Playing with people better / worse than yourself

ManinBlack

ManinBlack

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As a junior, aged around 14 /15 virtually all the people I played with were off lower handicaps than my 20. One, a couple of years older, was off scratch & club champion. A number of, but not all, senior members would play with the juniors & take an interest in their development. I was always included, in spite of my high handicap & I'm sure it helped me improve. I remember one incident, playing in a fourball against an irascible senior member, when I knocked my tee shot onto a 290 yard par 4 & holed the putt for a 2, nett 1. I won't repeat what he said.

As a result of this experience I have never been unwilling to play with people worse than me. Provided they have good etiquette & don't spend an age looking for lost balls I'm happy to play with them & don't let it put me off my game. I'll give advice, but only if they want it. I'm happy to sign up for competitions with people I don't know & have made a few friendships as a result.

We all have to start somewhere & discussing this the other day, my friends & I agreed what a difficult game golf is at the beginning. New starters need all the encouragement they can get.
 
The socialness of my fellow players has always been far important to me than what another's player game is like.

However when it comes to playing in comps that is a slightly different matter. There is one player within our group that nearly all of us try to avoid having as a fellow competitor. It is not just his playing ability though, his etiquette is just as appalling he has cost me a shot on more than one occasion.
 
jim8flog said:
The socialness of my fellow players has always been far important to me than what another's player game is like.

However when it comes to playing in comps that is a slightly different matter. There is one player within our group that nearly all of us try to avoid having as a fellow competitor. It is not just his playing ability though, his etiquette is just as appalling he has cost me a shot on more than one occasion.
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sounds like one of my PPs. Lovely bloke, but in a world of his own sometimes. I've lost count of the number of times he has played a shot when another one of our group is stood 20 yards behind him, waiting to play. He is also terrible on the green, if he misses a putt, he will carry on putting until it's in the hole, even if it takes him 4 putts to do that! I have tried on a couple of occasions to tell him what he has done wrong, but it's in one ear and out the other. Fortunately I've never had to play with or against him in a comp.
 
rudebhoy said:
sounds like one of my PPs. Lovely bloke, but in a world of his own sometimes. I've lost count of the number of times he has played a shot when another one of our group is stood 20 yards behind him, waiting to play. He is also terrible on the green, if he misses a putt, he will carry on putting until it's in the hole, even if it takes him 4 putts to do that! I have tried on a couple of occasions to tell him what he has done wrong, but it's in one ear and out the other. Fortunately I've never had to play with or against him in a comp.
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e g. This guy drives a buggy and will drive past behind you when you are on your back swing.
 
Orikoru said:
How good someone is at golf is not really a relevant factor to whether I want to play a round with them. The only thing that really matters is do I want to spend 3 or 4 hours in their company.
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This every time.

Playing golf is like driving a car, we were all learners at some point. Consideration is required by all.

In terms of playing with better golfers I always enjoy that. I played with a 4h/c at the weekend and it was an absolute pleasure to watch him hit his shots. I suspect I enjoyed watching his 250yd + drives with a gentle draw more than he did hitting them. After all, he sees it every round, it was a novelty for me :LOL:
 
Our weekend roll up groups (back before Covid) ranged from low single figures up to a 29 handicapper. Balls in the bag and randomly drawn and no-one had ann issues playing with anyone regardless of their standard. Even now when I am playing with more and more people I've not done so before as a result of tee bookings I am not bothered what their standard is as long as the pace of play is good and we're keeping our place and that you can have a decent conversation between shots.

In competitive golf, as long as someone has a basic understanding of the rules and gets a provisional in play at the first sign of a problem and then adheres to the three minutes and we move on again not a problem. Fortunately we only have one youngster (15-16) a lot of us won't play with. He's totally wrapped up in his own game, it's all about him and no conversation. He'll stand by his ball and watch you search for yours or another PP's and if he plays badly will go into meltdown and throw clubs and have a strop. There are perhaps half a dozen that have experienced this now and told the office not to put us with him again. Aside from that crack on, especially with the really good players and I enjoy watching them put medal rounds together especially when they aren't quite on it
 
My son is much better than me now and wife is worse than me and my mum is a lot worse than me, none I want to spend time with but get forced to play golf with them ;):LOL:

Some of the most memorable games of golf I have had are with people who have just taken up the game, cant help but laugh all the way round.

Standard of play is not relevant to being a playing partner.
 
I like playing with anyone really. Most are better than me but I have a few pals that I play with that I’ve gotten much better than since we started playing together, owing to the fact I play more golf now than them.

I am sure the time will come when someone new is next to me in a medal, and I’ll try to be as helpful as I can in making it a positive experience for them, as that’s what happened for me.
 
I dont mind who I play with, the other day I played with Papas, BlueinMunich and Traminator and let's face it, does it get worse than that ??
 
Maninblack4612 said:
I have never been unwilling to play with people worse than me. Provided they have good etiquette & don't spend an age looking for lost balls I'm happy to play with them & don't let it put me off my game. I'll give advice, but only if they want it. I'm happy to sign up for competitions with people I don't know & have made a few friendships as a result.

We all have to start somewhere & discussing this the other day, my friends & I agreed what a difficult game golf is at the beginning. New starters need all the encouragement they can get.
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Great post and I totally agree with this.

I played with a 23 handicapper in the weekend competition who finished with 16 points. He lost 7 balls, and would have lost a lot more but I kept finding his ball for him (I guess he was also a high handicapper at ball searching). We never spent more than 3 minutes looking for a ball, but when you have to do this on nearly every hole it adds up. All that searching totally disrupted the rhythm of my round, I was also really conscious that we had lost position on the course and was always anxiously looking back to see if the group behind were waiting on us. All in all, it burst my little bubble of concentration and I stopped trying over the last 4 holes.

Now I was very happy that he added himself to my booking, I was patient and helpful - found his ball for him on numerous occasions - and he was a nice guy and we had a good chat during the round about football, family etc. But it affected my golf! And added a good 40 minutes to the round. Do I want to play in a comp with him again?
 
Maninblack4612 said:
... my friends & I agreed what a difficult game golf is at the beginning.
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I envy you and your friends. I'm nearly 20 years at it and it's still a difficult game.

Re. your question, I'm happy to play with pretty much anyone. But I'm fairly certain that when I play with better players, my game improves a bit.
I reckon it's probably something to do with not wanting to look like a prat and so concentrating a bit better.
 
My preference in most one on one sports is to play someone slightly better than me, as it stirs my competitive spirit and is also someone you may learn more from.

BUT in golf, give me someone who is good company over the above any day, especially if its over 3-4 hours, high or low, just not slow.
 
Kaz said:
I’ve heard it said that the ideal playing partner is someone who is almost, but not quite, as good as you. ;)
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Agree I used to play squash with a guy who was just a bit better than me.
It’s a challenge to beat them.
I will play golf with anybody .
I will help if I can ,or learn if I can.
 
the group i play with is almost all single fig and cat1 players, but anyone is welcome to join the group. there are a couple of 12 and 15 handicaps that come sometimes. we have had guys come and not come back because they felt intimidated due to the standard, they were told not to be so silly.

i think its good to play with lower guys esp starting out, great to watch how they get around the course and score, deff helped me get down lower
 
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