it up (myself included). And of those three, I’m last. It’s pathetic. I play golf, I write about golf, I love golf. But I suck at fantasy golf. But, I signed up and I will compete till the end of the season.

Speaking of that, the summer session is about to begin – another 13 weeks of me stinking-up the fantasy golf links. Joy.

POLL: Are Deal Sites Killing Golf Businesses?

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As websites like Groupon and Living Social become more and more in vogue, these so-called “deal” sites (where visitors are presented with daily deals and coupons for products and services in their local area) are starting to make money… and lots of it.

And, it didn’t take long for entrepreneurial-types to bring the deals to the golf industry. In fact, just two months ago, we here at the Golf Stinks blog told you about one such website that we rather liked.

But a recent email exchange* between a new golf deal site (that shall remain nameless) and a few folks on this company’s spamming mailing list became rather heated. The email, which was announcing the launch of the new golf deal site, elicited the following response from one recipient:

“I personally believe discount sites like yours are the kiss of death for businesses, especially for golf as a business already experiencing many challenges. Training consumers that paying retail prices is unnecessary is going to crush most businesses and eventually will cause a complete degradation of service as companies struggle to deliver a discounted product. While consumers must like the deep discounts, they will ultimately lose as the quality of their golf experiences is worsened.”

The previous response was followed by another:

“Could not have said it better myself. For those of you considering using these sorts of services, please be aware that listing your product at cut rates to get traffic is not “advertising” (something many discount providers will try to convince you it is). This is training your consumers that your services are not worthwhile and rewarding them for the least desired behavior. I know of two golf courses who have run promotions and both have been unhappy with the resulting discounted consumer they attracted. They are not getting these discounted consumers back at the full rate and are finding themselves fielding frustrated phone calls from consumers that had the integrity to pay full rate at their facility and are now being punished for it.”

And another…

“It is important not to allow these types of programs to exist that basically whore ones services and products to new lows. The golf industry does not need this.”

But that was followed by someone taking the deal site’s side:

“I see a guy just trying to make a buck in a tough economy.”

And finally, by another golf deal site trying to explain to the group that not all deal sites are bad for business:

“We tried this many times and also found it only attracts the client who is looking for a deal and not one really interested in good value. As soon as the deal ends, the client moves on. In the meantime, the regular clients get annoyed that they are being penalized for paying normal prices. A better strategy I have found is to work on client retention and offer deals to existing clients who bring or introduce their friends. This benefits and rewards everyone as well as expanding the client base and winning new business by word of mouth and referrals. This year we are up around 40% and it is all through word-of-month and referrals from existing clients.”

Typically, all these emails would be rather annoying in general, but I think there is a good discussion point here: With the economy still struggling, these deal sites have a strong following. But is the practice hurting the traditional golf businesses that are also trying to survive in tough economic times? And furthermore, if deal sites are here for the long-term, will we see a negative net effect within the conventional retail golf industry?

Weigh-in by taking the poll below:

Are Deal Sites Killing Golf Businesses?


*It should be noted that Golfstinks, LLC became privy to this exchange by being one of the more than 100 recipients on the email. It should also be noted that Golfstinks, LLC did not opt-in to this company’s mailing list, nor had Golfstinks, LLC even heard of said company before receiving the email in question.

Are all Golf Courses Basically the Same?

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To all you non-golfers; It may appear on TV that all golf courses are the same. And, believe it or not, I once thought that too…at least for a period of time.

As some of you may know, I’ve played many, many different golf courses in my 20+ years on the links (including my quest to play all the public 18-holers in my state). But after you play so many, they tend to mesh together in your mind like a hodgepodge of flag sticks, sand traps, ponds and grass.

When you’re new to the game of golf, typically you frequent one course that you feel comfortable on. And that level of comfort pretty much keeps you loyal until the day a golfing buddy invites you to play somewhere else. Going to that “new” course can be exciting and it will seem like everything is different – the scenery, the layout, all of it.

And in reality, it was all different. But then you play a another course and another and before you know it, they all start to look similar. Well, after playing at all these different places, I developed a problem:

If a person mentioned a particular course to me, I would quickly tell them, “Oh, I’ve played there and it was decent.” When they’d follow-up with, “What did you like about it?” I would hesitate. I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember any details of said course! I would try to remember – I’d think of a particular par 3 with a pond and 30 par 3’s with ponds rushed into my mind.

So what did I do? Were all those courses I experienced – that I spent my hard-earned money on – lost somewhere in that vast (and mostly empty) noggin of mine? I prayed not. The solution? I began writing reviews for each course – complete with my own rating system – which seemed to jog the old memory!

Much of that system is still intact and can be found on golfstinks.com – except now I’ve gotten your input too. If you took the survey (see the results HERE), you had a say in how the rating system should work. I know there are more of you out there – golfers that love playing at different courses. Well, you’ll never have to forget the details again – just rate and post a review for any of the thousands of courses in our database.

But, shameless plug aside, I think I’ve come full-circle. When I first started golfing, every course I played was unique. Then, eventually, one track bled into another. And now, I’ve learned to take notice, appreciate and file-away the idiosyncrasies of each place I visit.

I once penned an entire post on why golf is unique compared to the other sports – and one of the biggest reasons is no two courses are exactly alike. Think about that for a second. Football fields (both American and European) conform to exact specifications; baseball diamonds and hockey rinks do too. But not golf – every single course is unique to itself.

Of course, I knew this all along. But it sure is fun remembering it all over again! So don’t just play golf…experience it. Travel, discover and enjoy – even if it’s just to the course in the next county over.

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