We've launched the new forums! Read more here

Murphy's Laws of Golf by Henry Beard

I had something similar, Self you can't draw the ball, yea but if I could it would be perfect, to far for this club anyway, holy I got a hold of that one, wow its drawing perfect, oh crap people! FORE!
 
Day 14

No matter how short the par-3, never line up the logo when you tee up your ball or plumb-bob the hole with your wedge.

Never wash your ball on the tee of a water hole.

If you're afraid a full shot might reach the green 200 yards away while the foursome in front of you is putting out, you have two options: You can go ahead and hit and rip the shot of your life onto the green on the fly, or you can wait until the green is clear and cold-top a ball halfway there.

There are two kinds of bounces: unfair bounces, and bounces just the way you meant to play it.

Never claim that you intended to skip the ball across the water or hop it along the cart path or stop it against a rake handle.

Aiming for the dead center of a bridge that crosses a creek in the middle of the fairway is seldom the percentage shot.
 
Very interesting thread. Thanks for starting it!
 
Day 15

Everyone sees a whiff, but no one is ever looking when you hit a career shot.

Never curse a god-awful shot until it has a chance to get lucky.

Always leave yourself a full shank.

The odds against parring another hole double after every hole you par.

The reason it's so hard to par the course is half the shots are woods, half the shots are irons, and the third half is putt.
 
Day 16

The most difficult lie in golf is a ball sitting up in a perfect lie in the dead center of the fairway 150 yards from the pin.

If you absolutely, positively have to par a hole, leave a birdie putt on inch short.

To blow up on the back nine you don't need to have played a terrific front nine, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

The reason it's called "golf" is that all the really good four-letter word were already taken.

If you can only play a few holes, you'll be two under par when you have to leave.

It takes 17 holes to really get warmed up.
 
Day 17

Nothing cools off a putter quicker than a hot driver.

--

It's the right club, but you decide its' the wrong club.

It's the right club, but you think it might be too little club so you try to kill it, or it might be too much club, so you quit on the shot.

It's the wrong club.

--

A ten-foot putt counts just the same as a ten-foot drive.

You can hit the ball 30 yards with any club in the bag.

You really need only four clubs to hit every bad shot in golf.

Your straightest iron shot of the day will be exactly one club short.

If you want to hit a 7-iron as far as John Daly does, simply play a lay up just short of a water hazard.
 
Day 18

You can't hit decent tee shots with a 3-wood unless you carry a driver you never use.

Even if it's a 5-iron, the lowest numbered iron in your bag will always be impossible to hit.

When you're between clubs, it's always the other club, unless it's the other other club.

--

Personal favorites:

When someone asks what club you hit, always subtract one or add two.

When in doubt, just ask yourself, What would Tiger hit?, and use six more clubs.
 
Day 19

If you have to keep the cart on the cart path, unless you take every single one of your clubs over to your ball, you won't have the right club.

It always takes at least five holes to notice that a club is missing.

Everyone turns in a 2-iron, but you can kiss the wedge good-bye.

The best way to cause the reappearance of a club lost on the course is to order a replacement.

Funny-looking putter have short lifespans.

The reason those fancy wedges are so expensive is they come with a free case of the shanks.

The week after you break down and buy one of the super-duper new drivers, they'll knock a hundred bucks off the price and release a brand new model with a better shaft and a bigger head.

You haven't really hit bottom until you need to get your ball retriever regripped.
 
Day 20

The best thing about a 60-degree wedge is it's a great club for getting the ball out of the lies you're going to end up in if you're dumb enough to use a 60-degree wedge.

The best thing about hybrids is that no one can tell that your 150-yard club used to be a wood, not an iron.

Never ask the pro if you need a new set of clubs.

Never buy a putter until you've had a chance to throw it.

Never hit trick shots with demo clubs.

A stroke does not count unless it has been observed by another golfer.

Bets lengthen putts and shorten drives.

Confidence evaporate in the presence of water.

In the heat of a match, balls tend to rise to the surface of the rough.
 
99.99% of the universe is empty space, but that last .01% will stop a golf ball dead.

If the moon had a more evenly dimpled surface and a hard rubber core, a couple Out of Bounds stakes could pull it out of its orbit.

There are four forces affecting the motion of a golf ball:
1. Gravity, which causes the ball to drop suddenly into hazards
2. Electromagnetism, which makes the ball curve sharply towards whichever of the earth's poles is closest to the Out of Bounds stakes
3. The Weak Force, which makes the ball dribble to the ladies' tee
4. The Strong Force, which propels the ball directly towards a foursome of personal injury lawyers in the adjacent fairway

Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore the equilibrium of the universe.

It takes a whole lot of pressure to make a penalty stroke adhere to a scorecard.

Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, but it can be bent double, broken in half, stomped on, and hurled a considerable distance.
 
The number of tees in the ball pocket of your bag is always less than 3 or more than 600.

Removing raingear from the pocket of a golf bag instantly doubles its weight and triples its volume.

Even if a ball retriever extends to 40-feet, it will always be one foot too short to reach the ball.

A golf vacation is a trip taken by two or more players to a place where no one can remember when it rained so much.

The first golf bag down the chute of the airport luggage carousel belongs to a player waiting for it on another continent.

If you brought it, you won't need it, if you need it, you didn't bring it.
 
These are too funny!
 
Strokes always accumulate faster than they can be forgotten.

Since bad shots come in groups of three, a fourth bad shot is actually the first of the next group of three.

One birdie is a hot streak.

Shooting your age is not a realistic goal - focus on shooting your weight.

It's easier to shrink your shoe size than to lower your handicap.

If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age.

Anyone can groove a good, solid, repeatable practice swing.

It doesn't count as a swing thought if it's phrased as a player.

The more memorable the swing thought, the more useless the information it conveys.

Never try to keep more than thirty separate thoughts in your mind during your swing.
 
When you hit a horrible shot because you looked up, you will always look down again just at the moment when you ought to start watching the ball if you ever want to see it again.

When the wind is in your face, you swing too hard to try to compensate for it; when the wind is at your back, you swing too hard to try to take advantage of it.

When you play in a mixed foursome, there will always be at least one hole where you have to hit your second shot before the ladies tee off.

It's a waste of time to videotape your swing - what you need is duct tape.

The only thing you can learn from your mistakes is to stop paying the pro a hundred and fifty bucks to point them out to you.

You're never going to get anywhere in golf until you convert that nasty slice into a wicked hook.

There is no movement in the golf swing so difficult that it cannot be made even more difficult by careful study and diligent practice.
 
If you had to get up at five in the morning, got paid peanuts for working like a dog outdoors the whole day in all kinds of weather, and then took a lot of crap from a bunch of jerks, where would you put the pins?

Love it.

 
The most likely effect of a lesson is to instantly eliminate the one key flaw in your grip or stance that allowed you to somehow compensate for all the other faults in your swing.

Any swing drill or shotmaking tip that you just couldn't get the hang of during a one-hour lesson will be immediately mastered by the first player you describe it to.

If you managed to keep your head steady, it's probably because you locked your knees, lifted your shoulders, loosened your grip, and let your elbow fly.

All the basic movements of a perfectly executed golf swing can be easily duplicated by using a forceful turning motion of your body to toss a bag full of clubs into a pond.

Few golfers are born with a natural talent for hitting the ball, but every player is blessed with the God-given ability to roll the ball over, kick it, knock it back in bounds, or throw it into the middle of the fairway.
 
A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponent's sheer dumb luck.

A fool and his money make excellent golfing companions.

Good sportsmanship is as essential to the game of golf as good penmanship is to stock car racing.

The lower the stakes in any match, the more outrageous the behavior of the competitors.

There is no such thing as a friendly wager.

Golfers who claim they never cheat also lie.

Never leave your opponent with the sole responsibility for thinking of all the things that might go wrong with his shot.

Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.
 
If your opponent hasn't played the course before, don't be a spoilsport and ruin all the surprises.

Good golf manners require you to help a competitor search for a lost ball, but nothing says you have to find it.

If you're the only one who improves your lie, it's cheating; if you improve all lies, it's a reasonable allowance for unfair playing conditions.

Don't needle your partner.

Don't talk in your own backswing.

Always limp with the same leg for the whole round.

The score a player reports on any hole should always be regarded as his opening offer.

Never subtract so many strokes on any one hole that you wind up with the honor on the next tee.

The statue of limitations on forgotten strokes is on hole.



Just a few more pages to go. Thanks for reading along!
 
Great job. I would laugh more but they're too dang truthful.
 
In any best-ball match, the smaller the significance of your partner's putt, the greater the probability that he will sink it.

Taking more than two strokes to get down on a lightning-fast, steeply sloped green is no embarrassment unless you had to hit a wedge between putts.

It's surprisingly easy to hole a 50-foot putt when you lie 10.

Whenever there is money riding on a hole, someone will appear riding on a mower.

The putt for all the marbles will be on a green that they just sprayed with something that makes you dizzy.

Never play anyone for money who carries a 1-iron, has a tattoo, doesn't wear a glove, and can bounce a ball off the face of a sand wedge more than ten times in a row.

Never play with anyone would question an 8.

Never take a check from anyone who uses a bag tag as I.D.

You can hear a clap of thunder from a hundred miles away when you're three holes down with three to play.
 
No putt ever got shorter as a result of being marked.

A chip shot will always travel one-third of the distance to the hole, or twelve-thirds of the distance.

A practice shot hit from a bunker after a flubbed sand wedge will always stop right next to the hole.

The key to mastering the short shots is to make sure you don't start hitting them until you get within 100 yards of the green.

A ball hit to the wrong green will land two feet from the hole.

A ball hit to your green will stop an inch from where the hole was yesterday.

The only time you can ever suck back a ball is when in land 30 feet short.

If you take the pin out, the ball will rocket over the hole.

If you leave the pin in, it will bang the ball off the green.

If you tend the pin, it will jam in the cup.
 
Last edited:
Putts come three to a package.

The green often forgets which way the last putt broke.

Every putt is a straight putt if you hit the damn thing hard enough.

There are no lip-ins.

Misread putts have perfect pace; on-line putts never reach the hole.

Spike marks never turn a putt towards the cup.

Never lag a tap-in.

Never putt a gimme.

It's not a gimme if you're still away.

You can't teach touch.

You can't learn luck.

The yips are contagious, but no one catches a pure putting stroke.
 
If you're afraid a full shot might reach the green 200 yards away while the foursome in front of you is putting out, you have two options: You can go ahead and hit and rip the shot of your life onto the green on the fly, or you can wait until the green is clear and cold-top a ball halfway there.

love this one
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top