Why not just sandbag?

[MelloYello]

1 minute ago, North Butte said:

I have never heard a single person other than yourself say anything remotely like that about flighted golf tournaments. Honestly, that comment reads like a bad parody of Ayn Rand. Not like any real world golfers I've ever met.

 

I guarantee you the plus handicappers at my club would have zero interest in putting a bunch of hacks like me in their flight of any tournament. They are perfectly happy having their own competition (the "real" club championship) and letting the 1st flight, 2nd flight, etc. do their own thing. 

 

No clue about Ayn Rand. 

 

You've never come across SBMM anywhere? No offense but video games are way more popular than golf and it's been around for a long time there as a sort of cancer that the majority of gamers complain about. 

 

Make fun of video games if you will but they're 1000x more potent and competitive than golf. A high-level match of CoD is like main-lining heroin compared to golf and it was ruined entirely by SBMM. 

 

Same exact thing. Catered to weaker players. The only people who could survive were noobs and Pros who played 12 hours a day. Doesn't that sound a bit like golf? Who really wins? Elite players do. Bad players do. And of course, sand-baggers. 

 

And what are the Content Creators turning to with SBMM? Sand-bagging! 

 

LOL...it's the same thing. 

[Double Mocha Man]

1 hour ago, MelloYello said:

 

I don't mind losing and going home with nothing but I DO NOT want to see other players card higher scores and get rewarded. That's not fair and it's equivalent to cheating. If I get nothing, it should be the same for them. I was once where they were and had to climb my way up. Nobody paid me for it. 

 

I work hard to be in the top Flight. This was a Gross event. Flighting based on Handicap ruins it. I was  T8 overall. If that's outside the money, so be it. I don't care.

 

Just don't pay out hundreds of dollars to guys who I beat, alright?

 

That feels more like insider trading. 

 

.

 

 

Somebody on here give Mello Yello a hug.

[MelloYello]

4 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Dude, how much money or merchandise do you win in a year?  Maybe $1000.  $2000 at the most.  Chump change compared to getting a whiney reputation and losing friends.

 

I don't see my take as whiney and I think the majority of us in the 0-5 index range (talking about the dozens of guys I play with each month at my club) would prefer to play it straight up, even if it meant losing. It's about how we set things up, not about who wins. 

 

Again, I want a White Tee and a Blue Tee Championship on separate weekends, maybe even a Stableford event, too, all held separately. I'm asking for something I know everyone else I play with would be in favor of, too. 

 

I've spoken to the table. I know what we all want. I'm surprised so many here don't think the same way. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by MelloYello

[North Butte]

2 minutes ago, sethdavidsdad said:

I hate it but sad part is there is really no easy answer. If you only pay top 20 players or teams then the high caps won't play. Only real answer is possibly preflight the event with the pro or someone that knows all players but that's hard to do also. Plus people get mad a pro then. I'm usually bottom of champ flight facing whatever college player that just finished up his college years but I prefer that over the 2nd and 3rd flight baggers. At least I know where I stand and a good round can get me in the money. 

We have a handicap game at our club. It has it's own handicap so only round count are when you put money in to play the game. It adjusts based on last 4 rounds. People still cheat on this game. Personally I think it's silly watching a doctor that makes over 300k per year throw off for 4 rounds so he can win $100-200 in a money game. This should be in the dictionary under the word Dumbassery. 

There are some people whose brains seemed to be wired such that winning something by oh-so-clever cheating gives them a special buzz. Even when it isn't half as clever as they think it is. It's a form of "I'm smarter than everybody else" delusion. 

[North Butte]

3 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

 

No clue about Ayn Rand. 

 

You've never come across SBMM anywhere? No offense but video games are way more popular than golf and it's been around for a long time there as a sort of cancer that the majority of gamers complain about. 

 

Make fun of video games if you will but they're 1000x more potent and competitive than golf. A high-level match of CoD is like main-lining heroin compared to golf and it was ruined entirely by SBMM. 

 

Same exact thing. Catered to weaker players. The only people who could survive were noobs and Pros who played 12 hours a day. Doesn't that sound a bit like golf? Who really wins? Elite players do. Bad players do. And of course, sand-baggers. 

 

And what are the Content Creators turning to with SBMM? Sand-bagging! 

 

LOL...it's the same thing. 

Young man,

 

I come from the generation who never played a video game in our lives, unless you count tossing  quarters into an arcade machine when we were 10 years old. Not a clue what all that is about.

[MelloYello]

10 minutes ago, North Butte said:

There are some people whose brains seemed to be wired such that winning something by oh-so-clever cheating gives them a special buzz. Even when it isn't half as clever as they think it is. It's a form of "I'm smarter than everybody else" delusion. 

 

I'll say this much...I saw a legit sand-bagger close up recently at a cross-town event and it's really got me thinking. I'm good enough to do what he does. I'm good enough to reduce my practice load, start turning my rounds into "practice," end up carrying a 5-6 index and yet still be close enough to playing shape that I can find my A game before a tournament.

 

It's like Joe Rogan taking the Spotify money or my friend going to work for "evil" Disney. Why do we value others' opinions to such an extent? It's okay to selfishly guard / flaunt your index as if that matters, but not covet money? We can't chase actual results but our handicaps themselves matter? Like...wth? 

 

I think we've become slaves to the wrong thing here...honor. The winner is the person who can win. Honor is performative. Maybe we need to redefine and better understand what winning is. If I practice my tail off all year and SBMM only makes life harder, aren't I just stupid? Aren't I just running uphill? 

 

IN the end, this is a conversation about how none of this feels worth it at all if life is just going to get harder the more I work. Every instinct I have is to run away from that kind of losing battle. To me, that's what defines the try-hards. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by MelloYello

[MelloYello]

8 minutes ago, North Butte said:

Young man,

 

I come from the generation who never played a video game in our lives, unless you count tossing  quarters into an arcade machine when we were 10 years old. Not a clue what all that is about.

 

Oh that's right, yours is the generation that can't go 1 conversation without mentioning Ayn Rand!

 

🙂

 

Oh, hey, I'm reading Blood Meridian right now. I don't know if you like books, but BM seems interesting. 

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by MelloYello

[MattC555]

2 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

 

Oh that's right, yours is the generation that can't go 1 conversation without mentioning Ayn Rand!

 

🙂

13 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Somebody on here give Mello Yello a hug.

 

This.

 

[North Butte]

4 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

 

Oh that's right, yours is the generation that can't go 1 conversation without mentioning Ayn Rand!

 

🙂

 

To my knowledge, it's the first time I ever typed the name "Ayn Rand" in my life. I had to go look up how to spell it. She was popular among mid-20th-century Nietzschean "Übermensch" blowhards. Most of whom are probably dead by now, supermen or not. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by North Butte

[swh0507]

By your logic, the guys on the pga tour who don't make the cut, should be complaining about the Korn Ferry guys making more money.

 

You need to realize there were four separate CC tournaments played the same weekend. You entered and played the whites with 8ish other people. You lost. Do better next time. 

[MelloYello]

Uhhhhh.....kinda? Just to be clear AR was famous for promoting objectivism, a kind of half-hearted school of philosophy that is today confused with out and out selfishness. Clearly an oversimplification, but irrelevant nonetheless. Rand was an author, not a philosopher. And her thoughts are mostly a reaction to pre-Soviet violence in Russia. The American Right capitalized on her "patriotic" sentiment, holding her up for more than she was...which again, was just a novelist.

 

One should definitely not conflate AR and FN. Totally different.

Edited May 16, 2022 by MelloYello

[Double Mocha Man]

59 minutes ago, North Butte said:

It all reminds me of one of the older guys I worked with at my part-time job in college. He went to the pool hall down the street every evening after work. I asked him one afternoon if I could come along and play, maybe learn something from playing against him.

 

He said, "Why not just give me the 100 bucks now and go home instead of wasting two hours"? 

Did you kick his butt?  Lot's of big talkers in pool.  On the other hand he might have said that so you wouldn't discover he was less of a pool player than he claimed he was...

[MelloYello]

3 minutes ago, swh0507 said:

By your logic, the guys on the pga tour who don't make the cut, should be complaining about the Korn Ferry guys making more money.

 

You need to realize there were four separate CC tournaments played the same weekend. You entered and played the whites with 8ish other people. You lost. Do better next time. 

 

I'm going to write a strongly-worded letter to the Korn Ferry Tour immediately.

 

You are on to something here!

[MelloYello]

1 minute ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Did you kick his butt?  Lot's of big talkers in pool.  On the other hand he might have said that so you wouldn't discover he was less of a pool player than he claimed he was...

 

I feel like $100 is probably about right for a 2-hour pool lesson, no?

 

Sounds like a good deal.

[MelloYello]

12 minutes ago, North Butte said:

To my knowledge, it's the first time I ever typed the name "Ayn Rand" in my life. I had to go look up how to spell it. She was popular among mid-20th-century Nietzschean "Übermensch" blowhards. Most of whom are probably dead by now, supermen or not. 

 

Always good when a thread devolves into someone quoting German, LOL. 

[Double Mocha Man]

58 minutes ago, MelloYello said:

But when it comes to who gets the free FJ Polo from the Pro Shop....well, now it's serious! And I think it's better to give that to the person who spends 5 days a week practicing...

Did you really say that?!  Ok. I'm gonna go practice now.  Send me my shirt, but I'd prefer a RL Polo.  Size L, in black.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Double Mocha Man

[Krt22]

1 hour ago, Shilgy said:

So you are of the mind that says when you get older and cannot physically compete with the best players just quit?  Odd suggestion for a competitor such as yourself.  If you are a 0.6 you were likely easily the lowest in your flight.  Gross but you got smoked anyways because you played poorly. Deal with it.

 

This is one of the sillier threads I’ve read here….I’m out.

Indeed. Imagine shooting 7 over your index for 2 days and thinking you should win money. Maybe he should start practicing 7 days a week

[North Butte]

40 minutes ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Did you kick his butt?  Lot's of big talkers in pool.  On the other hand he might have said that so you wouldn't discover he was less of a pool player than he claimed he was...

I couldn't (still can't) play a lick at pool. I'd thought since we were kind of work-buddies he'd give me a little free help on my game. Turns out he wasn't really a "free" kind of guy. 

[MK7Golf21]

I agree about handicap events but if it wasn't setup that way then probably wouldn't get near as much participation. They should have more money for prizes in the 1st flight vs. 2nd and 3rd though. Like no one in the second flight can win as much as winners in first flight. 

[Krt22]

2 minutes ago, MK7Golf21 said:

I agree about handicap events but if it wasn't setup that way then probably wouldn't get near as much participation. They should have more money for prizes in the 1st flight vs. 2nd and 3rd though. Like no one in the second flight can win as much as winners in first flight. 

This makes no sense. The prize money for each flight, is essentially paid by the entry fees of those in the flight. There is no reason for any one flight to subsidize the prize money of another based on nothing other than index. That defeats the purpose of playing in a flighted event and the handicap system as a whole. What our club does is have a low gross prize for each flight in addition to a low net and the low gross prize is a bit more.

 

 

[Mudguard]

8 minutes ago, MK7Golf21 said:

I agree about handicap events but if it wasn't setup that way then probably wouldn't get near as much participation. They should have more money for prizes in the 1st flight vs. 2nd and 3rd though. Like no one in the second flight can win as much as winners in first flight. 

Why should there be more money? What if the third flight has thirty players and the first has five? Perhaps they should play for what is put in?

I don't get this argument. Handicaps exist for a reason, if you have a golf club and just have gross events/prizes you'll have no golf club.

The average handicap globally is eighteen. Go start a golf club with single figure handicaps only and see how much you'll need in subs. Yes the handicap system isn't perfect (and it seem broken in the US) but without it you'll have no golf clubs. 

[MK7Golf21]

6 minutes ago, Krt22 said:

This makes no sense. The prize money for each flight, is essentially paid by the entry fees of those in the flight. There is no reason for any one flight to subsidize the prize money of another based on nothing other than index. That defeats the purpose of playing in a flighted event and the handicap system as a whole. What our club does is have a low gross prize for each flight in addition to a low net and the low gross prize is a bit more.

 

 

 

It gives incentive to play in a higher flight instead of sandbagging to win a lower flight prize money.

 

We have a mens city tournament each year are there are flights; championship, a flight, b flight. No one really pays that much attention to the a/b flight winners and the trophies are smaller for people who win the a or b flight.

Edited May 16, 2022 by MK7Golf21

[Double Mocha Man]

2 minutes ago, MK7Golf21 said:

No one really pays that much attention to the lower flight winners and the trophies are smaller for people who win the a or b flight.

Sort of like this?

[Krt22]

Just now, MK7Golf21 said:

 

It gives incentive to play in a higher flight instead of sandbagging to win a lower flight prize money.

 

We have a mens city tournament each year are there are flights; championship, a flight, b flight. No one really pays that much attention to the lower flight winners and the trophies are smaller for people who win the a or b flight.

There are lots of golfers who have legit caps and aren't going to dramatically lower their cap (age, time to play, family, etc). There is no reason for them to all pay the same entry fee yet win less. If those playing in the championship flights want a bigger prize, well they should all pay higher entry fees then. 

 

Again, this totally defeats the purpose of the handicap system as a whole. The only people who seem to gripe about this stuff are low index guys who can only beat higher index guys. If you want the top prize, beat everyone in your flight, not that hard. 

[North Butte]

8 minutes ago, Krt22 said:

The only people who seem to gripe about this stuff are low index guys who can only beat higher index guys. If you want the top prize, beat everyone in your flight, not that hard. 

Exactly,

 

And yet the OP was saying he couldn't hang with the plus-handicaps because they would "smoke him". The whole premise of the thread is a bit absurd, isn't it? 

 

It seems to boil down to "I can't beat the real sticks so I ought to win money from the high handicap hackers'. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by North Butte

[nsxguy]

2 hours ago, MelloYello said:

 

I don't mind losing and going home with nothing but I DO NOT want to see other players card higher scores and get rewarded. That's not fair and it's equivalent to cheating. If I get nothing, it should be the same for them. I was once where they were and had to climb my way up. Nobody paid me for it. 

 

I work hard to be in the top Flight. This was a Gross event. Flighting based on Handicap ruins it. I was  T8 overall. If that's outside the money, so be it. I don't care.

 

Just don't pay out hundreds of dollars to guys who I beat, alright?

 

That feels more like insider trading.

 

It's funny how you now seem to be alone on a the wrong side of the argument,,,,,,,,,,,,, yet again.

 

You have a dozen or 2 posters, apparently more experienced than yourself explaining to you how, if you had ONLY GROSS scores count you'd have much less participation.

 

I GET your frustration, but you're not talking about 3 different flights; you're talking about 3 different tournaments.

 

YOU yourself, in the top flight would get your butt kicked. While I understand there is an enjoyment component to playing golf, if you're any sort of competitor at all, you play to compete. You play to win. If you have NO chance of winning you might as well go practice some more instead of wasting an entry fee. What's the point ? You can get some fresh air practicing.

 

Unfortunately there are FAR MORE people who want to play than there are top level players. So what should the rest of us do ? Not play ? Not compete ?

 

EVERY sport, below professional level, has many different recreational categories. Softball, baseball, soccer, basketball; you name it. They are ALL "flighted", just like golf and just like (apparently) Call of Duty.

 

And if the players can't compete on the level they're on they move down or stop playing, Or, if there 's too little competition, move up. Or they stop.

 

Why should golf be any different ?

 

I used to put you into a similar category as Pinestreet (before he left). You may go against the grain, not that there's anything wrong with that, but you didn't get so flustered and at least you presented reasonable arguments.

 

But lately you're going off the reservation. You going to quit THIS thread like you quit your last one - just because so many disagree with you ?

 

 

(And now you can make fun of me (too) for using emoticons. 🙃)

 

 

 

 

[MK7Golf21]

1 minute ago, Krt22 said:

There are lots of golfers who have legit caps and aren't going to dramatically lower their cap (age, time to play, family, etc). There is no reason for them to all pay the same entry fee yet win less. If those playing in the championship flights want a bigger prize, well they should all pay higher entry fees then. 

 

Again, this totally defeats the purpose of the handicap system as a whole. The only people who seem to gripe about this stuff are low index guys who can only beat higher index guys. If you want the top prize, beat everyone in your flight, not that hard. 

 

you want to start getting rid of sandbagging issue then start awarding the higher flights more vs. lower flights. They are the ones shooting the lower scores after all and putting more time/effort into their game. 

 

Everyone pays the same entry fee to a scramble and you don't see high handicaps complaining.

 

 

[Krt22]

7 minutes ago, MK7Golf21 said:

 

you want to start getting rid of sandbagging issue then start awarding the higher flights more vs. lower flights. They are the ones shooting the lower scores after all and putting more time/effort into their game. 

 

Everyone pays the same entry fee to a scramble and you don't see high handicaps complaining.

 

 

1. How is it a "sandbagging issue" when a near "scratch" golfer shoots +14 over two days? That is absurd. If you can't at least should close to your index in a tournament, you can't expect to win and are likely a glorified vanity cap. Flighted events are very very simple, beat the 8-10 guys in your flight. Anyone else playing in another flight is essentially a completely different competition, in some cases playing from different tees. If you are sore that prize money is given to anyone who shot a higher gross score, only enter non-flighted events then and have fun getting smoked by the + guys. Again this is the entire purpose of the handicap system.

 

2. Scrambles aren't real tournaments. Anyone who gets serious about "winning" a scramble is either a cheater, a chop, or both. 

[Krt22]

19 minutes ago, North Butte said:

Exactly,

 

And yet the OP was saying he couldn't hang with the plus-handicaps because they would "smoke him". The whole premise of the thread is a bit absurd, isn't it? 

 

It seems to boil down to "I can't beat the real sticks so I ought to win money from the high handicap hackers'. 

It really is interesting what sort of mental gymnastics some guys will go through to justify not being able to perform under pressure. In a multi-day event all you really need to do is shoot around your index, if you can't at least do that on occasion, perhaps you aren't nearly as good as you think. 

[MK7Golf21]

7 minutes ago, Krt22 said:

1. How is it a "sandbagging issue" when a near "scratch" golfer shoots +14 over two days? That is absurd. If you can't at least should close to your index in a tournament, you can't expect to win and are likely a glorified vanity cap. Flighted events are very very simple, beat the 8-10 guys in your flight. Anyone else playing in another flight is essentially a completely different competition, in some cases playing from different tees. If you are sore that prize money is given to anyone who shot a higher gross score, only enter non-flighted events then and have fun getting smoked by the + guys. Again this is the entire purpose of the handicap system.

 

2. Scrambles aren't real tournaments. Anyone who gets serious about "winning" a scramble is either a cheater, a chop, or both. 

 

Not talking about OP, I haven't even read most of this thread. I'm talking about bigger picture and pointing out what I believe regarding flighted tournaments to stop sandbagging which is an issue. The prize should not be the same for the guy who shoots +20 in c flight tournament vs. the guy who wins championship flight at -2. Until you fix that, sandbagging will always be an issue.