Golfpocalypse is a collection of words about golf (professional and otherwise) with very little in the way of a point, and the Surgeon General says it will make you a worse person. Reach out to The Golfpocalypse with your questions or comments on absolutely anything at [email protected]. We’ll publish the best emails here.
I want to make you two promises, and these promises are good as gold:
1. The 15 seconds I take to line up and attempt a short putt are not going to meaningfully extend the time it takes to play our round.
and
2. At some point in the next 36 holes, I will miss a putt of around four feet.
I mention these two things because I’m about to wade into a topic that I’m sure you’ve thought about and possibly even talked about, which is the act of “gimmes” from a playing partner. Not only will I wade into these waters, but I’m going to solve the problem once and for all. It’s going to be simple, it’s going to be beautiful and it’s going to be decisive.
Here it is in a nutshell: If you and I are playing a match, I will take any gimme you want to give. It can be from six inches, five feet, 20 feet or in the fairway if you’re feeling generous. The minute you say the words “that’s good,” I’ll scoop up my ball and walk to the next tee so fast you’d think I was being chased by a very slow older man.
RELATED: Can you call it a career round if you took gimmes? Maybe … but don’t tell our team
In any other situation where you and I are playing together? Just let me play my ball, and I swear by the golf gods I will let you play yours. Sew the words on golf towel: To each man, his own ball. (We can work on the exact language.)
That’s it! That’s the entire etiquette, distilled down into two very coherent paragraphs. Everybody in the world can follow this, and everyone can be happy.
If only it were that simple. In reality, all of us deal with the absurd situation of a playing partner (and it’s usually a stranger, because our friends know better) watching our 20-foot par attempt sputter out five feet from the hole, and telling us, “that’s good.”
Says who? I know it’s done in the spirit of generosity, but when you break it down, it just gets more and more absurd. First off, we’re not opponents, so the idea of giving each other putts doesn’t even make sense. It’s like a neighbor watching me mow my lawn, and telling me “job’s done!” halfway through. Sure, maybe I’ll call it quits and go in for a lemonade, but I’ll make the call, because it’s my damn lawn. I am the Woody Harrelson of mowing my own lawn.
If I’m the kind of person who wants to rake short putts—I’m mostly not—I can do that just fine on my own, and I truly don’t care if a playing partner does it either. But there is no need for either of us to make any big pronouncement about how the other person plays.
As it happens, I’m somebody who puts great stock in my own score, so I want to putt almost everything out. When I say “almost,” you know what I mean—I’ll occasionally rake the ones that are literal inches from the hole. Otherwise, knowing how easily I can miss even the relative bunnies, I finish out, because if I happen to have a lights-out day and shoot 79, the last thing I want to do is think back on the two five-footers I gave myself on the front and then spend the rest of the day with that slight twinge of guilt.
That’s my speed. It doesn’t have to be everyone’s speed. But again, we can all make that decision for ourselves. “That’s good”? No, it’s only good if I say it’s good, because it’s my ball.
RELATED: We’re giving way too many gimmes, according to these real golfer putting stats
This all probably sounds a little militant, but in general it’s an easy solve. I understand people’s intentions are mostly good, so if I get a “that’s good” guy in a round, I’ll just tell him on the first hole that I like to putt everything, and all is well. The worst thing you can do, though, is hit my ball back to me. On the scale of golf crimes, with a 1 being “accidentally cough in my swing” and a 10 being “cluelessly pick up my ball from the fairway,” this is an annoying four—I can’t act on it, but boy does it stick in my craw.
Again, if I want to be religious about my score, this screws everything up, and forces me to either take the putt, or brave the awkward social situation and put the ball back roughly where it was. There’s no coming back from that; we both hate each other for life once it goes that far.
Here’s what you can do instead, and I do this one all the time—if the person lags to really, really close, and they’re far away and I’m by the hole, I will say, “you want this one back?” That gives them the chance to say yes or no, and maybe I can save them a trip. If someone does that for me, I’ll take it back if it’s a true gimme that I would have raked anyway. That’s good manners.
Otherwise? To each their own, my friend. I don’t want a gimme, I won’t give you any back, and we can all play golf the way it was meant to be played: lipping out a two-foot putt and throwing our putter into the woods.
THE ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD LOCKS OF THE WEEK
Golfpocalypse is not a gambling advice service, and you should never heed anything written here. Better picks are here.
Career Record: 8-77. Before an X user caught it, last week I included an LPGA event that had been played the week before, and still got it wrong. That has to be a low point in the history of these picks. I’ll be honest…we’re not doing well.
Ooooh, it’s the Scottish Open at North Berwick, and doesn’t this kind of feel like a Tommy Fleetwood redemption arc kind of week? He’s definitely not going to win the Open, but the Scottish has that feel of a semi-big event he could take down to feel good about himself again without fundamentally changing the narrative about whether he has what it takes to win a major. I’m really talking myself into this.
Hey, it’s the Evian Championship on the LPGA! A major! Big Vegas will tell you to take Jeeno Thitikul or Nelly Korda, but there was something so insanely cool about the amateur Lottie Woad winning the Irish Open that I’m just going to ride the hype train and pick her again. Plus, I love that name…it sounds like one of the British children’s shows my daughters listen to on their Yoto radio players at night. Lottie Woad is a quirky child adventurer who lives in a cottage made of porridge whose best friend is a talking cricket. She can absolutely win a major.
The old boys are playing the Dick’s Open (feels weird to type that) in beautiful Endicott, NY, and I’ll take Alex Cejka if only because it feels weird to me that he’s old enough to play on the senior tour.
Finally, at LIV Golf Middle Earth, I’m taking Thunk D’Arbonville.
THE DUMB TAKE I KIND OF BELIEVE
The R&A should be allowed to use wind and rain machines at the Open if the conditions aren’t sufficiently terrible. We’re at the point where these links courses are basically defenseless against the modern game if the elements aren’t cooperating, and it’s wayyyyy more fun to watch when mother nature is mad. So rather than sit there and watch Ben Griffin take the Claret Jug at 25 under, just get the machines in and make it horrendous. If the R&A doesn’t have this tech, they can just borrow it from the evil science underground laboratory at Augusta.
READER EMAIL OF THE WEEK
I got a ton of feedback on last week’s post about my refusal to post nine-hole rounds to the weird GHIN system, and it was the rare case where literally every single person who reached out agreed with me. That never happens online. Anyway, I wanted to highlight an absurd situation I didn’t consider. This comes from Josh R.:
A much more ridiculous example I have recently seen is the “guidance” from the USGA to publish 9 hole rounds in competition separately even where you play the front 9, then the back 9 on the same day, right after each other, but against different opponents.
So, taking your example but this time you shot 36/36, it gets posted as 9.0 and 8.5-9.5 somewhere based on whatever the algorithm would do for your back 9 score. Both scores count or come close to counting in your top 8/20…and neither score or even both combined move the needle on your index.
BUT…you now have 2 scores making up your last 20 instead of 1 18 hole round….as well as not having a 72 as your latest score which would absolutely affect your handicap for probably the remainder of the season under what a logical person would have posted as an 18 hole round or the old system would have combined into one.
It just gets worse and worse!
Previously on Golfpocalypse:
I will no longer be entering nine-hole rounds, GHIN, and you can’t make meI will abandon my friends during a round. Does this make me a bad person?Did I dishonor the game via handicap shenanigans?Rory’s Masters win was the ultimate “dudes crying” moment in golfI want to be a draw alpha, not a fade betaIf you had to give up golf or sex for the rest of your life, which would it be?I am the recent victim of golf snobbery, and I’m madShould the Tour just move to an F1 style schedule and be done with it?I was the world’s most annoying teenage golf maintenance workerCan golf still be a spiritual experience in 2024?There is nothing stranger than a golfer’s brain…just ask usI have the dumbest golf pet peeve, but I can’t shake itIf you talk about politics on the course, please, for God’s sake, stopLoving Golf in 2024 is about finding where the money isn’tI believed in the magic of Tiger Woods when I was a kid, but I’m a cynic nowIf you can enjoy playing golf alone, you have achieved NirvanaI took 12 stitches to the head for golf before I even loved itAn annual ‘Friends Ryder Cup’ trip is the greatest thing in golfMarshals at public golf courses need to get way meanerI, and I alone, have the genius tweak to fix the Tour ChampionshipIt cannot be fun to play golf when you’re egregiously badConfession: I break clubs when I’m madPlaying golf in bad weather makes me feel aliveCaring what other people think of your golf game is annoying to other peopleSympathize with Rory, because choking sucks
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
