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Are You OK With Playing Bad Golf?

I used to think, "absolutely not."

But in coming back from injury in consecutive years in '18 and '19, I really thought both times that this was it. That my previous level of play couldn't realistically be reached again.

And, very surprising to me, I was OK with that. I was and am just so darn glad to be able to play at all that when my game actually did return, it was just icing on the cake.

The cake, the heart of my enjoyment, I've found, is just being out there on the course. Participating.
 
I've come to accept that at my handicap the idea of good or bad is just related to me. I'm gonna have a wide variation in my scores. If my cap was single digit, the variation would be smaller. I can not compare my self to a pro or low cap player. If I do, every round will be bad.
 
I have to be OK with it, because I've just never been a very good golfer. My biggest problem is that I just don't take the time that's required to get better. I just don't play enough.

As previously noted, once I came to accept the axiom "Your not good enough to be mad about that shot," my whole attitude towards golf changed. Now, I simply have fun playing the game regardless of the scorecard. Bad days become challenges to overcome it. And in the end, I'm still playing golf.
 
My problem with golf is that I have become disheartened by poor play and in fact am now even past disheartened. Ive put so much time, money, and efforts into trying to get better. Ive exhausted all the excuses in the book and listened to all the advice suggestions and tried them all ans exhausted those. Ive made every effort (within my means) and did that for a long time. And still im not very good at all at this game. There has never been anything else in my life that just did not offer results after putting time and efforts in to this degree. I do not like playing badly and in fact after all ive done it is disheartening. I now either have to accept what I am golf wise or simply quit the game all together. Thus far I chose to try to accept it and keep playing. But that was only after a self battle of actually considering quitting all together.

Ive now given up putting the same efforts into it as I did before. I put them in but just not as often nor as much. You see the more I put in, the more disheartened I had become when realizing the results just didn't show much. I wasn't really any better and in fact not even as good as I was at one point. So whats the point of working and working it and going out oif my way to do so if I just cant get better to any real measurable degree? It becomes like work efforts instead of enjoyable recreation. But is a frustrating unsatisfying and disheartening work effort when the results are of little to no improvement. Im done with paying and taking lessons. Ive rebuilt everything, etc,etc….

But I keep going and my feeling towards the game? Well,,,all I can say is that for now I just keep playing and making some more efforts.
 
Golf might be the most frustrating sport ever. I can't stand playing bad golf, but then that one good shot comes and all the laughs during the round become mostly what I remember. And I am back again the next round.
 
A few years ago when I started to try to improve and track my scores I recall getting angry and frustrated. Anymore I just shrug off bad shots and bad rounds, goodness there are many things more important than my golf score.
 
Some peoples bad golf is better than my best golf. My bad rounds are better than some peoples best rounds. Its all perspective and attitude, I shake off the bad shots and play on.
 
I'm OK with playing bad golf if it's an accumulation of small errors with a maybe a few outright awful shots thrown in. There's days when I can't shoot a decent score to save my life but at least I felt like I was playing a game.

What I'm not OK with is when I simply can not get the ball up in the air and keep it between the tree lines. If I'm hitting one or more lost-ball or completely duffed shots on the majority of holes it's beyond "bad golf", it's really not golf at all. Just self-abuse.

Fortunately I only have a handful of those days a year, the other 100+ rounds are various forms of merely "bad". As a 17 hcp I never have rounds that objectively would be called "good". Although that one day in 2015 when I had no doubles, no three-putts and shot 76 was close enough to good for me!
 
Just depends on my state of mind and how long the good shots sustain me. It's never been so much a chore that I didn't want to play, but I think everyone has a round where it's a struggle to find a shot (or a string of them) you hit just like you wanted to.
 
"Bad golf" for me would be not making solid contact on any shot, iron, driver, putter, etc, and never having a chance for par or bogey. When it gets to that point, I'll hang up the clubs, grab my fishing rod and head for the local lake.
 
It depends how bad I was playing. If it's 4-6 strokes over my average per 9, I can live with that. Anything higher and I'd probably mail it in and just try stuff on the course because I have nothing to lose.
 
With good friends and with nonsense being a part of it? Hell no it doesn't bother me haha. I play this game because I like it, not because Im good at it.
 
I am OK with a little deterioration from time to time but would not be happy if it was a permanent marked deterioration. But then again, playing golf poorly if better than not playing at all.
 
I'm not okay with playing what's bad golf for me. I think I'm okay with shooting high 80's to low 90's. I don't have any delusions about getting to a single digit. If I was going to do it, then I should've done it before I had a kid. So it's high handicapper for life over here.
 
Ok? I mean I’d rather play good golf. But, bad golf is still better than no golf lol


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No, but I keep going back.
 
Never happy with bad golf, I feel as though i don't have a bad round, just bad holes. When that happens, i figure the course won today.
 
my first passion is fishing. golf is #2. We say in fishing you are not a fisherman if you just like to catch. You must like the environment and process. This is the way I see golf. Instead of getting mad I try and adjust and think of that as a game. If I never had a good technique in the first place, then I now realize that. My driver is great example. I've never been a strong driver of the ball. Some days OK, range I get into a rhythm but I don't expect that on the course. I want it, but know the issue is my technique.
 
I never want to play bad golf, like +10 from the handicap bad would get under my skin.
 
I'm terrible when it comes to accepting my golf to the point of being ashamed by my reaction to it.

A scratch golfer once wrote "how well I play golf doesn't define me as a person". I thought that was somewhat profound. On the flip side, however, is that the way I react to my game does define me as a person.. and the word a**hole comes to mind. It's the biggest reason I play so many solo rounds. I can hold it together playing with others, but it isn't easy. Probably half my rounds can be in the range of perfectly fine to somewhat irritated by a couple bad shots in a row. Sadly, the other half can go anywhere from some minor self-deprecation to full blown club-throwing. I'm not this way with any other activity in my life.

If I were offered a choice between 1) getting really good at this game, and 2) being able to completely accept the bad golf I currently play with no chance of improving, I'd take door #2.

This year has been better - especially when not keeping score. But there have been some bad days.
 
I try to enjoy the game but when I play baldly it bothers the heck out of me.
 
It's OK to play bad golf. But I am not OK when I play bad golf. Playing poorly very much impacts my enjoyment of a round.
 
Yes, I am ok with playing bad golf. Haha. I do most of the time. I have flashes of brilliance followed by crazy shots.

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I’m guessing I’ll play a lot less when Father Time catches up with me and I can no longer play to a decent level. It happened to my dad when he was about 82. He was a 7 handicap at his peak and when he could no longer break 100, he gave it up for other hobbies. I think if I couldn’t break 85 on a good day, I’d find other ways to spend my time.
 
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