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Murphy's Laws of Golf by Henry Beard

Stribs

Stribs

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So my wife bought me this book a few years ago and it just sits on top of my work cubical for show and tell. Because of this, and for my chance to finally flip through the pages, I'm going to post a few pages or two per day (a page can be up to 4 sentences so it's not very long).
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If I fall off track, which I probably will, please reply to his original post so I get a notification, this way I can get back on board!

Enjoy
 
Day 1

The game of golf is 90% mental and 10% mental.

--

Anything that can go right will go way, way right.

Anything that can go wrong will wait to go wrong until after you leave the practice tee.
 
Day 2

All current problems can be traced to previous solutions.

No matter how badly you're playing, you can always play worse.

--

Whatever you think you're doing wrong is the one thing you're doing right.

If it ain't broke, don't fiddle with your grip.
 
Day 3

Anything works for three holes. What worked yesterday won't work today. It won't work tomorrow, either.

There are no little problems. There are no minor adjustments. There are no tiny pieces of advice.

--

The reason you do so well on the range is because it's really not all that hard to hit the horizon in regulation.

The only thing of actual value that you can take from the range to the first tee is a pocketful of range balls.

The only time you play absolutely flawless golf is when you are doing everything in your power to lose to the boss.

Everyone would like to get much better at golf, but they'll settle for you playing a whole lot worse.
 
golf3rguy said:
Day 3

Anything works for three holes. What worked yesterday won't work today. It won't work tomorrow, either.


--

The reason you do so well on the range is because it's really not all that hard to hit the horizon in regulation.
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I like these, looking forward to reading more.
 
Day 4

If you address the ball for more than twenty seconds, it's not a waggle - it's a seizure.

It's often necessary to hit a second drive to really appreciate the first one.

Hit the do-over first.

--

To hit a truly awful shot in golf, mere incompetence is not enough - you really need an audience.

If you can keep your head when the wheels come off, you need a new head.
 
Day 5

Tennis would be as difficult as golf if you only got one serve, six-love was par, you had to wait ten minutes between point, you often lost a dozen balls in a single set, and every now and then you needed to hit a backhand out of a tree.

The reason so many golfers take up fly-fishing is that the motion of casting with the rod is easily mastered by anyone who ever threw a club.

The reason golf is so popular is that it gives people cooped up in the office all week a chance to lie and cheat outdoors.

--

The stages of a golfer's game are: Sudden Collapse, Radical Change, Complete Frustration, Slow Improvement, Brief Mastery, and Sudden Collapse.

All change is for the worse, except the underwear.
 
Thanks for posting these. Sadly, some are entirely too true.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk
 
Day 6

You can always nail the drive on a hole with no carry.

Hazards attract, fairways repel, and trees never stop crooked shots.

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The shortest distance between any two points on a golf hole is a straight line that passes directly through the center of a very large tree.

The worse your drive is stymied, the more perfectly it would have played on the previous hole.

Nothing straightens out a slice faster than a sharp dogleg to the right.

When hitting a ball out of the woods, remember the trees are mostly air, just like screen doors and practice nets.
 
Day 7

Out of bounds is always on the right, two-thirds of the holes are uphill, and the wind is in your face on 15 of the holes.

The tees are always back, the rough will be mown tomorrow, and the rake is always in the other bunker.

--

Electric carts never die at the turn, it never starts raining in the middle of the 18th hole, and no one got a blister walking to the first tee.

The practice putting green is much faster or a lot slower than the rest of the green on the course.

On courses where the yardage is on the sprinkler head, the nearest one will be 40 yards away, it will be blank, and it will turn on as you're looking at it.
 
I appreciate this thread alot....thanks for the humor
 
Day 8

There's no ground that couldn't use a little repair.

It's always winter somewhere.

Remember, there are no referees in golf -- it's up to you and you alone to decide if you're entitled to a free kick.

--

The pro shop has the kind of glove you like, but not your size.

All the hats are yellow.

The only cheap balls are Top Flite X-outs.

A bag of tees costs four bucks.

--

If you stop for lunch between nines, you will overhear a conversation featuring the words "choke" and "shank".

If you stop for a beer at the end of the round, you will hear someone bitching about shooting a 78.

The fancier the course, the greater the risk of food poisoning.
 
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Day 9

The people who buy houses on golf courses always seem surprised to discover that a game in which balls are hit with considerable force is being played practically in their backyards.

The people on the greenkeeping staff always look like they took the job because a golf course is such a perfect place to dispose of all the bodies.

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?

--

A ball will always travel farthest when hit in the wrong direction.

A ball will never lip out of a pot bunker or burn the edge of a pond.

You can draw the ball, you can fade the ball, but no one can straight the ball.
 
golf3rguy said:
Day 9

The people who buy houses on golf courses always seem surprised to discover that a game in which balls are hit with considerable force is being played practically in their backyards.
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Just spit out my coffee at this one. So true/funny it hurts.
 
golf3rguy said:
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?
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loved this one
 
Playing in the goofy weather of SW Missouri makes me think that book has to contain or should contain something similar to this.... "Any 40 MPH wind into your face will become a 2 MPH breeze as soon as you reach the next teebox going in the opposite direction."
 
Day 10

A ball will always come to rest halfway down a slope unless there is sand or water at the bottom.

A ball at rest on a steep slope will tend to remain at rest until the moment it is addressed.

The harder you try to keep your ball from landing in a particular place, the more certain it is to go there.

A ball will always seek the lowest point in which to lie so long as that point is not a perfectly round hole 4 1/2 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep.
 
Day 11

If there is a ball in the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is in the bunker.

If both balls are in the bunker, yours is in the footprint.

A ball that looked stiff to the pin from back in the fairway will be ten feet form the hole when you get to the green.

The only time you can put the ball exactly where you want it is when you stick it in the ballwasher.

A ball hit into the rough will always disappear between two identical shrubs.

A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.

If you can't find your ball int he rough, but you do find another ball that could easily play, it will be orange, yellow, or pink.
 
Day 12

The fewer balls you have, the more balls you lose; the more balls you have, the more balls you lose.

A ball you searched for for five minutes will be found in five seconds by a player in the first group behind you.

Before you drop a ball, always decide whether you're going for accuracy or distance.

The only sure way to find a drive sliced deep into the woods is to hit a provisional ball right down the middle of the fairway.

The only sure way to hit a perfectly straight 250-yard drive is to decide not to go for it on a dogleg hole.

The only sure way to get a hole-in-one is to be playing terrible golf all by yourself on a course you sneaked onto without paying on a day when you called in sick.
 
Day 13

The key to target golf is choosing a really, really big target.

It's a simple matter to keep your ball in the fairway if you're not too choosy about which fairway.

You can hit a 2-acre fairway 100% of the time, and a 2-inch branch 90% of the time.

You can put your ball in even the smallest fairway bunker if you pick it as an aiming point.

If you have to hit a drive over a ravine, you need to make up your mind whether you're going to hit a good shot short with a **** ball, or a **** shot short with a good ball.

When your tee shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls.
 
Only when thinking there's no way I can reach the group in front will you absolutely nut one.

Happened last weekend, my internal conversation said "Self, there is no way this hybrid is a 240 yard club" "You're right self, 210 with roll at the most". Well, it took off and all I could was cringe. So embarrassing.
 
LOL with Matthew. ..same thing happened last Thursday but 4W with me. Lol
 
bulldog said:
LOL with Matthew. ..same thing happened last Thursday but 4W with me. Lol
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Luckily, I think they were pretty hard of hearing because they never looked back. I felt bad but karma caught up with me as the group behind hit my dang cart. I should've been mad but after almost killing a very senior citizen and screaming "FORE" at the top of my lungs, I figured I had it coming.
 
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