Rant: Golf

[stlouie_lipp]

Another high handicapper.

[JackofDiamonds]

It's not aggravating if you're good. Also, hard for me to start a hockey game on Saturday morning without ice time and 12 guys, and if I can't find 18 guys, we're not having a baseball game. The course is always there for me to challenge myself.

[jim]

It's not aggravating if you're good. Also, hard for me to start a hockey game on Saturday morning without ice time and 12 guys, and if I can't find 18 guys, we're not having a baseball game. The course is always there for me to challenge myself.

I would have to be Arnold Palmer not to be frustrated.

[stlouie_lipp]

It is a good kind of frustration though when you hit a bad shot. You know you can do better, so it's motivation. No matter how well you play, you will always think you can do better. Heck, when I finally shot the round of my life, a 1 under par 71, I thought back to two bad shots that cost me a round in the 60s. It is the endless pursuit of the perfect round that keeps bringing golfers back.

[tlombard]

I got hooked playing with the right friend. These days I am only playing once or twice a year, three times at the most, and I'm no good but I still enjoy it. When I started I was 19 and just started a job where I was working second shift Tuesday through Thursday and then third shift on Friday and Saturday. My best friend was still in school so during the summer we figured we might as well find something to do in the morning or afternoon before I went to work since I wouldn't be having any fun in the evening. Somehow we decided to try golf and ended up playing nearly every week during the summer for a year or more.

The first time out I couldn't stop laughing when it took him at least six tries to get the ball off of the tee box. I ended up beating him so we had to play again since he couldn't handle that. We were so bad in the beginning that we pretty much just laughed and made fun of each other the entire time. After awhile we started actually figuring things out and hitting decent shots from time to time. I guess I've been 'playing' for about 16 years now and played enough that we have some extremely entertaining stories from the early days.

I still think the favorite is the time we played Spencer T. Olin with a couple other guys and he teed the ball up too high so the ball glanced off the top of the driver and landed on the clubhouse roof which straight across from us. The ball rolled into the gutter and we started laughing. Then a kid came out of the clubhouse because they heard the noise and asked if we knew what that was so of course the rest of us tell him that our idiot friend put a ball on the roof from the tee box. We thought that was funny enough but when the kid went and got a ladder and retrieved the ball we almost peed our pants. The kid who hit the ball could not have been more embarassed.

It is either that one or the time I found water that was behind me, across a road and not even on the course. I figured that since I never hit the ball straight I might as well line up right at a tree and the ball would go around it. Nope. Crushed it with my 3 wood square into the tree. The ball bounced right back past me, crossed the road and went into a pond that wasn't even on the course.

We were definitely idiots when we first started playing. Probably not much different now though. A couple of years ago we might have stolen a golf cart after the company tournament because we wanted to play more. We piled four guys onto one cart and decided to play a two person scramble at $1 per hole. We never made it past the fourth tee. A couple was sitting on their patio near the tee box drinking and he asked if his wife could hit a ball. The next thing you know the golf cart is in their back yard. Then two guys took it for a tour of the neighborhood. The guy left me with his wife and took the other guy back to the clubhouse... where he had a couple of beers with the guy he took back. The other two showed back up in the cart and for some reason we decided to play 2 on 2 basketball on their kid's lowered rim that we could easily dunk on. That was the first time I ever met one of my friends... and myself plus him and another one of the group who stole the cart have played together in the company tournament ever since. Saturday should be fun.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

It's not aggravating if you're good. Also, hard for me to start a hockey game on Saturday morning without ice time and 12 guys, and if I can't find 18 guys, we're not having a baseball game. The course is always there for me to challenge myself.

I would have to be Arnold Palmer not to be frustrated.

Arnold Palmer was frustrated plenty.

Tiger Woods said something along the lines of he only hits a handful of shots exactly how he wanted to in any given round. There's really no such thing as perfection in golf. From time to time there's a perfect shot, but even that does little other than set up an easier putt/approach shot.

[Jocephus]

you know we make fun of people who continually think they can sing on talent shows.

lesson: never try

[lukethedrifter]

I think I could be pretty decent. And if I didn't have to spend a dime on it, I'd give it a go.

[cardinalkarp]

It's not aggravating if you're good. Also, hard for me to start a hockey game on Saturday morning without ice time and 12 guys, and if I can't find 18 guys, we're not having a baseball game. The course is always there for me to challenge myself.

Oh like hell it's not aggravating if you're good! I'm a decent golfer (mid to low 80's on average & high 70's on a really good day) & I'm not sure I've ever made it through a round not being frustrated at least a 1/2 dozen times. Golf is one those games that even when you're playing well there's still a lot of strokes you wish you could have had back.

[jim]

Yeah I don't think it's possible for me not to be frustrated. I don't get frustrated fishing, if I spook them I spook them. I don't keep score there, and that suits me better.

I have a temper with games that you keep score with. I'll bet I dumped more chess boards/monopoly boards/risk boards/scrabble boards/checker boards mid-game than everyone on this board combined. Especially chess - if I did something stupid that cost me the game with my brother that board was getting flipped and pieces were going flying. My brother was older and would laugh and me and make fun of me, and that just infuriated me, so punches were liable to be thrown too.