The holidays have come and gone, we here in Colorado are in the midst of a "typical" Western Prairie Winter. Intermittent snow, cold nights and sunny, cool days. A lot of my buddies have been playing golf the last week or so, but it's still too wintry for me. I do have to go over to Sunset Golf Course late this afternoon to clean and park all the golf carts, pick up the flags and lock the gates. Once a week through the winter (when the course is open) and twice a week during the season. Those volunteer hours beget free golf for me year-round at the three Longmont courses. It's amazing that, even with over a hundred-twenty rounds of golf and over a hundred scores posted to my GHIN (golf handicap and index network), that my handicap index remains about what it was a year ago. When I first started posting my scores and establishing my handicap about 5 years ago, I was around a 15 handicap. I joined the Sunset Golf Men's Club 3 years ago and started playing regularly in handicapped events at Sunset and Twin Peaks and Ute Creek, the other two municipal courses in town. In 2007 and 2008 I entered into the Longmont City Tournament which required one 18-hole round at each of the courses. 2007 included Fox Hill Country Club here in town, but they pulled out, so from 2008 on, the City Cup is just three rounds. I finished well back in the pack for the first two years in my flight. Golfers are grouped into handicap levels so that within each group there is a semblance of even competition. There is a Championship Flight, where all those golfers compete with zero handicap, First Flight (usually 6 handicap and lower), Second Flight (7 to 10), Third Flight (11 to 15) and Fourth Flight (16 and higher). I finished first in the third flight both 2009 and 2010, indicating that my handicap had not really lowered from one season to the next, which means that my game had not really improved markedly. Last year I hammered a total of 7 drives out of bounds in my three rounds and finished 9 strokes behind the winner, again in the third flight. So, if I had not suffered 14 penalty strokes for my wayward drives, I could have been in contention, but that's golf. With me, you never know what you're gonna get, like Forrest Gump and his chocolates.
This year, I ended the official season with a 10 handicap index. My goal is to improve to an 8 by the time the City Championship comes around in July. That will have to mean that I am improving as mid-summer arrives. Just 5 fewer putts per round and the goal is within reach. I am NOT a good putter, so that's where I have to practice and improve. I'm not much of a try-every-new-golf-club kind of a guy, can't afford it, and I should be able to play with what I've got, at least well enough to improve a few strokes. But, that's the frustrating thing about golf.........it's a game that you can never master. Virtually every shot is different, due to wind and the lie of the ball, the cut of the grass, the positioning of the trees, the location of the sand traps, the water, the slope and speed of the putting surface, and most of all, your confidence as you take that swing. Do I have the right club? Should I hit short of the green and bounce it up, or should I aim for the pin and try to stop the ball? Par 5, can I hit my driver straight enough to get in position to go for the green in two, or should I lay up with a three wood and medium iron? Should I try to get this 6-iron up over those trees and over the water, or play it safe and lay up to the right with a 9-iron and hope my 60-degree wedge can get me close enough to one-putt? Winston straights, or White Owl panatela? Dr. Pepper, or Arnie Palmer? Skittles, or Snickers? So many decisions, so many options. The best round I ever played, there were at least 5 or 6 fuck-ups. The worst round I ever played, there were a few good shots. To me, one definition of a good round, is if I finish with the same ball that I started with and all the clubs remain in one piece.
There is also the possibility of another way to succeed in golf tournaments: Handicap Manipulation. Now, some guys consider it cheating, and some just practice it as an art. The way it works, is that you do not enter all your scores into the GHIN computer after you've played, just the ones that support, or inflate your average round. That way, if you maintain a high enough handicap index, you are always (theoretically) in a position, in all the handicapped events, to be 'under par' with your actual (gross) score adjusted by your handicap index (net score). There are many ways that a person's competitive measure can be evaluated, and reporting only your worst scores (or at best, only reporting some scores) does an injustice to other golfers who report everything. This practice of under-reporting is called sandbagging, and usually is frowned upon by almost all golfers that keep score, and compete for prizes and cash.
The fellows I play golf with regularly are a varied and enjoyable bunch. Friendly competition and good-natured ribbing are de rigueur. It is true that you can really find out a lot about a person's character by playing a round of golf with them. One of the most important foundations of the game of golf is integrity. Many times, a person is faced with the possible temptation to bend the rules, to kick the ball a little bit to improve its lie, to count only 5 strokes on a hole that you actually scored 6, play a ball that was just out-of-bounds before the other players could verify its position or 'find' a ball in the woods and claim it as yours when yours is totally lost. In golf, the rules call for penalty strokes to be assessed for a variety of infractions. Many times, these infractions occur out of the sight of the other competitors, so it is contingent upon the player to call the rule upon himself. Remember the scene in "Bagger Vance" where Matt Damon's character(Rannulph Junuh) calls a penalty on himself when his ball moved imperceptibly as he was removing a small bit of debris near where his ball lay. His young caddy Hardy Greaves said that "nobody saw it move". Junuh said, "I saw it, and it moved". Honesty, integrity, honor. That's what the handicap system is in place for, in my opinion. Report all your scores and let the GHIN computer calculate your true index. Play the ball as it lies, count every stroke and penalty and play your game according to your index.
Off the soap box. I look forward to the next (warm) day that I can throw my clubs in the truck, drive out to the course, lace up my Calloway spikes and tee my Titleist Pro-V1 up (on top of my barely-legal 4" tees), waggle my Taylor Made R-7 Quad a couple times, wind up and smack the ball. Cheers, and a Happy New 2012 to you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment