Vanity Capping Sandbagging Pickle

dartboss04 · October 21, 2012

I currently play in a traveling men's club and it is really my only official competitive outlet at the moment. I've only played in a handful of events this year but have played numerous regular rounds. As I have not played in a tournament round since mid August, GHIN has been far from my mind. I track stats and handicap online.

Fast forward to this evening. I'm checking my pairings for tomorrow and see a familiar name in my group. It is one of my "friends" from the online tracking site. We've never officially met but crossed paths on the website a we played similar courses.

The first thing I'm feeling is immense pressure. This isn't the healthy nerves at the beginning of rounds. It is so much worse. Basically I feel Iike I have something to prove tomorrow because he has seen all my scores. If I hack it up he's going to think I'm just some guy telling internet tall tales, for whatever pathetic reason. I don't want to be vanity cap guy.

All that fear shifts to the other worse side of the handicap fudge factory. As I have not kept up my scores on GHIN and have posted some good rounds in the last couple months my index has gone down a fair amount on the website. This friend can see my scores, and my index, and the last thing I want tomorrow is him WTF'ing my course handicap. After my mini panic attack, I decided to email our club president. I let him know what the index was off the site and to update my club cap as to avoid any issues. This is my last tournament of the year and I will make sure to get all my other scores in as soon as possible. Hopefully he will still let me play in the tournament as a competitor without an official cap.

Lesson learned and possible sandbagging disaster avoided. If I end up hacking it around tomorrow, he may still brand me a vanity cap, but that I can live with.

dartboss04 · October 22, 2012

I probably should have ended with a question in the above. I really wanted to know if anyone else has that anticipatory fear that I was having. Maybe playing in your first outing with fellow WRX'ers, people you've interacted with for a while online, but never met. I would imagine the more someone knows about your game, the more you want to live up to whatever expectations may be out there.

teejaywhy · October 22, 2012

Once you start down the path of worrying about what someone thinks about you (your handicap, what irons you play, your shoes, your belt, too much khaki, etc...) you are well on the way to mental illness.

Keep an accurate handicap and have self confidence. What a stranger thinks is not relevant. Play the best you can and deal with the results. You may win, you may lose, ultimately it is one round of golf. Have fun.

Thrillhouse · October 22, 2012

Play by the rules, enter all your scores, have fun when you play!

Sounds like you've created all this anxiety because you want to control something you can't control, what someone else thinks about you. Don't worry about it.

dartboss04 · October 22, 2012

Got through the round without a problem. He was a good guy. After the first tee shot, I wasn't anymore nervous than usual.

You are both absolutely right not to worry what peolple think. I certainly don't care about the club aspect...have a K15 and multiple hybrids...looks like a raisin's bag haha. For some reason I was just putting more pressure on myself.

As a side note, I really want to play more competitive rounds. I was only able to play in 5 or so tournaments this year out of 50 or so times out. Tournament golf is just different. There's something about feeling that pressure to perform. It's amazing what a 3 footer looks like in a tournament. We are playing for small potatoes but it is just not the same as a casual round with friends.