Another One for the Graveyard
A couple years ago, I wrote “The Golf Equipment Idea That Must Die” [read it HERE]. This lesson is a spiritual sequel as it discusses another concept I never want to hear again: “being punished for a good shot.” If this is a phrase you’ve said or thought, please read on to improve your game and spare us all your bellyaching.
This Article Is For You If:
Your good rounds regularly fall off the rails
Your game doesn’t travel
You whine about “bad breaks” on the course
Bad Luck vs. “Being Punished”
Before I get into this, I want to make an important distinction between “being punished for a good shot” – which isn’t a real thing – and getting a genuinely unlucky break. Bad luck does exist on the golf course. Bad luck would include: your ball landing on a sprinkler head, rake, or in a divot, animal interference, or the maintenance crew running over your ball. If any of those things happen, you have a right to a feel a bit cheated – though I’d remind you that being mad isn’t going to change anything. I’d also point out that these are very rare occurrences unless you play in an area with extremely bold wildlife.
A big gust of wind redirecting your ball is a borderline case. If it’s a truly extreme gust of wind, maybe we can call it bad luck, but more than likely the wind was already blowing, and you should have planned for it. Which gets me back to the main point:
You’re Not Being Punished
When people use the phrase “being punished for a good shot,” they’re likely talking about one of the following: hitting the ball into a hazard they didn’t see, getting an bad bounce or the ball not sticking where it landed, being forced into a tough lie or stance, or not having a direct line to the hole. None of these are bad luck, and none of them reflect that you hit a “good shot.”
What Is a Good Golf Shot?
A good golf shot requires several components. First, it’s well struck. That’s the part that most people think of initially, and perhaps solely, but it’s not the only requirement. A good golf shot also requires proper aim and alignment. Finally, it needs the right strategy and the right club for the situation at hand.
Let’s imagine some extreme examples to illustrate the importance of each piece. If I hit the longest drive of my life on a 98-yard par 3, that’s not a good shot. Hitting a beautifully flighted, 100 yard wedge isn’t a good shot if you’re aimed 45 degrees to the left of the flag. I can have perfect aim and make the best swing of my life, but hitting PW on a 210-yard par 3 isn’t a good shot, either.
Ignorance Is Not a Defense
It’s completely fine to say, “I didn’t know that was there.” Just don’t pair it with “I was punished for a good shot.” You’ve already told on yourself: you didn’t do your homework. There are dozens of free GPS apps for your phone. Many courses have yardage books or on-cart GPS units. You can check out a course on Google Earth or Shot Scope MyStrategy [review HERE] before you play.
Not knowing that a hazard exists is not “being punished for a good shot.” Your shot lacked the appropriate strategy or may have been the wrong club, hence it wasn’t a good shot. It may have been great contact, but it wasn’t a good shot.
The same thing is true when you’re put into a tough lie or don’t have a direct line to the hole. This is common on short par 4s, extreme dog legs, or holes that are full of trees or hazards. If you mash driver through the fairway and find your ball behind a tree, that’s on you. You had every opportunity to use your GPS or rangefinder to determine that driver wasn’t the right play, you just didn’t take advantage of it.
The “Bad Bounce”
Where I most frequently hear the “punished for a good shot” rant is on courses with firmer greens. A player will hit a shot that lands pin high and bounces over the green, then they will lament the cruelties of fate. Nonsense. The fact that you normally play golf on mushy dartboard greens doesn’t mean that firm greens “punished” you, it means that you don’t know how to adapt your game.
Things to Say Instead
This is a solution-oriented website, so while I’m attempting to erase one phrase from your vocabulary, I’ll offer some alternatives.
“I hit that well.”
If anyone ever asked my dad how he played, his answer was, “I hit some good shots.” He brought that same attitude with him during the round. If he struck the ball pure and it didn’t do what he wanted, he’d shrug and say, “I hit that well.” He didn’t whine about bounces or the ball traveling too far or not far enough, he enjoyed the quality of the strike and moved on.
“I don’t like this course.”
There are estimated to be around 16,000 golf courses in the US. Some are very straightforward, some are loaded with hidden danger. A course can favor target golf or the ground game, and it can favor a fade or a draw. All of these are perfectly fine, and you can like them or not. I don’t love courses that hide their hazards, but I won’t moan about “being punished”; I’ll just say I don’t care for the course and play somewhere else.
“Golf Is hard.”
It’s damned hard to hit a golf ball really well. When you layer on the difficulty of needing perfect aim, alignment, strategy, and club selection, you realize that truly excellent shots are rare. In the long run, golf is undefeated – no one consistently beats the game. Enjoy your wins and take your losses with good humor.
He founded Plugged In Golf in 2013 with the goal of helping all golfers play better and enjoy the game more.
Matt lives in the northwest suburbs of Chicago with his wife and two daughters.
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14 Comments
I’ve emailed the PGA a few times suggesting that during tournaments they should put artificial turf, or real turf, over sprinklers heads. Though every course has them, sprinkler heads are an unnatural item sticking out of the ground.
i always thought that too..ps my buddies will not ever play lift clean and place, but pros did in the ryder cup…lol
your new format, increasing your income with advertising, good for your bottom line, is very distracting, so much so I may simply quit reading from your website. Thank yuo
David,
If you’re reading on mobile, I’d ask that you give us a little time to fix it. Something recently changed in the way the site displays – something we did not do/ask for – and we’re working to get it back to the way it was.
Best,
Matt
there is bad luck, for sure. The one that gets me is when you hit a good shot, usually a drive, and you can’t find it. this happens to me or my group a few times per season.
Greg,
That is one of the great frustrations in golf, no doubt. When I’m playing, if I know – 100% certain – where my ball should be, but I can’t find it, I just drop one and play. I’m not suggesting this should be used in any kind of competitive or official setting, but I play for fun and this makes the game more fun. I’ve run into numerous other golfers who use the same idea – “If it would have been easily found on Tour, I’m not taking a lost ball.” :)
Best,
Matt
Love this article, Matt.
I hear these things a lot, and have occasionally stated a few of them myself over the years. But I do what your dad does now, “I struck it well” and just move on.
The “I don’t like this course” to me is a bit of a whine that really shouldn’t be listed as an alternative comment, in my opinion. Are you going to say “I hate cops” because you got a ticket for speeding? No, probably not. But that’s the same concept of stating you don’t like something, because something bad happened to you. An alternative, if you want to stay on the same idea, “this course doesn’t match my game” might be a better alternative. That doesn’t sound like a whine so much as just a statement.
Thank you.
To your suggestion: absolutely, that works. I don’t mind, “I don’t like this course,” but I think a lot of it is tone and context, too. I think that “I don’t like this” and “This doesn’t match my game” could be two different things, potentially. Also, I think the biggest context piece, if you’re going to say you don’t like a course, is whether or not you’ve been there before. If you’re playing a course for the 50th time and saying that you don’t like it because of bad results, that’s definitely whining. There are lots of other places you could play.
Best,
Matt
I could never say I was being punished by anything other than myself. I’m the ultimate cause and solution to all of my own problems. There is power in that thought. If every round of golf represented a metaphorical 4.5 hour (on average) lifespan in a golf multiverse, then everything that happens is only determined by the choices you made and their respective consequences.
In that vein, there is an objective cause and effect that exists. We can ascribe subjective thoughts to anything, and even then, we make the choice of what positive or negative feeling we want to have.
I could have a round mixed with good executions with poor results, or conversely, poor executions with good results. Regardless of the outcome, there’s a myriad of ways to view them.
It always makes me laugh when something bad happens to me, because my reaction is “well that evened out the one that skimmed across the lake and ran up on the green”. Good AND Bad shots, when you’ve hit enough of both, in MY mind even out. No harm, no foul. It’s supposed to be fun, unless it’s YOUR MAIN JOB. My game got more enjoyable, when being a 15 hdcp was just fine. Good form got me to a 12, Bad form got me to an 18 and I’ve never played happier.
Beautiful perspective.
-Matt
Personally, I feel bad bounce=something totally unforeseable and unplannable and is therefore, punishment
That being said, I accept this as “rub of the green”, don’t sweat it, and move on.
My goal: scoring doesn’t always mean much because ball striking and putting in particular can come and go, on a minute to minute or daily basis, but simply hitting 4-6 pure shots per round is reward beyond comparison !
I think this was a good read – lots to think about!
I used to be a baseball pitcher in high school and college, and there are a couple of mental notes I picked up as a pitcher that I have found equally useful in golf. One is, “you don’t have to apologize for good luck if you don’t get mad at bad luck.” Sometimes you make a great pitch, and the other guy crushes it. Sometimes, you leave a hanger over the plate and get a whiff. If you don’t act like a jerk on the golf course and curse and throw clubs and complain every time you get a “bad break,” then you can earnestly celebrate the good bounces that do go your way without feeling guilty about it.
The other one that I think applies here is to quickly forget “how” you got into a situation and just deal with the situation. It doesn’t matter “how” you got into a 3-1 count with two runners on, but right now you just need to stay calm and execute what you need to do when there’s a 3-1 count and there are two runners on. Don’t get mad at the umpire, don’t rage at your infielder’s error…just analyze the situation as it is and go. Obviously for golf, I’ve found this helpful, too. It doesn’t matter how my ball ended up in the rough – a bad bounce, whatever – forget about it and think about how to execute the best shot you can from this situation.
Something I like is I’ve started counting my number of “good shots” each hole on my scorecard, and I think that has been fun and a good way to remind myself I often did better than I’ve given myself credit for. Maybe I hit a terrible drive and all I have left is a punch-out – if I execute that punch-out, I mark a good shot. Then my approach bounces just a little bit right – but I made pure contact and it went where I aimed so I count a good shot. Then a decent chip…good shot. Maybe miss the bogey putt on a bad putt…bad shot. But then drain a tricky four footer for a good shot. All of a sudden instead of being pissed about a bad drive and a double, I can look and say “well, you know what, that was actually 4/6 good shots.”
At night (usually before falling asleep)… and I am recounting my round, I go thru each hole and count how many “good” shots I hit. I remember the old quote attributed to Bobby Jones… “The real way to enjoy playing golf is to take pleasure not in the score, but in the execution of strokes.”