Best player you’ve played with

[Highfade]

Don’t need to name names (unless you want to).
Was it a pro, club champ, friend, random.

What was their handicap?
And what made them the best you’ve played with?
How did they stand out from other players?

And what positives did you take away from the experience that you’ve tried to implement into your own game?
Did it improve you?

For me, I occasionally play with a +3 who is on the club team.
Very humble guy, no airs or graces, old clubs, old gear.
Nothing flash about his game either. Just so consistent.

No point trying to emulate technique as different shapes and sizes but his game management is what I have tried to copy and think way round course a bit more thanks to watching him play, as opposed to getting a number and making a swing.

 

[Imurg]

David Howell.....
15 odd years ago I won a Golf Monthly comp to partner Howeller, the Honourable ex-editor Mike and a Director of Nevada Bob's in a 5 hole scramble at Bearwood Lakes.
At least 1 drive each and I got mine away on our 1st (the 10th).
Howeller was a fantastic host, giving a few tips and belting out the banter all the way round...even had to borrow a ball as he only seemed to have 1 in his bag and it cracked.
He'd manipulated which drives we took to make sure Mike had the last one...a par 3 over water.
Fortunately remade it over , I chipped to a foot when everyone else, Howeller included, had found the lake.
Tapped in for the Par that won us the day.
Takeaway?
Have fun on the course.....

 

[rulie]

Moe Norman, in a pro-Am at my home club. Loads of fun and stories.

 

[srixon 1]

Andrew Sherborne in a pro-am in the late 90’s. His short game was something else.

 

[Orikoru]

I played with a +1.5 guy who used to be a member at my course. Most striking was how he played the course a completely different way to me. All the holes where I was hitting driver, he was just hitting a long iron off the tee. Then on a couple of short-ish holes where I was hitting a wood for position, he had driver out trying to smash it onto the green! Different game. Distance is such a huge factor in getting to that level.

 

[Slab]

Technically i didn't play 'with him' but caddied for Nicolas Colsaerts

Unbelievable strike with irons

Not a sound I've ever heard with normal golfers

 

[Voyager EMH]

The eleven times County Amateur Champion who beat me 7&6 in scratch matchplay first team match at my own course.
His first County Championship win was 1990 and his 11th title was 2014. Four in a row from 2011 to 2014 and 3 of them were play-offs.
He played at same club as Doublebogey7 who will know him better than I do and can attest to his outstanding ability.

 

[jim8flog]

I have played with a few regional pros in pro ams none of them particularly stood out but their strengths were obvious - some really good drivers of the ball, some with really good short game and some really good putters.

Within the club I played with the lowest handicap golfer and regular club champion a few times and I was always impressed by his good all round game, probably in his 60s now and still has a + handicap.

 

[Backache]

I played in NZ many years ago and a chap asked if he could join us who was rather good, turned out he was a touring pro but I've forgotten his name.
Also played a handicap four-ball where one of our opposition was plus quite a bit and had been low round at the British Amateur.

But I don't play semi regularly with anyone better than low single figures. Brother in law is about 3-4 and was scratch when younger.

 

[rulefan]

Matt Fitzpatrick. In a county event just before he turned pro and won the US Open.

 

[Arthur Wedge]

Ian Poulter

 

[fenwayrich]

Bernhard Langer.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Played with a former tour pro a couple of years ago. Packed in due to injury and because of injuries he'd fallen out of love with the game. Our round was part of some tentative steps back, 30yrs after being a pro.

The stand out was his control of the ball. He didn't try to smash it, he stroked it around the course. Almost placing it where he wanted to. Lovely to watch. Don't try to over hit the ball was the obvious lesson.

 

[Hobbit]

Our local scratch league had each club pro playing number 1 for their club. We had most of one season without a pro. I went out first as the sacrificial lamb. I comfortably won more than I lost but one of the matches I lost was against a pro that had consistently won everything in the NW region, and was a multiple winner of the inter-club matchplay. It was an away match, and it was raining. We were first back in the clubhouse by some margin. He handed me my a$$ 7&6.

I played well, and was probably at the top of my game around that time. I’d comfortably turned over an attached pro the week before. I threw everything at him. I didn’t win a single hole - not even close. He was on another level. To make it worse, he was a genuinely nice guy, great company and a joy to watch.

 

[Mel Smooth]

Matt Fitzpatrick. In a county event just before he turned pro and won the US Open.

Lad in the builders merchants I use played with him as a junior for Yorkshire. Now he's humping bricks and timber onto builders vans for a living.


I only walked round with youth but when the pro at La Finca took him out for 9 holes to assess his game, he basically played flawless golf - every shot went with a few yards of where he wanted it.

 

[ExRabbit]

A club pro who had previously been a +6 apparently - this was in a better-ball pro-am league. I was told that he had signed up as a tour pro at the same time as Westwood and Clarke, but just didn't have the mental ability to make it. I think he broke the course record the day I played with him.

P.S. I don't think it was official because of it being a better-ball. The pros always holed out for their own scratch prize.

 

[Highfade]

+6???
Feckin hell

 

[ExRabbit]

+6???
Feckin hell

Longest driver I have ever played with and the best short game I've ever seen up close.

 

[doublebogey7]

The eleven times County Amateur Champion who beat me 7&6 in scratch matchplay first team match at my own course.
His first County Championship win was 1990 and his 11th title was 2014. Four in a row from 2011 to 2014 and 3 of them were play-offs.
He played at same club as Doublebogey7 who will know him better than I do and can attest to his outstanding ability.

Ye, played with Gibbo a couple of times and witnessed him winning a few county events including those three you mentioned. He was not particularly long off the tee, though he rarely missed a fairway and his short game was better than anyone I have ever seen. Nice bloke too and always happy to offer advice to players of all abilities. Sadly left the club for a new life in the north west and rarely picks up a club today.

 

[IanM]

I've been lucky to play with a few tour pros and it is a totally different world. Especially round the green, it's astonishing how often they get it up and down, relative everyone else.

Spookily we had Eliot Baker (+6) in the game behind us yesterday. I looked back from the tee, to the previous green a few times, to see a ball knocked in close.

Got to admire folk with talent I don't have