By Alan M. Watson, President, GOLF+ PCB
I’ve often said that I don’t think I could break par on 18 holes even if you let me tee off from the Ladies’ (forward) tee box. I think I’m right. I have shot many rounds through the years in the 70s, and I’ve shot even par a handful of times. I once had my handicap index down under 4. However, the reality is that golf is hard. Very hard. And even with a huge tee box advantage, I would still have to chip, putt, and make shots. Sure, the driver would be pretty much eliminated and for some golfers, that should surely help improve their score. But there’s more to consider. These days, my skill level is what it is, and since I rarely practice and don’t play as much as I used to, my expectations have gone away too.
I’m not being self-deprecating for the fun of it. I’m just being honest. I remember one time at a Robert Trent Jones Trail course in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the starter said to my group that if we wanted to have fun, we should play from certain tee boxes based on how far we hit our driver, not necessarily our skill level. That course had many hazards, and driving distance kept some of those course issues at bay. If you didn’t listen and you tried to outsmart or outplay the course beyond your skill, you would probably lose a lot of golf balls and have a high score as well.
Most golfers can’t break 100 if they play from the appropriate tee box and play by all the legal rules of golf. That’s just a fact. Most male golfers in America only drive the ball about 225 yards. That’s also a fact. So if our skill levels are so poor on average, why are our expectations so darn high? Probably because the game seems so simple on its surface. Hit the ball as far as you can. Hit it again. Find the green. Find the hole. Putt it in. What could be simpler? Much like bowling 300 or hitting bullseyes in darts, golf puts a mental strain on us on top of the physical side of the game. We hit a bad shot and it takes us two holes to get over it, and we make more mistakes while we are still ruminating about the bad shot three holes ago. We miss a simple putt and, rather than take our time to hole out, we get frustrated, hurry and miss the comebacker as well. Oops. We have a score picked out in our mind at the beginning of the round that we are unlikely to shoot, and we hold ourselves to this high standard, or in the case of golf, a low standard, and it’s frustrating.
So, score aside, maybe there is a better way to enjoy the game. What if we had some goals or benchmarks for each round that could give us a level of satisfaction beyond just breaking 70, 80, or 90 on the scorecard? For example, you might say I want to make 6 pars today. Or you might make a goal to get out of every bunker in one shot. Another thought would be to try and not lose more than one golf ball. Whatever the case may be, having some more attainable goals might give the round meaning when chasing a score might not.
For me, I always look at driving stats. Any round where I miss no more than 2 fairways is a good one. No three putts is another thing I certainly strive for. I always try to beat my previous round score as well and use that score as a benchmark, versus using a made-up score that I just hope to shoot.
Whatever you choose to do, I hope you enjoy the game for the game itself and not just based on score. After all, we all have a certain level of skill and we need to keep our expectations somewhere close to that.
I mean, hey, it’s great to dream. But if we don’t have the time to practice, the money for lessons, or the God-given ability, then most of us will be around bogey golfers for life. And that’s okay. I hope you get better. I really do. I hope you play your best. But let’s manage our expectations and alleviate all the pressure we keep putting on ourselves and actually enjoy the round rather than worrying about what could have been.
Fairways and Greens.
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