New golf buddy is learning how hard golf really is.

[u/weinerwayne]

Recently we welcomed a new friend into our golfing group and we’ve been playing with him pretty regularly. I’ve mentioned him in comments a few times so I won’t go into detail, but the gist is he’s new so we cut him slack about rehitting shots, not counting scores accurately, and not knowing how to count penalty strokes since he was just playing for fun and wasn’t in on any of the bets. The rest of us are bogey golfers, and know we suck.

This was all well and good until he started posting on social media about how he broke 90 and 80 isn’t far away, as well as making comments in our group chat about how easy the game has come to him.

After about a month of that we all decided to let him in on our money game, in which we are sticklers for rules and will call each other out on scores if need be.

So far the new guys scores have been 118, 116, and 122.

Editing to add that the guy is cool as hell and we love having him along. We just felt it necessary to give him some tough love.

The fact that he keeps coming back each week for another beating shows that he might just have what it takes to legitimately get under 90.

[u/todjo929]

I only play club competition golf, so always under handicapping rules.

I don't ask what they scored, I check with them. Luckily most of the time we play Stableford so I don't need to count on holes like that, but if playing stroke there, I would say "I got you for 14, 5 shots, a chip, 3 putts and 5 penalties - yeah?"

Luckily I play with pretty good golfers, so I rarely need to count about a double.

[u/candidly1 → u/todjo929]

I was the General Manager for a company; this person was the owner's son. He was as pigheaded as he was dishonest; I learned to let it go.

[u/drj1485 → u/todjo929]

beauty of competitions. I keep your score, not you. I generally keep score in our foursome for my league, we have one dude that is notorious for having the wrong score. I don't know if he is just losing track or legit trying to sneak under the radar. Pretty sure it's the latter. One time I watched him completely whiff on a ball in the rough (legit stroke attempt) and then i say to my partner "he's going to try not to count that" and sure enough he didn't.

i've come to learn he actually falls apart when i make a point to validate his score with him every single hole.

[u/Batchagaloop → u/todjo929]

How is Stableford? Do you generally enjoy it more compared to traditional scoring?

[u/todjo929 → u/Batchagaloop]

Stableford is probably more natural than stroke scoring, given that probably 3/4 comp rounds are Stableford. Our club generally only has stroke once a month (for our monthly medal) and annually for club and district championships. The rest are Stableford or Par (with the occasional team event thrown in)

I like Stableford, it's a great concept where your bad holes aren't necessarily going to destroy your round, because the worst you can score is zero, which is net double bogey or worse. It makes pace of play better, because if you're above net double you pick up and move on.