Not every round is going to set you up for success. Some days, the game just feels like it’s against you and there’s nothing you could have done about it. Here are 10 reasons every golfer knows too well. How many do you relate to?
The ball hits the cart path and kicks out of bounds
You hit a solid shot and it takes one bad bounce off the cart path and disappears. Nothing was wrong with the swing, maybe the shot was just slightly offline, but one unlucky hop turns a good shot into a penalty stroke. Sometimes the cart path pays you back in other ways; there’s always that 300-yard drive that rolled its last 100 yards down the path.
The perfect drive in a fresh divot
You walk up expecting an easy short iron into the green and your ball is sitting dead center of the fairway in a patch of dirt. You did everything right and got punished anyway. Some would say this is a golf rule that needs to be changed.
Plugged in a bunker footprint
Landing in the sand is bad enough. Then you find your ball sitting in someone else’s footprint. While there are ways to play this shot, it’s unfair that you have to.
Hardpan or bare lies
No grass, no cushion, just dirt and a ball that you have to catch clean. If you’re not great at low-point control, you’ll struggle with these types of lies. It’s also hard to predict what the ball will do when it’s being hit from hardpan or bare lies. Practice some punch type shots to get yourself out of these situations.
Aerated greens
You show up excited to play and the greens are covered in holes and sand. Putts bounce and wobble and there’s no real way to read them. Some courses are great about communicating their schedule but others are worried you’d cancel your tee time so they keep it quiet.
Soggy or inconsistent bunkers
Some days, the sand is rock hard and the ball skids across it. After a storm, it’s wet and heavy, and sometimes you get both conditions in the same bunker. If you’ve ever played a course that was recently renovated or is brand-new, sometimes the sand is so soft your ball disappears. The key to great bunkers is some consistency. If they are all similar, you can at least adjust your game for that day.
Standing water in the fairway
This happened to me recently. My home course is a little wet right now because it’s recently been overseeded for the winter months and the seed grows better when it’s kept wet. I hit a great drive and my ball was in standing water in the fairway. I got a free drop but my shoes were wet and muddy and the nearest point of relief gave me a completely different line into the hole.
Rain and lightning
We can’t control the weather and sometimes we can’t even plan around it. Another one scenario that gets me is when the siren goes off because lightning is close but it hasn’t even started raining yet (and it might not). Those pop-up storms in the southern U.S. can make it tough get a round in during the late afternoons in the summer. A little rain shower never bothers me but the lighting alarm absolutely does.
Bumpy late-afternoon greens
You read the putt perfectly, hit it perfectly, and it hops offline over a spike mark or a patch left by a full day of foot traffic. I play a lot of afternoon golf and there isn’t much I can do to avoid this. I try to just focus on the fact that I made a good stroke and hope that the course pays me back with a good bounce on the next hole.
The slow group that never looks back
You catch the group ahead and end up waiting on every shot while they take practice swings and never turn around to see who’s behind them. If there’s room in front of you and you don’t look behind, it’s just not right. Take time if you need it but be aware of others.
What did I miss? Let me know in the comments.
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