The Day Before:
Practice round : Friggin’ nightmare game sometimes. Bear crying after 1st drive, 2nd and 3rd – one after the other off first tee. All right into the woods. He still pars the hole (using one of the above). After hole 2 he is mad enough to erase the score to this point and declare we are not keeping score for him. This is the second practice round we have played this week and that has been the case with both. Bear, on the other hand, is obsessed with the score – and he’s the one that really can’t afford to be – although he has parred holes 1 and 2 so far.
Text from his coach post-lesson today : Have low expectations with Rob at the moment. Doing better in backswing, but transitionally challenged. Tried to get him to shift his lower body to the right in the transition to help get the club from the inside coming down instead of so severely out to in. Bear swinging well.
Between them shouting at me and each other this is not going well and I have decided to do my best to just shut up and drive the cart. I really have to try and be happier.
The Day Of:
Tee times worked out such that Rob played early and Bear played later and Rob chose daddy on the bag and Bear was not hearing about having mom on the bag …….. So here is a note on Tournament 7 from dad on the bag and some good information on how to handle occasions when your playing partner is a little less than honest :
This last weekend Rob played early and in a 2 ball, so should have been A LOT quicker than the regular 3 or 4 ball, however it was a very slow round due to slow groups in front of us. This meant a lot of talking and interaction to distract him from the long wait between shots. What should have been 2 hours or less turned into almost 3 hours..! Again, lots of snacks and drinks help..!
We also had the unfortunate issue of playing with a junior and his caddy that had not played a lot of tournaments and repeatedly tried to count a few less shots than they actually took. This is a tricky situation when you know or suspect a junior and/or their caddy of cheating – whether through undercounting shots, illegally moving a ball, marking and replacing a putt closer to the hole etc.
It is your responsibility as the playing partner and score keeper to protect the rest of the field against this type of behavior. Always call out the incident immediately and don’t let it continue – it will always get worse during the round if they think they can get away with it. Also, calling it out after the round is pointless and only creates heated arguments (I have witnessed several of these after the end of a round by some of the top juniors in the country).
Sometimes it may be inadvertent and/or due to lack of knowledge of the rules. Regardless, there are always “nice” or diplomatic but factual ways of making sure someone is not cheating. For example, if on Hole 1 you notice the player marks his/her ball on the green then goes to replace it giving themselves an inch or 2 closer to the hole (unfortunately this is not that uncommon..!) – instead of saying “you cheated by replacing your ball closer to the hole”, you could say something like “let’s all be careful about how we mark and replace balls on the green during this round” – that way they are on notice that you will be watching for any infringement. It is also good to address the whole group if you are playing a 3 or 4 ball.
For score keeping issues always make sure to call out and agree with the score of a hole immediately after the hole and before teeing off on the next hole. That way the group can count the shots together and confirm how many were taken (sometimes it helps to count shots into the green + number of putts). Do NOT wait until after the round to agree on scores as memories of each hole become blurred very easily.
Our round did improve once I started helping the other player count their shots and instead of asking what they got on a hole stating what I counted for them and letting them correct me if need be.
Despite the above we still had a fun time and it is great seeing improvements in certain areas of Rob’s game. In addition it was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the importance of “doing the right thing”, being honest and fair, how to make sure others are being fair, and in one instance calling a penalty on himself even when the playing partner was not aware of it. Valuable life lessons!