Should Golfers Cancel “Gimme” Culture?

We’ve all been here at some point. Often multiple times in the same round.

You lag your putt up to the hole, leaving yourself inside two feet. Or maybe it’s a three-footer. Or maybe it’s a Danny DeVito—an angry little five-footer.

Your playing partners, being polite and following golfing customs, tell you to pick it up. Don’t worry about it, man. We’re just out here for fun.

“That’s good.”

And sometimes the putt really is good. The late Ray Charles could make it one-handed while riding a unicycle. Nothing to see here.

But, as every golfer knows in their heart of hearts, that uncomfortable range of two to five feet is often not good. Not good at all, actually.

There is nothing like the pressure of a putt you are supposed to make. That razor blade-straight two-footer is due for the bottom of the cup more than 98 percent of the time. Your probability diminishes for slightly longer putts but not by much.

If you miss it, we’re all standing around in awkward silence.

That’s why golfers invented “gimme” culture in the first place. It’s a friendly way for us to avoid the embarrassment of short misses.

But if it were up to me, we would cancel “gimme” culture altogether.

The case for hitting 18 cups

Golfers have a tendency to negotiate their own scores.

Your buddy brags about breaking 90 for the first time but it included a re-tee on No. 7, a generous where-did-it-cross ruling on No. 12, kicking a ball out from the roots on No. 15—and he picked up every putt inside four feet.

His final tally was a 95 masquerading as an 88.

I know more than a few golfers who will do this and then include those faulty scores in their handicap. Then they will tout their misleading handicap as if it is gospel.

Perhaps it’s because of golf’s individual (and largely self-reported) nature but this is a phenomenon that doesn’t seem to exist in other sports. I’ve yet to see a tennis player misplay a drop shot into the net and argue that he deserves points based on the merits of his effort rather than the result.

So why don’t golfers just play the game and count their scores?

Sure, there are certain common sense rules or local standards. Those are understandable amendments. If you’re playing as a foursome on a packed Saturday morning and lose a ball, you aren’t headed back to the tee with some dude named Chad seething next to you as he gets ready to smash a White Claw can through your forehead. You drop and move on.

What I’m referring to is the purposeful meandering around the rules. The tinkering with your score, massaging it to be as low as possible by taking all available shortcuts.

The chief offender among this tinkering?

Gimmes being handed out like condoms at a high school STD lecture.

This guy must be fun at parties

You might be reading this and thinking you would never want to play golf with me. That if I was the last playing partner on planet Earth, you would pass. I get it.

Truth be told, you can do whatever you want when you play golf with me. Play golf however you want.

For many of us, it’s a social outing and gimmes are part of the friendship aspect. There is a kindness in giving someone a putt, even if it’s a sidewinder on greens that make your shag carpet look smooth.

But if you do take the gimmes and brag about your score—or worse, brag about your super-impressive handicap—you deserve a little judgement.

If it makes you feel better to lie about your score, then lie about it. But I don’t think any golfer worth their salt feels great about that.

There is nothing stopping golfers from holing out, hitting the bottom of all 18 cups. You’ve paid to play the course and that includes finishing every hole. You don’t have to take gimme offers, either. All golfers are guaranteed one satisfying stroke to finish the hole.

The sound of a ball rattling through the cup is S-tier.

And, let’s face it, taking a gimme of a certain length does leave a lingering seed of doubt in our minds.

But if you make it? Especially if it’s for a birdie or par (or any putt that matters a little extra), that feeling of accomplishment will be better than the lingering seed of doubt.

If it were up to me, the expectation would be that all golfers hole out. There are obviously caveats to this—picking up after reaching double par, concessions during match play, etc.—but my point stands.

And please don’t come at me saying that gimmes speed up the game.

That putt you are assuming you already made? That doesn’t require AimPoint and a two-minute-long routine. You can knock that one down in 30 seconds or less.

It’s a lot less time than it takes for Chad to hit on the cart girl.

So join me—or don’t join me—but I think we should cancel “gimme” culture.

Give me “hitting 18 cups” culture instead.