How good do you REALLY want to be?

[billyg]

If I could play off 18 , the sun shined on every tee and I could take that to more or less any course I wanted to play in the world I would feel that a good use of my Saturday afternoons for the next twenty years.

Let's be honest , that's only one stroke per hole behind a scratch player. Not bad for a pastime.

Beyond a certain point (i.e. the fats, thins, quitty chips and grounded putts) for me it's about exercise, good company, sunshine, savouring the surroundings and getting away from the idiot box and thinking about work for a few hours.

A solid, respectable if plodding performance that I could take from Picketts Lock to Pebble Beach is the aim.


Life's just too damn short to be worrying about about shaving 0.1 off a handicap this week or next for me. I just want to relax and have some fun.

If I got/get to the point where a missed green or two equalled some sort of existential crisis then I would/will chuck it in. When I see someone of my age have an eppie when they get something wrong I just want to LMAO.
What's the point?

I enjoy it and am lucky enough to share that enjoyment and enthusiasm with a group of friends who between us are just about stupid enough to go out and lug a bag of sticks around a field once or twice a week.

Good enough for me

billyg

 

[CrapHacker]

I want to be good enough to enjoy it every time I go out to play.

Impossible.

Not really, when I didnt have a handicap last year I enjoyed a round that now, off 14, I would be frustrated with.

Therefore I have to keep improving to keep enjoying it as I get better so there is always a drive there!

Exactly, if you played a round like that now you would be frustrated. And you will.

If you are never frustrated with your inabilities and limitations you will pretty soon get bored.

You have to have some bad rounds to truly enjoy the great ones.

Just not too many, or you end up a sick and sad member of society like Smiffy & Homer

 

[golfbluecustard]

18 - as one of you boys has said a shot a hole - am sure when i get there i'll want to be 12 but will worry about that when - not if - when i get there!

GBC

 

[SimonC]

Scratch is where I would love to be but I'd be happy at 2. I need to eliminate the doubles I make and then I should stand a fairly good chance of getting down to 2. It doesn't help that we only have one par 5 at my track which are normally my scoring holes.

 

[Billysboots]

I have to be honest here and say that, whilst I would like to get to mid single figures, I also like to play competition golf with a feeling that I am in with a sniff of getting in the prizes.

Whilst you obviously improve your chances of nicking a scratch trophy once you get low, as so many competitions are handicapped then, certainly at our place, very few board comps are won by low single figure players.

I know everyone says it's relative, but I still maintain it is a sight easier for a 20 handicap golfer to play 10 under his handicap on a "good day" than it is for a single figure player! You only have to look at the divisional results each week for the evidence.

 

[beggsy]

i was a 19 handicapper last year got to ten for the start of this year got to 10.9 (11) but i know if i can get my putting sorted and a little tighter off the tee i certainly think i could be off around 5

 

[Bratty]

Beggsy, that's a great reduction in a year! Congrats.

I want to get to 13 by September, and then down to 10 by next September.