Saturday, May 4, 2019

Amateur golf season








Golf season has started up again here. And because I have a regular view on amateur golfers I find myself idly watching them on occasion. In fact, I have become pretty familiar with their behaviors. I use them to advance my study of human nature. Golf is good for that. And I have come across one interesting quality these amateur golfers widely share that differs strikingly from professional golfers.

I mean, besides how good they are.

It is this: most amateur golfers, when they miss their putt, which they do roughly 95 percent of the time, act as if the one to seven foot putt remaining to them (if they've managed that) is somehow so easy as to be beneath their dignity. They mainly just pick the ball up and take the last shot as a gimme. The odd thing is that if it's less than a foot they usually tap it in. I read this as: if they can reliably hit the ball in they do, but if they can't, but feel like they should be able to, they pretend that they are that good, too good to be tested, functionally as good as the professional golfers, who, curiously enough, almost always can make those short putts, but nevertheless go to the trouble of playing by the rules and doing so.

On the plus side I feel that assuming the short putt shaves five to ten strokes off of all these amateur golfer's scores.

On the minus side I feel it contributes to making all these amateur golfers remain surprisingly bad at putting.

Also, it's cheating.

I'm watching.


 











No comments:

Post a Comment

If you were wondering, yes, you should comment. Not only does it remind me that I must write in intelligible English because someone is actually reading what I write, but it is also a pleasure for me since I am interested in anything you have to say.

I respond to pretty much every comment. It's like a free personalized blog post!

One last detail: If you are commenting on a post more than two weeks old I have to go in and approve it. It's sort of a spam protection device. Also, rarely, a comment will go to spam on its own. Give either of those a day or two and your comment will show up on the blog.