GolfStinks

A Golf Blog for the Rest of Us!

A Quick Round of Golf – The Ultimate Oxymoron

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When you ask golfers what is their biggest pet peeve about the game, there’s a good chance the most common response is going to be the pace of play.  It seems everyone is in a hurry to get their round over with, like they don’t have the time to be playing the game right from the start.  What’s that all about?  If you don’t have the time to play the game, maybe you should consider something else…or playing only nine holes instead.

Don’t get me wrong, I get frustrated when a group in front of mine is intentionally slow and has no golf etiquette whatsoever.  But it’s certainly not enough to ruin my day.  After all, I’m exactly where I want to be…on a golf course.  I’m doing what I want to do…playing golf.  I’ve waited through a long week at work to have the chance to be out here on a Saturday or Sunday morning.  I’m in no hurry to leave.  But I must be in the minority.

Think about how long it takes to play a round of golf.  We’re looking at 4 1/2 hours, give or take, right off the bat.  Compare that to some of the other sports you watch on TV.  That’s almost two full basketball games and easily a game-and-a-half of football or baseball…including commercials!  So we’re talking about a slow moving, time consuming game to begin with.  Knowing that going in…what gives you the right to complain?  It seems like you should have planned your time better.  Then consider that the skill level of most golfers out on the public links is…well…sub-par.  So naturally, that’s going to slow the game down even further for everyone.

Being that I am one of those sub-par golfers, I do want to say that while my lazy approach to the game does slow my round down, I do certainly know the difference between poor play and slow play.  If I’m moving too slowly, I’m more than happy to let the group behind me play through.  As I said, I’m in no hurry.  But sadly, in this rush-rush society in which we live, few people take the time to slow down and enjoy the good things for a while.  There’s always some place else they have to be.  Always time constraints.  Never enough time to dedicate to something they enjoy.  And they get stressed out over an additional 20-30 minutes for their round.  They’re taking part of the enjoyment out of the game.

Not me.  See, I don’t get to play golf as often as I would like.  So when I have the chance, I do the best I can to dedicate that time to golf and the activities surrounding a day of golf.  I’m not trying to get out there and rush through my round so I can jump back in my car and hurry off somewhere else.  Instead, I want to enjoy my time outdoors, relax, sit down after the round with a beer and burger and just enjoy hanging out with my friends.  I think too many people take the time for granted and just try to squeeze too much onto their plates.  Consequently, they get stressed out during their round because someone else is not moving as quickly as they would like them to move.  These are the same people that leave their house in order to be somewhere at a certain time and don’t account for traffic and red lights.

Why not try this – The next time you plan to go out and play 18, don’t make any other plans for that day.  Go into the round relaxed, knowing you don’t have anything else to do and nowhere else to be.  Your only post-round commitment is to hit the 19th hole for a bite to eat and a couple of brews with your pals.  See how much more enjoyable your round is.  See how much less stressful the game becomes.  See how much more fun and relaxing the entire day will be.  Trust me, just give yourself less to do and you’ll thank yourself at the end of the day.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Chip Shots: Golf Courses In The Winter

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If you grew up in the Northeast and didn’t have the luxury of golfing much in the winter, there was another purpose for our golf courses. Sledding! As a kid, I remember putting together a pro and con list for winter snow storms that looked like this:



As you can clearly see the pros out weigh the cons and sledding ranks highly on the list. As a matter of fact, it ranks #2 just behind no school. Happy sledding!

Hit’em long…yell FORE!!!

My Golf Routine…Or Lack Thereof

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Despite what people may think, I do have a routine when it comes to golf.  As a matter of fact, I’ll share it with you just to prove it – I oversleep, waste too much time and then show up to the course with barely a moment to spare. 

OK, so that’s not much of a routine.  Plus, I’m exaggerating also, but this does happen quite often, just ask the rest of the stinky golfers.  It’s very rare that I give myself enough time to do anything other than get to the course.  Is that a problem?  Do I need to develop some type of routine?  Is that what golfers do?  

I have a regular workday routine.  I have a specific order in which I do things every morning, or even the night before for that matter.  But when it comes to golf, I got nothin’.  Many times, as mentioned earlier, I show up last minute.  But there has been occasions, though few and far between, where I have done otherwise.  Sometimes I’ve shown up early enough to have breakfast at the course rather than scarfing something down on the way out the door or in the car.  There’s been times where I’ve arrived at the course early enough to hit a few balls at the range or play around on the putting green.  Every once in a while, I may have a beer or two before a round. 

What I wonder is, would doing any of these things routinely make me a better player just through some type of consistency?  If I wasn’t always rushing to get to the course, would that help simply by causing less stress?  If I took the time to sit down and eat a good breakfast before each round, would that improve my energy?  If I had a beer or two each time, would that help me relax? 

I suppose having a routine in anything you do can be helpful.  But I’ve just never really considered doing something routinely for golf.  But maybe a routine might be worth looking into.  Maybe I should start hitting the range before each round.  Maybe a good breakfast each time.  Or…maybe I’ll just keep showing up last minute.

Swing ’til you’re happy!        

Going To Work vs. Playing Golf

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So I have this dilemma and I’m not sure what to do.  It sounds simple enough – play golf vs. go to work.  But it’s never really that simple is it?

See, at work we’re experiencing a “busy time” like nothing we have ever seen.  While that’s great for the company as a whole, as well as for me and my paycheck, at the same time it’s terrible for playing hooky. 

If I’m not at work during this busy time, then I have to rely on other people to handle things in my absence.  And too many times that leads to things simply not being done right, or being done half-assed.  But at the same time, why should I care about that?  If things fall apart that much when I’m not there, then they’re obviously not paying me enough.  But I do care, and that’s part of the problem. 

So what I’ll have to do is weigh the options.  What are the advantages of going to work vs. taking the day off to play golf.  Let’s see:

If I go to work I don’t have to worry about anything being done wrong.  I don’t have to worry about cleaning up anyone else’s mess.  I don’t have to worry about the work being done half-assed.  And most importantly, I won’t have to fix all of these things while still having my own job to do. 

Now, if I play golf, I get to enjoy a day out on the links which I would normally spend at work where I’ve been under a good amount of stress lately.  Of course, I no doubt will return to work to find a disaster making me question whether or not taking the time off was worth it.  Further, I could avoid all of this by simply golfing on the weekend instead of during the week.

Well, I think with these points in mind it’s pretty self-explanatory.  It just doesn’t make sense for me to take a day off from work to play golf.  And with that being said, I will be sure to set my out-of-office reply. 

See, golf always out-weighs work.  I have time off to use, I should use it to do something I enjoy, and that would be golf.  So is it worth a potential hard day at the office in exchange for a day of golf when I would normally be at work?  Silly question.

Swing ’til you’re happy!               

Getting Together To Watch Some Golf

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So regular season football has been on for two weeks now, and for two weeks I’ve had a few buddies come over to watch the games with me.  Our faces are being stuffed with pizza, wings and chips.  Beers are being guzzled.  Ooh’s and aah’s spread throughout the room after big hits and great catches.  Football season is in full swing and I love it.

It’s all of this that makes me realize what that one thing is that’s missing from golf that keeps me from having the guys over to watch a round – everything. 

A long time ago I wondered the reason my buddies and I get together to watch football, along with the occasional baseball and basketball games, but we never do for golf, even though we all enjoy and play the game.  But I’m thinking that sometime in the next few months, I may try to have a golf get together.  But a few dilemmas exist.

1. It’s going to be limited to only certain months of the year.  Think about it, if the weather is nice enough, we’re going to be playing golf, not watching it.  It’s the same reason that, despite there being a PGA Tour stop only fifteen minutes from my house, I’ve only attended it three times.  If the weather is nice enough to wander around a golf course, then I’m going to wander a golf course with my clubs in tow. 

2. As mentioned before in the linked post above…it’s boring.  Let’s face it, watching golf on TV is just not very exciting.  “Hey guys, want to come by my place Sunday and watch the sun move across the sky?”  Yeah, that’ll be a blast.  “Hey man, I just painted my garage.  Why don’t you head on over and we can watch it dry together?”  If I was to actually ask either of these questions to my buddies, do you know what the response would be?  “Thanks but no thanks dude…I’d rather watch a golf tournament.”

3. How do you plan ahead for it?  Do you just pick a time and say come over then?  What if it’s the final round and you’re only interested in one particular golfer?  How much of that golfer do you really get to see?  Let’s go to 13.  Now back to 7.  We’re going to head over to 17 now.  We end up watching a bunch of practice swings before we see eleven seconds of real action…if you can really call it that.

You know, this idea is actually beginning to start sounding bad.  I don’t want to have the guys come over and be bored.  None of us want to sit and watch golf when we could be playing instead.  And honestly, it just seems hard to plan for.  So if I’m going to do it, it looks like it’s going to have to be a final round, which means a Sunday.  It’s going to have to be in the cold weather, or else we’ll be playing.  So that leaves a Sunday in the winter. And that, my friends, is football time.  So it looks like my idea is going to have to be put on the shelf.  Oh well, maybe one of our rounds will be rained out.   Then there may be some time to watch golf.

Swing ’til you’re happy!              

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