Should we give in to a friendly wager?
January 19th, 2009 by Olaf Bound.sIt has always been the norm for golfers to have a small wager for every round. But should we really go for it? Golfers know that a friendly bet even for lunch or dinner always spruce up the game a notch. But is the normal golfer always getting a fair deal?
To the non-golfers out there, the game of golf has a very deliberate system called a handicap system. It not only predetermines a golfers’ normal standard. It also acknowledges that the said golfer has been verified to know the rules and etiquette of the game. But as most golfers will testify, the system is sometimes flawed as absolutely nobody carries the actual handicap that is written in the card that he/she carries. Why so? It is as simple as this, would you give several strokes to a new associate on the golf course just because of a piece of paper. After all, the handicap attested by a certain club or association is not updated regularly. If you ask for a valid handicap card, the average of his handicap is verified by the best 10 rounds of the latest submitted score cards. And unless you are thick in the head or your ego is bigger than your driver, the scores submitted can’t be realistic. Of course, we are only talking about the 90% or so of the golfers’ out there (no pun intended). But let’s only talk about these guys, OK!
So, how is it flawed? For one, let’s say you are a newcomer and you just got a handicap for a 24(entry level). You friendly opponent is a 18-handicapper. He/She will give you a total of 6 strokes a round of 18 holes. Depending on the indexes of each of the 18 holes, you will get a total of 1 stroke for each index which is 18 and above for the holes. Now do you call that fair? As a beginner, we are prone to thinning/skulling/fatting/topping a ball. There goes your stroke! If not, worse! If we are looking at stroke play it reflects badly, if we are looking at matchplay. If your wager is USD 1 per hole, we are looking at 18 holes. That’s 18 bucks down the road!
Let’s say you average score is 88. That is an equivalent of a 16-handicapper but against a say 12-handicapper! You do the math! Two strokes a side against a near single handicapper is like throwing your clubs down the lake beside the first hole!
But let’s be fair to the system, it is not flawed! It is the golfers’ out there. The system is created with gentlemen in mind and why don’t we golfers act that same way! So for you newbies out there, beware for there might not lie a Tiger out there but alligators with very sharp teeth!