golfrewind.com

I have a good friend who lives in another city than I do and we share golf stories throughout the year reporting scores, encouraging each other and talking smack in anticipation of the 2-3 golf trips we do together each year. Heres the funny thing. My friend reports sub 85 scores all the time throughout the year, yet we we get together and play I've never seen him break 80 and on occasion I've seen him not break 100. His swing is erratic and while he can hit the ball the results are certainly not consistent. In my years of playing golf I've come to the conclusion that in order to be able to shoot sub 85 scores more than once or twice a year you have to have a repeatable swing and some consistency.

His handicap according to the scores he reports is 14. Not ALL his scores that he reports are great, but many of them are. I just don't understand how he plays so well all year long and then cant score when we are together. This has been going on for almost 10 years now.

I guess my question is . . . Do some people cheat subconsciously?? I know its still cheating, but do people feel like if they can justify something that its not really cheating? Maybe taking mulligans on the tee, do overs on the green and gimmes well outside the leather?

"Oh that plane flew overhead and distracted me, I'm not going to count that tee shot."

"That car zoomed by, bird squawked, squirrel jumped and broke my concentration on that putt, I'm going to putt it again."

"I dont need to putt this 6 footer. Its uphill with no break. I'll make it"

Or maybe he is just a cheater all year long but knows that he cant get away with it when he plays with me.

Or maybe when there is no money or prize on the line he is more lax with 5 ft gimmes, etc., treating it as a "practice round".

The only offense I've ever witnessed in the years of playing with this guy was he hit the ball OB and dropped at the margin of the OB and took a stroke. It was on his 2nd shot of a par 5. I pointed out that it was stroke & distance and that he needed to go back to the point the ball was last struck. I think it was an honest mistake and he thought that stroke & distance was only off the tee box.

At any rate, I just got a report this morning of 83 and 91 from the weekend. The 91 is totally feasible, but the 83 just doesnt seem possible based on what I've seen over the last 10 years.

Does anyone know a person like this or have the same type of situation where their friend looks a lot better on paper than they are in the flesh? How can someone play so well whenever they are not with you and then play mediocre to poor when they are with you?

O ya ... I got a guy that I play with every once in awhile. He likes to talk a bigger game then what he has but he is good guy.

Anyway , he butchers a couple of holes each round , never really finishes and takes his ' double'. Meanwhile I grind my tail off , take the proper drop or retee if needed and it seems we always shoot the same 76.

Not that big a deal since nothing is on the line , but a little annoying too

Anyone that now tells me they shoot in the 80s or lower I take with a grain of salt. In other words, I'll beleive it when I see it, until then it's **.

To further on this scoring thing - I normally shoot in the 90s. This weekend I went out there and played a round keeping precise score, no liberties with rules, and taking full penalties. I shot a 103. And that was with some pretty darn good shots fairly consistently too. The problem was a few bad holes. When following rules precisely it doesn't take much to really run the scores up.

So I would tend to think most in that mysterious low-mid handicapper area are there because of stretching things, and a few liberties along the way.

Ha ha this is a great thread.

I have a friend who I play with a couple of times a month. He liked to talk about how great of a golfer he is and how he thinks he could eventually make the senior tour. He tells me (and its is posted as ) that his handicap is a 4. He makes great shots but he is NOT a great golfer. He is a driving range golfer. I have never seen him put together a decent round. Great shots yes but score - no.

Now I am a 5 - a real 5. I count every stroke and never take a mulligan. I believe that the rules are essential to the game and to play the ball as it lies. If I go in the water - I drop where I am supposed to. If I hit a bad tee shot I play it from where it lands. I play by the rules. But this guy hasn't a clue what the rules are and counts whatever strokes he feels he "should have" shot.

He cheats!

I find it so funny - He will shoot a 5 on a par 3 but post a 3. And at the end of the round he tally's his "imagined" score and posts it! Its actually rather ridiculous considering the point of a handicap. Why cheap the opposite of where it will benefit you?

Anyhow - there are tons of Golfers who don't play by the rules and score what they see fit. For me its a reflection of ones integrity. You can tell a lot about a person just based on the way they conduct themselves on the course.

I suspect your friend has what I call an ego-cap instead of a handicap. We had a member at our club a couple years back that insisted he was a 9. Funny thing no one ever wanted to be his partner in a Nassau or 4-ball. At times it was almost sad, then he would hit his shot of the week, strut down the fairway and we'd forget soon how sad and simply win the next three holes. At any rate these guys have been around as long as golf.

I count every bloody stroke...much to my chagrin.

I remember a few weeks ago I was having a terrible hole...though on the plus side I did get to see the whole thing (left, right, the streams and ponds, the flora and fauna, etc). I was lying seven and still off the green. I challenged myself to get up and down for a nine (I didn't want to see a double digit for a score...though for handicap purposes the highest score I could take was a seven...it was a par five). I got my nine and was very pleased.

I don't claim to hit the ball off the tee 280 yards (I would settle for 240); the highest lofted iron I have in my bag is a 6-iron. The rest are hybrids and woods. I sometimes play a lady's ball. The only thing I can claim is I rarely three-putt, and average 30 putts a round. That's not very sexy in this age of Bomb and Gouge, but that's my game, warts and all.

Why can't handicapped golfers take over a certain score on a hole? Is that why some people shoot lower scores than you would think? Can you take an 8 on a par 4, a 7 on a par 3 etc.
By the way I don't believe half the handicaps posted on this board I have played too many people that talk a good game and always claim they shoot much better in their clubs or tournaments. A lousy swing is a lousy swing . I don't think they magically transform into to someone else when they are not playing with me. And as bad as I am right now trying to get in a groove after a 5 year layoff I see alot of awful swings at the driving range I know they can't break 150.

It depends on your handicap.

Q. What is ESC?
A. All scores for handicap purposes, including tournament scores, are subject to the application of Equitable Stroke Control (ESC). This mandatory procedure reduces high hole scores for handicap purposes in order to make handicaps more representative of a player's potential ability. A handicap determined from scores to which ESC has not been applied may not be termed a Handicap Index.

Course Handicap/Maximum Number of strokes
9 or less/double bogey
10-19/7
20-29/8
30-39/9
40 and above/10

Please visit Section 4-3 of the USGA Handicap System manual for further reference.

Hey BOBX460

It is called Equitable Stroke Control . You can shoot as high as humanly possible you just don't post anything higher than your handicap index permits.

It is a way to balance out the averages of a handicap. There are multiple factors involved in calculating a handicap. The number of scores used, the Slope rating, etc.

my handicap is a real 14 because in order to be in varsity at my high school you have to shoot 88 or better and i shoot normally a little below that, we had one guy who claimed to be an excellent golfer (he smudged scores and took a bunch of redos) but when he got his chance to play varsity, he screwed up big time. He got what he deserved lol.

I have never established a handicap and looking thru the maunal it looks pretty confusing but I will look up the numbers and rating from the course I play and try to come up with some numbers. All I have ever done is actual strokes. So when I see peoples scores recorded here are they actual scores or adjusted scores?

On the rare occasion I actually think to post my scores, you get the real deal. No gimmes, no mulligans, and no adjustment for handicap.

I'm about an 8. I ended the year at a 9.5, and figure I'm a bit better. My scoring average last year was around 84, and this year it's currently 82.66. Only have 3 18 hole outings, though, so I don't have anything official. First three scores are 85,82,81, so I'm going to need something in the 70's the next two rounds to satisfy me.

I don't believe there is a definite connection between one's "scoring" proclivities and their worth as a person. I worked with a guy for twenty years and he is as creative a scorer as I've ever known. But he has immense redeeming qualities. He applied CPR to a co-worker once and probably saved his life, he lent a person of shaky status 2 g to save his house (Several of us refused the guy.). The guy eventually repaid with interest! There's more too. So when we finish a round and he announces he shot 82 or 83 we deal with good naturedly. Illbred Hybrid

i know a guy like that....he works for my step-father's business in another city, but he comes over and plays in scrambles w/ us 2-3 times a year.......funny guy, and a blast to be around.....but when it comes to golf, let's just say his bark is a LOT worse than his bite........he's all of 5 foot 3, and is consumed by "little man's syndrome".....he'll tell you about the 75 he shot last round, and how many drives over 300 yards he hit.......but in the 5 years or so that i've played with him, i've seen him top waaaayyy more drives to about 50 yds than i've seen him hit good shots.....and he has hit a couple of good shots, but they were more like 240-250, nowhere near 300.....i mean seriously, this guy, if you actually counted his strokes in a round, wouldn't even smell 100.......there is NO WAY he could shoot 75..........but like i said, he's fun to be around, so we keep calling him, even if he does kill our chance of placing.