Golf Debate Answered: Can you count something as a career-low score if you’re playing from a forward tee?

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I knew there’d be controversy as soon as I totalled my score. My first round of 79 came last Sunday at Twisted Dune outside Atlantic City, and it comes with some caveats. I’m 36 years old and played from the “senior tees” on a trip with my father-in-law, his brother and some beginners. My handicap is 13, a.k.a. I’m not very good, so I wasn’t going to be a hard-o and play from further back. There’s also enough trouble to be found at Twisted Dune from 5,700 yards (5,200 metres).

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I also didn’t know where I stood until totalling up my score in the car trip home. I’ve soaked up enough sports psychologists’ advice to know it puts extra pressure on yourself to count your strokes mid-round if you’re playing really well. So when I made a 10-footer for par on the last, I genuinely didn’t realise it was for my lowest round ever, though I knew I was playing some great golf.

I subsequently posted a screenshot of my score and the score differential on my X/Twitter account, but was torn on whether to celebrate the achievement. Needless to say, the opinions came in hot. Surprisingly, I’d say 65 percent of reactions were positive, congratulating me on my feat. There was a lot of negativity, but that’s Golf Twitter for you.

Now I’m posing the same question to my colleagues. Can I feel good about my 79? Does it need an asterisk? Let’s see how much my co-workers like me…

Mike Stachura, Equipment Editor: I don’t want to get hung up on what you think is an achievement. Because you have your standards, and I have mine. Personal bests are admirable, I would even say necessary, for us as an enlightened species. Indeed, it is the pursuit of “better” that pushes us forward and, quite honestly, saves us from a milquetoast mediocrity that some would call parity and I simply know as the tragedy that ultimately leads to our end. When Browning writes of the reach that exceeds our grasp, he is crying out for excellence and achievement. When Mike Tomlin talks about the standard being the standard, he knows that the mirror cannot tell a lie. When Marcus Aurelius states, “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be, be one,” he is reminding us that reality is obvious, not bendable to the whims of the day or some sliding scale of Strokes Gained: Adequacy.

So, when you break 80 from tees distinctly shorter than your standard, and you want to cite it as a personal milestone, you are not saying something about goals or excellence or even the standard itself. You are speaking volumes about yourself. I am delighted that you find motivation in any part of this infernal game, whose foundational existence clearly is to publicly denude oneself at every possible turn, to obliterate self-worth into a cowering shadow of misery, to make you want to devote yourself instead to something as soulless as pickleball. While it’s worth noting that USGA research suggests nearly 90 percent of golfers are playing a golf course that’s too long for them, the tees you know you are expected to play are the tees where the standard is to be met. I find any other kind of scorecard math like suggesting reaching the South Col is equal to summiting Everest. It is not. If you think differently, fine. You know who you are. And so do I. The pickleball court is over there.

Greg Gottfried, Web Producer: Yes, but with a caveat. I think it’s fine if you mention it as your lowest score, and yet you have to be forthright about it and give a little more background. If you don’t want to do that, that’s on you. It’s not a lie to say it’s your career-low score; however, you’ll know in your heart of hearts that it’s not everything you want. There’ll always be a small piece of your accomplishment missing. Let that pain guide you and fuel you into shooting an even better score (from your usual tees) in the future. To be fair, I would kill for a 79. Well, not actually kill… I want to make that clear. But, yes. I would take a 79 from any tees.

E. Michael Johnson, Equipment Editor: The problem with this question is the lack of definition of “forward”, so I’ll make my own. My personal best came on a 6,400-yard course. I now play a 6,000-plus-yard course. If I broke that best (never gonna happen), I would count it because that’s where I typically play from. However, my course offers combo tees, which are 500 yards shorter. I would not count that because I don’t typically play from there. To me, it’s not about distance but what the typical distance is that you currently play. If you’re banging it from 500 yards less than that and want to count it, be my guest – but you’re only kidding yourself.

Joel Beall, Senior Writer: This game strips enough from you, so when you finally come out on top, there’s no need to qualify how. And to hell with the haters. You don’t owe anyone explanations, qualifications or apologies for how you got there. If it’s real to you, if it means something to you, then that’s all that matters.

Ryan Herrington, Managing Editor: In recent years, I’m playing less golf for various reasons, family obligations the biggest. Because of this, I’ve made the conscious decision to make any round I play as enjoyable as possible, which includes playing a more reasonable set of tees for my 17-handicap game. And it’s been great: the game isn’t necessarily any easier – I still have to hit fairways and greens and make putts – but I’m keeping the use of long irons and hybrid approach shots. Despite playing only 6,000 or 6,100 yards, my scores have not dropped significantly, but I’ve get a few more chances at making birdies and pars, which has me walking away happier. This is all prelude to the idea that designating a round as a personal best is a personal decision, but there should be no shame in saying I shot a 79 from 5,700 yards. How many golfers can say they’ve done that?

Steve Keipert, Managing Editor, Australian Golf Digest: I can sympathise to a degree, as my lowest round – and only subpar score ever – came during an innocuous Friday afternoon round with friends when we played from the regular white tees at my home club but those tees were positioned forward of their normal spots. I birdied three of the last four holes, including the 17th and 18th, to post a three-under 69 – knocking in a nervy four-footer at the last to not just better par but also break 70. I would never lay claim to that round equating in difficulty to a round played from the blue markers or perhaps even one played from where the whites normally were, but that day I also reached a water hazard I normally couldn’t and suffered the subsequent penalty, so there was an alternate side to the forward-tee circumstances.

That round was 20 years ago this December and whenever I think back on it, I don’t linger too long on the fact it was played from forward tees. Instead, I think about the finish, the knowledge (burden?) that I’d never broken par before, the way I finished it off (a 15-foot birdie putt at 17 and a pure 9-iron struck close on the last) and the mates who were riding me home. Regardless of the length of the course you’re playing, it’s the intangibles like handling your nerves and expectations plus executing that have no knowledge of which tees you’re playing from.