Greetings Golfers,

It’s U.S. Open week… and at Oakmont. That’s as good as it gets for championship golf. I just hope that the weather shapes up and they can finish on Sunday.

The USGA does a great job with the U.S. Open. They do championship golf extremely well. You can’t get lucky and win the U.S. Open … or the U.S. Amateur. But, the 2003 U.S. Amateur champ is caddying in this year’s U.S. Open – success at that level can be fleeting.

This is very serious golf. Though golf is a game – championship golf takes all of a person’s physical talents, strategy skills, and emotional control. This is the ultimate test of golf. And I respect it.

But, recreational golf with your friends is not this type of challenge. And a round of golf where you get paired up with a random person hoping to play, should especially not be intense. Here’s what happened here last weekend. A single player got paired up with a 3some. They did not have a match set up between themselves … just 4 people playing a casual round of golf. During the round, one of the players’ balls was deemed to be in the way of the single player who joined the group. This player demanded that ball be marked, and picked-up with two fingers, and not be cleaned because the ball wasn’t on the green. Now … was this player correct in the specifics of how to mark this ball? Yes. But, was the comment on how to pick up the ball and not clean it out of line? I sure think so. This round was not a competitive round of golf. Ironically the player who was scolded on how to mark the ball is knowledgeable of the rules of golf. But even if she wasn’t – she didn’t deserve this type of treatment from a stranger during a casual round of golf.

Once again, the difference between tournament golf and recreational golf rears its head. They are not the same game.

Tournament golf is about winning. Recreational golf is about having fun.

Cheers,

Tom Abts
GM and Head Golf Professional
tabts@deerrungolf.com