a shadow of doubt
The subject today...charity golf outings.
I participated in one of these on Sunday. It was cold, wet, nasty, and did I mention cold? It benefitted the youngster's school though, and I volunteered to help with it, and play. I assembled 3 friends who play golf and after helping with the organization of the event, we set of to play. Now, nobody in our group will be mistaken for Tiger. First of all, only one of us was black, but he's a senior citizen. Even without the race card...none of us comes anywhere close to Tiger's "Z" game..let alone his "A" game. We're all pretty even, ability-wise, but that's OK because this event uses handicaps, which means at the end, they adjust the scores and give you a "net" score based on how good you say you are according to the handicap system. There is an assumption that you will be close to honest with your assessment. My group wasn't built to win. It was a group of guys who enjoy playing together, and would have fun.
The format was a scramble, which means everybody hits a ball. Then you pick the best of the four shots and play from there, then you pick the best of those four shots and play from there, and so on until you put the ball in the hole, and you play the whole course like that. It generally makes things go faster, since one guy out of the group usually hits something decent, so nobody's having to play those shots out of the woods, and scores are low, since nobody is taking penalty shots for those sinking balls in the water.
Now, after saying we weren't very good, we rocked on Sunday. On the first tee, one guy said, "Ya know, this year let's really try to compete. Usually when we do this sort of thing, we just have fun. This time, let's really put some effort into it." We did and we kicked ass. Somebody always hit a shot to get us where we needed to be, everyone contributed in clutch spots, and in a few places, we got flat out lucky. We played pretty much above our heads. We didn't have a single bogey! We par'd five holes, birdied twelve holes and eagled one. We were damn proud of ourselves and felt like we had a shot...until we hit the clubhouse...and saw that the same guys who won last year had us beat by 4 strokes before the handicaps were factored in, and they carried a bigger handicap by far than we did.
Now, when I saw these same guys win last year, I thought...damn, they must have just played the game of their lives. I mean, we aren't good, but if you look at their handicaps, these guys are worse than us...by a lot. They kicked all our butts without the handicap, let alone with it. Pretty cool for them.
This year...same four guys...handicaps read like they, again, suck worse than most of the folks there, and they finish with a score that says they par'd one hole and averaged birdie on all the others. Now I'm thinking...what are the odds that the four of you played the game of your lives at the same tournament two years in a row? They tied for the best gross score with one other group, without handicaps, and when you add in the handicaps, they killed all of us. Last year I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This year I'm thinking there's a serious lack of ethics involved. I don't know for sure that they cheated, and I don't like thinking that they did, but seriously....what are the odds? You want us to believe you're really bad golfers and you tie for the best score in the tournament without using your handicap? two years in a row? Something doesn't add up. There were people there who really can play, even if we weren't them. This year I'm wondering if they can sleep at night over a $10 trophy, because there's just no freakin' way. Either you're a whole lot better than you say you are, or nobody in your group knows how to keep score, or both. I mean, you won a golf tournament to benefit a Catholic school, playing with a bunch of average guys. It's not like you won a city championship or anything. Does it mean that much to ya? (For the record, this isn't a sour grapes thing. Even without these guys, we didn't come in first, or second. We placed respectably, but someone else would have taken home the $10 trophy. It just sucks the fun out when you feel like four guys are going to cheat their way to the top no matter how good you might play.)
P.S. One of the guys I played with, the one I rode with actually, was my friend who's getting a divorce. He brought it up and we actually talked about it for a bit, which I think he needed. I don't know how much help I was, but now he knows he has friends who will help him when he needs it, and to be honest, I think I need to be that kind of friend just as much as he needs one.
I participated in one of these on Sunday. It was cold, wet, nasty, and did I mention cold? It benefitted the youngster's school though, and I volunteered to help with it, and play. I assembled 3 friends who play golf and after helping with the organization of the event, we set of to play. Now, nobody in our group will be mistaken for Tiger. First of all, only one of us was black, but he's a senior citizen. Even without the race card...none of us comes anywhere close to Tiger's "Z" game..let alone his "A" game. We're all pretty even, ability-wise, but that's OK because this event uses handicaps, which means at the end, they adjust the scores and give you a "net" score based on how good you say you are according to the handicap system. There is an assumption that you will be close to honest with your assessment. My group wasn't built to win. It was a group of guys who enjoy playing together, and would have fun.
The format was a scramble, which means everybody hits a ball. Then you pick the best of the four shots and play from there, then you pick the best of those four shots and play from there, and so on until you put the ball in the hole, and you play the whole course like that. It generally makes things go faster, since one guy out of the group usually hits something decent, so nobody's having to play those shots out of the woods, and scores are low, since nobody is taking penalty shots for those sinking balls in the water.
Now, after saying we weren't very good, we rocked on Sunday. On the first tee, one guy said, "Ya know, this year let's really try to compete. Usually when we do this sort of thing, we just have fun. This time, let's really put some effort into it." We did and we kicked ass. Somebody always hit a shot to get us where we needed to be, everyone contributed in clutch spots, and in a few places, we got flat out lucky. We played pretty much above our heads. We didn't have a single bogey! We par'd five holes, birdied twelve holes and eagled one. We were damn proud of ourselves and felt like we had a shot...until we hit the clubhouse...and saw that the same guys who won last year had us beat by 4 strokes before the handicaps were factored in, and they carried a bigger handicap by far than we did.
Now, when I saw these same guys win last year, I thought...damn, they must have just played the game of their lives. I mean, we aren't good, but if you look at their handicaps, these guys are worse than us...by a lot. They kicked all our butts without the handicap, let alone with it. Pretty cool for them.
This year...same four guys...handicaps read like they, again, suck worse than most of the folks there, and they finish with a score that says they par'd one hole and averaged birdie on all the others. Now I'm thinking...what are the odds that the four of you played the game of your lives at the same tournament two years in a row? They tied for the best gross score with one other group, without handicaps, and when you add in the handicaps, they killed all of us. Last year I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This year I'm thinking there's a serious lack of ethics involved. I don't know for sure that they cheated, and I don't like thinking that they did, but seriously....what are the odds? You want us to believe you're really bad golfers and you tie for the best score in the tournament without using your handicap? two years in a row? Something doesn't add up. There were people there who really can play, even if we weren't them. This year I'm wondering if they can sleep at night over a $10 trophy, because there's just no freakin' way. Either you're a whole lot better than you say you are, or nobody in your group knows how to keep score, or both. I mean, you won a golf tournament to benefit a Catholic school, playing with a bunch of average guys. It's not like you won a city championship or anything. Does it mean that much to ya? (For the record, this isn't a sour grapes thing. Even without these guys, we didn't come in first, or second. We placed respectably, but someone else would have taken home the $10 trophy. It just sucks the fun out when you feel like four guys are going to cheat their way to the top no matter how good you might play.)
P.S. One of the guys I played with, the one I rode with actually, was my friend who's getting a divorce. He brought it up and we actually talked about it for a bit, which I think he needed. I don't know how much help I was, but now he knows he has friends who will help him when he needs it, and to be honest, I think I need to be that kind of friend just as much as he needs one.
John put this out here at 10:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home