I Don’t Do Strategy 

Let me state for the record that I totally understand the concept, golf is a game of strategy. It’s just not in my game plan. Whompers don’t do strategy or at least, don’t do strategy well. Calculating yardage, verifying the pin placement, selecting the appropriate club or using the best brand ball for your play is serious business to most golfers. Guess I don’t fit into that “most” category and don’t take the game that seriously.

My assessment, strategy contributes to a stressful round as does having higher expectations than what you know to be reasonable. I know my limitations plus I’m too laid back to let any game ruin my day or life. Those who play with me typically have a full appreciation of what they’ve signed up for within the first two or three holes.

Seriously strategic golfers should never invite me into their foursome. That’s why I don’t perform well in those captain’s choice, best ball type tournaments. I have no best ball and I certainly wouldn’t be a captain’s choice for partner; too much strategy for me. I receive a best ball invite because I can putt fairly well. Heck I’ll putt from thirty yards off the green when possible; Texas wedging it to the hole.

I find it comical when my playing partners agonize over their club selections determining if this shot requires their one hundred yard club or their one hundred twenty yard club. I don’t have clubs for ten or twenty yard increments.

I play old man golf using about four different clubs from my bag, more if you count my assortment of three wedges. Par fours and fives; driver off the tee, seven wood or number five hybrid from the fairway, then my bronze headed wedge one hundred thirty yards to ninety yards, 52° wedge between ninety yards and sixty yards, then 60° wedge for all others unless I’m using the putter aka Texas wedge. Par threes, choices are wedge, a nine wood or my five hybrid, unless driver is required. Stating my game plan already sounds too much like strategy for me.

Yardage, I check it only to determine if this is a wedge or wood shot. One of my buddies has one of those Sky Caddies glued to his hip so he can determine the exact distance to the pin. Knowing the distance doesn’t play into my game as much as direction does. My aim and direction doesn’t always agree. Knowing how far to hit it and actually hitting toward that yardage is what makes my game so challenging.  A hundred fifty yard second shot to the green might be a two hundred twenty five yard third shot for me from an adjacent fairway.

Ball selection is so over rated. Use a white one or yellow if you prefer. For the past three years living parallel to the green on a one hundred seventy yard Par three, I have become accustomed to collecting balls. I no longer buy balls. I just wait for them to fall from the sky then sort and egg crate them for later use. So far I’ve accumulated over three hundred with only one broken window. I dump a dozen in the bag when I get low. My buddies often ask when helping me look for my ball, “what were you hitting, how’d you have it marked?” My response, “I’m not sure what brand but it would have had somebody else’s initials on it.” I don’t lose as many balls now because what ever we find must be mine. Now that’s strategy.

Reading the breaks on a green, bet that Sky Caddie doesn’t do that for you? I’ve tried to be a little more patient and at least squat down behind the ball to look for a slope or something. For somebody who doesn’t stalk the hole from every angle for five minutes, I putt pretty well. My toughest vice is waiting my turn as I’m a quick draw both on the green and in the fairway. Slow play is the kiss of death for my game. If I have to wait, the mind wanders all over the place. If I did do strategy then I could probably occupy those long intervals.

It’s fun to watch someone plan their shot. “Should I draw the ball? Is this the place to use a fade? Hook it or slice it? Flop it or bump and run? Sometimes I picture a third base coach out in the fairway giving them the signs. I’d be taking off the bunt sign and having them swing for the fences.

Here’s my game in nut shell. I grab one of the clubs as mentioned earlier to match the scenario. I hit it. It goes somewhere. If it’s my tee shot, I’m ecstatic if it goes far. It doesn’t have to go straight. I address the ball and hit it again, and it goes somewhere else. If I’m lucky that somewhere else is toward the general direction of the green. If not, I’ll whomp it again from where ever it landed. I keep whomping it until I finish the hole or reach double par.

At the end of a hole I mark down my tally. At the end of the round I tally up the damages. If I’m around 100 or just below, I’m happy. If I ended the round with the same two balls I originally pocketed then I’m bragging about the round. If I finish with more balls than I started, I had a remarkable round, and probably had an opportunity to do some nature trails. So goes strategy.