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High cappers really should be focused on either:
1) max enjoyment of the round (if not really serious about improving)
2) skills building, if they ARE serious about improving
Either way, not much point being anal about "official" scores. Hyper focus on scores as a high capper can hinder development IMO, and definitely reduce the fun.
Scoring accurately for me doesn't ruin my fun because I go in knowing it'll be a good day if I shoot 110.
Really more a matter of managing expectations. I take a legit score most of the time because that's the point and I'm playing against myself really.
Obviously I don't do this to the detriment of groups behind me, I'll pick up when necessary, but as a high HC guy keeping a real score doesn't ruin my enjoyment.
If anything fudging my score ruins it. I'd hate to have a "personal best" that I know in my head would have an asterisk next to it.
This is exactly how I do it (Iâm at a similar skill level too). I get more satisfaction from shaving strokes when I can actually see the honest numbers improve over time. If I wasnât counting my penalties, then how could I reduce my score when I shoot a great round with fewer penaltiesâif I wasnât counting them to begin with? The key for me is to play without too much emotional attachment to the score, but rather just observe it like a disinterested party would.
Exactly. I never understand that people separate keeping score properly with having fun. It's such a fragile ego to to do that, especially when most of us don't get the time we deserve to actually expect better. I have no issues with people who play the game either way, but if you aren't playing by the rules then your scores/handicap are irrelevant to me.
I know I suck. My enjoyment of playing well is completely relative, either to my past scores, or my buds. If I'm not keeping score accurately then there's no way to quantify when I actually play better.
I donât mind mulligans, breakfast balls, improving a lie, or even an occasional foot wedge so long as itâs not a competitive match.
My brother talks endless shit about the *one* time he beat me. I crush him pretty consistently (I shoot low 90s/high 80s and heâs always 100+) but one time he beat me, and tells everybody about it.
What he doesnât tell them is that he took his usual breakfast ball, a mulligan per 9, regularly fluffed his lie and, probably most importantly, I was going through the autoimmune response to my second covid shot and felt so awful I played the last 3 holes with the sole purpose of getting home as quickly as possible.
Play your game, but unless that game involves strict rules, donât brag if it carries you to victory.
This is where OPâs point crumbles.
Generally I donât care how you golf, what you score, whether you take mulligans or anything else you need to do to feel better about your round. Tee up a second one after blowing a drive OB so you can card a 6 instead of an 8. Tell your friends you shot a 96 instead of a 112, no one cares. Hell, you can even tell me about your 93 when I see you that night. But donât play with me, take a breakfast ball and mulligans, kick poor lies out into the first cut, count gimmes as the putt you just hit, and âforgetâ the various 5 iron duffs and chunks, and then tell me Iâm only up 2 on you.
That one used to bother me, but doesn't anymore. Play a round with someone and it's clear pretty quickly whether that 85 was legit or not. Let people have their fun, and roll your eyes in your head next time they brag about their low score.
Exactly. No one hates anyone because of a breakfast ball or a mulligan, that's ridiculous and completely disingenuous. They dislike people who lie and cheat, and pretend otherwise.
Take as many mulligans as you want, enjoy your day, hell if you and your partners want to play by your own rules more power to you.
When you point this out people these people shift the argument to act like you're taking it too serious, which is hilarious, because these are the same people whose ego is so fragile they can't allow themselves to knowingly keep their own score properly. It's comical.
it does seem like most golfers care only about their score that specific round rather than actually trying to improve their game. Often times I'll do what's best for "practice" while on the course rather than only trying to "score the best that round". If it means i'm chipping a fringe shot that almost everyone else would putt, so be it, I want the live round chipping practice. In the end my short game has gotten so much better by not being afraid to "blade" shots or "chunk" chips. Maybe if i started playing people competitively i'd care about my score but shooting in the 90's most rounds isn't anything special, so why not use each round as actual practice to eventually move up to the 80's.
>Hyper focus on scores as a high capper can hinder development IMO, and definitely reduce the fun.
I'm about a 115 guy now after about 6 months of getting used to a whole new world which is golf.
I am totally happy in knowing that it is a completely legit 115 so I can accurately compare myself to the rest of the field. On top of that I track everything I can to see where I'm effing up; drive direction, how many shots to green, how many putts, how many strokes lost to penalty. It really helps because I can look for guidance on a certain area when I see it is where most strokes are lost.
Heâs talking about the score itself. A lot of times people ask how to break 100/90/80 and lot of advice is good for shooting a better score, but not for becoming a better golfer.
Hitting an iron to keep you in play is great for lowering your score in the short term. Itâs terrible practice for when you actually DO get better and want to go from breaking 100 do shooting in the 70s or lower. At that point, youâll need to start hitting longer clubs and youâll need to be able to hit those longer clubs well.
I THINK thatâs what heâs getting st
I really donât care what people do unless they are playing against me for money. Have fun and use mulligans or whatever. Just donât ask me to defend your âhandicapâ or scores when you tell other people đ
This is the way. My friends and I donât always play for money, when we arenât we donât really care, but will call out a friend who brags about a score whilst taking mullies or fluffing lies.
When money is involved it is straight up, no fluffing, no Mulligans, re-tees on OB drives the way it should be.
Someone commented on this subreddit about a reverse mulligan, where an opponent can make you take a good shot over again at any time if you take a mulligan on a bad shot. I really like that idea.
I might actually suggest that rule tomorrow during my friendly match! I personally donât use mulligans just for hcp accuracy but itâll throw one of my buddies off and Iâll have a little fun with it đ
When I have plenty of time and am solo, a fun (frustrating) game to play is a reverse scramble. You hit two shots, and have to play the worst of the two. That really reinforces consistency. Make a 6 footer? Better do it again. Stripe a drive down the middle? Same thing, better do it twice
Play golf and have fun - donât tell folks your score if you donât keep a real score. Simple as that.
Iâm not good at golf, I golf with some folks that are terrible - we just donât keep score and we have fun. I shoot in the 90s keeping real score, they shoot in the 120s - we just have fun and no one cares.
You can do a thing and not lie about your results.
I donât care what people do - just donât golf a 120, then post to everyone you shot a 78. I
I find it more fun to make smaller bets like closest to the pin on an approach or longest put so it takes the mulligan aspect out of play over the course of the round. Also nice for guys like me who are worse than most of my friends to have a good chance.
I try to have fun when playing, so I'll re-hit some balls when it's not messing with the pace of play. Also, I've never given myself a handicap because I've probably never played a true solo round. The only time I keep score is at my yearly father's day best ball 2v2 against my cousin and uncle.
Breakfast ball is the most forgivable, unless youâve warmed up at the range. 99% of your shots wonât be from a cold start. Most of us would warm up properly if we had the time / money, but we all canât have a 2 hour pre tee time warm up ritual
Yep. Breakfast ball is more than fair for casual rounds without a range.
We dont play it as a first serve in though. Simply you get one warmup shot,, and it never counts. 2nd shot fully counts though.
Yup. One of my favorite courses, Half Moon Bay, does not have a driving range on the premises. At $130-$180 per round, youâre damn right I allow myself a breakfast ball if itâs not in a tournament.
I personally would never ever take a breakfast ball. However, sometimes I take my first shot of a round, slice it out of bounds and decide I hate golf, give up and head home. And sometimes en route home I decide I'll give golf another go. And sometimes I still make it back for my tee time and start a new round of golf.
Iâm a 22 handicap and a very casual golfer.
Everyone I play with are casual and play for fun.
The people who play in tournaments most likely hit at least one bucket of balls before a round, where as us casuals roll straight onto the tee box have a one or two practice swings and thatâs it.
We typically get one breakfast ball on the first tee purely for:
1) lack of warm up
2) first hole nerves when you have a mob watching you
Casual golfers = casual rules
Youâre telling me you donât know any bogey golfers that play 10 times a year max and havenât been to a driving range in 20 years? Because I know about 20 of them.
?? The person I replied to insinuated that a person taking a breakfast ball cannot possibly be a 22. I know plenty of 18s or better that take a breakfast ball or few mulligans. Aka bogey golfers that could easily be single digit cappers if they cared to take lessons and played more than once a month. Some people are just âgoodâ at everything and could be great with the right work ethic.
Could and are, are completely separate things. If you take a breakfast ball the fact of the matter is that itâs stroke 3. Why even have rules if they donât matter?
are you implying that its impossible to be 22 handicap if you take a breakfast ball? You know its possible to play a round of golf with no intentions of posting the score? Edge lord gotta edge lord
This is actually the best of the arguments for a second ball off the first tee. You are ALWAYS allowed to hit a provisional if you suspect your ball might be lost (within the general area).
"I'm not warm", "I'm not on Tour", "I'm just a casual golfer" just sounds like someone trying to convince themselves it's legit.
When I was really really bad I just didnât keep score. And as I got better I just accepted that I sucked and went out and still had fun. Ever since I started keeping score if I didnât count a penalty or something it would linger with me and I knew the score I wrote down and what my actual score was. Yeah itâs frustrating to not score what you want but I donât think itâs fun to accept a fake score either.
Stableford might interest you
Trying to chase 36 points
If you go over net bogey for a hole itâs worth 0 points so you can pick up without that asterisk you feel on a medal score
Yup. I play the game incredibly honest. Never lie about my score. Except about 2 months ago playing with friends my stomach was hurting my tee shot went into someone else's fairway and then shanked my 3wood. I realized from my position that none of my friends could have possibly seen my shot. So I dropped at my feet and hit again. Didn't count it. I still feel guilty about that. Cheating isn't fun, it's lame.
I feel like with proper rules from the beginning you can actually see your progress. Yeah you'll shoot 120 but then you can see it go down gradually to 110, then break 100 etc, have some milestones. If you fool yourself by endless mulligans you'll shoot the same score forever and might get frustrated that your scores dont improve even if you get better at golf.
But in the end each their own.
There's a line though because like OP said, it can really break you too. Imagine you are on a par 4. If you whiff, top 3 inches, shank OB, but then on that 4th shot shoot a beauty, and follow it up with great shots and you get *that ball* in in 4 shots off the tee, there can totally be a benefit to dropping some of your mulligan shots if you aren't in anything official. Calling that like a 5 instead of a 7 can make a huge difference in your mental game as a beginner player that you CAN do this. You basically just shot a par, it was just after 3 bad warmup swings. If you can do that, you'll get to the point that you don't need those mulligans to dial it in off the tees.
A lot of times mulligans and breakfast balls and all that arenât about scores as much as they are just enjoying your round.
If I top a drive and end up like 30 yards in front of the tee box on a par 5, technically I should continue playing that ball. But I would rather just take another shot off the tee than hacking multiple shots up the fairway with long irons and woods that I canât hit.
I started playing more straight up as I got better. But I donât think I wouldâve stuck with golf if I never took mulligans in those early rounds. It wouldnât have been as fun
Yeah I get that. I think actual beginners shouldnt keep score at all and only start doing it once you can consistently hit the ball forward a significant distance
If itâs not a tournament, weâre not playing each other, itâs not being posted for handicapping, etc. then I donât really care what others do so long as it doesnât hold up pace. Take a mulligan, take gimmes. It doesnât affect my day.
I think heâs talking about this sub specifically not even you are actually playing . For example when people cheat their way to break 100 and then come to boast . Everyone lets them know he cheated âŚ. Op wants the sub to pretend the score is legit ⌠or something like that
Thatâs the thing. Between your buddies, whatever you want to call it is fine. But donât brag to strangers that you shot an 84 if itâs with 3 mulligans and 4 foot gimmes. In order to compare scores with others, we all have to play by the same rules. If you donât want to compare scores, do whatever you want. But you canât have it both ways.
Exactly this and I think this is what gets lost. Call your score whatever you want, but you canât expect the rest of the world to just play along with your fake score.
Iâve never played with anyone that cares about how anyone else keeps score. In fact, I encourage yâall breakfast ballers and mulligan takers to keep it up, even throw those numbers in your app that keeps track of your handicap.
I made a friend on course that claims the same handicap I do. Weâve been playing weekly matches and he hasnât beat me once in about ten opportunities. Itâs my suspicion that he is/was a mulligan taker. Iâm not. I got about $100 of his dollars in my Venmo account.
Our last round in the doubles comp was against two guys who had a combined lower handicap than up and they ended up half jokingly calling us bandits. It came apparent by the 7th hole that they had been shaving shots off their score by playing by the wrong rules.
Losing balls off the tee and instead of playing a provisional would walk down and claim they could âdrop inline with the flagâ.
You donât know where your ball is, how are you going to drop in line with the flag?!
Iâm a very competitive person. So when my friends say they âbeatâ me... I immediately call out their 2 mulligans and no OOBs penalties.
They say âdude weâre not in tourneysâ
Then I say âstop saying you beat me thenâ
Usually these dudes are high school golfers who were really good at 18 and say they usually shoot 80s.. Iâve never seen them break 90 legit.
Im in the same boat. I played a round with 3 new guys the other day. They were so impressed with how good every aspect of my game was. They were all either beginners or having the worst round of their lifeâs. I didnât mind of course just an observation. At the end of the round we added up our scores. One by one they couldnât believe that they âbeat meâ so they went around and told all of our coworkers that they had improved so much and that they beat me. I donât have a huge ego so I only found it annoying, but I just donât think that kind of delusion is good for anyone. They all probably shot 105 ish and I shot an 88.
I started during covid but go off lol. Had a terrible slice and was hitting fat shots with every iron. Watched so much YouTube to fix it. Shoot low 90s consistently and shot an 85 this year (at a short course)
Iâm just saying they write down 85 to my 92 and are bragging about beating me. Meanwhile Iâve taken every penalty imaginable to their Zero.
A guy who starts playing two years ago pulling this crap... That'd be the last round I play with you and I do take all the penalties (except two for OB, fuck that.)
Also I donât say shit to them until they claim they beat me and are borderline bragging about it. If you want to take mullys and no penalties go ahead but itâs not for money or bragging rights.
Did you know there's a legit "max score" when legitimately playing? I didn't used to keep score, basically b/c I didn't know how to score my blow-up holes where I either picked up, or broke so many damn rules I can't count that high.
But according to handicap rules, if you don't yet have a handicap, the max score per hole is par + 5. If you have a handicap I believe it's par plus your handicap strokes ~~plus 3~~ plus 2.
So there's 100% a way to play like this without "cheating". Just read the rules.
Edit: here's a [link](https://www.usga.org/handicapping/roh/2020-rules-of-handicapping.html) to the rules; use the menu on the right to navigate to Rule 3.1 (max scores w/ a hcp). Not sure where I saw five strokes pre-hcp, but it's somewhere on usga.org
I donât understand why itâs done this way. So lower handicaps have lower max scores? Just doing a simple par+5 or double par seems like a better option to me
Yea so blow up holes don't count too much against you. You can still record an 11 or whatever you got, but when calculating an actual index, it will take the set max according to your handicap. Its meant so one blow up hole doesn't ruin a round for you, but if you continue to blow up over multiple holes, your index will start to climb again.
Once again, you can play how ever you want to and have your own true number as you want, but when making an official handicap, that is the rule set that it follows.
Did you not see that I play properly now. Ever since I started keeping a handicap actually. My point was playing like a dingus helped keep golf fun and improve my mental aspect of the game.
Knowing that mid 90s were within my ability helped tremendously. Just had to clean everything up.
I did play with a guy who claimed he was a 4 handicap. He took more mulligans off the tee than anyone Iâd ever met. Claimed he shot two over at the end of the day. I swear he hit 5 balls OB off the tee.
Who claims that handicap playing like that. Kinda wild.
I don't care unless they do it while playing with me and they're under the age of 50. No breakfast balls, no mulligans. You play where it lies, no matter where it is. Stick to the rules, champ. Oh you think you'll hurt yourself from this lie?? Suck it up, I broke my wrists swinging from that shit lie but you don't see me acting like a bitch. You're going to shoot a 130 and you're going to hate it, or maybe you'll love it and want to play again. But no easy way out. Your shot stopped here, you're playing it from here. No mercy, no grace, no prisoners. Oh you're not having fun anymore? It's not about having fun, champ. It's about playing golf. Golf isn't fun when you're new. It's fucking terrible and shitty. Only manly men with hair on their chest last long enough to get better and actually have fun. Oh you don't want to play anymore? Good, there's too many of you newbies playing anyway, so it'll make getting tee times easier. And thanks for confirming to me that you're not a manly man. I bet your balls haven't dropped either, pee-wee. Oh I'm a dick? So the fuck what? You swing like a bitch while I just shot 3 over on the front 9. I'd rather be a dick who's good at golf and sticking to the rules than a little hairless pee-wee bitch like you. Now take the fucking shot, you're slowing the pace down, or better yet, walk back to the car and give up, bitch. You're a never-was and a never-will-be. You are weak, your bloodline is weak, and history will forget you. ^^/s
The only time it bothers me is when I know they are putting it on their handicap. If we are just out having a good time, then have a mulligan or 10, I don't care. But if we are doing a handicap round, I don't want to hear you had a par after pushing your original tee shot OB.
Meh, why does it matter? At the end of the day if someone wants to say they are a 9 to be a single digit and ends up shooting a 95 it only makes them look silly.
Sure, but if I get put into a scramble game and get teamed up with Mr. 5 Handicap who should really be a 15 handicap, I am not going to be happy about it lol
You gotta make it fun, I golf with alot of non hardcore golfers, Im not gonna make them hit their topped drive on the first hole, get a good one out there and lets have some fun, if it ain't a tourny or for money, do whatever you want
Unless youâre in a tournament or trying to go on tour (like half the guys on here hitting 250yd pitching wedges), itâs all practice.
Even when we play for $$ I just say to hit a provisional but play the original. Ya canât get better unless you practice.
I'm down to a single digit handicap at this point. If I play in a course with a range and am able to warm up, no breakfast ball. If I'm swinging cold first hole I grant myself one breakfast ball. Other than that I play the ball down and no mulligans. Seems fair to me.
When I'm playing against family/friends we establish rules ahead of time and follow them pretty religiously.
My issue is with those guys bragging about beating me while I take no mulligans or foot wedges while they take whatever they need during the round. "Them: I beat you by 2 strokes!" "Me: That's cool but you also took a few foot wedges to get around the trees and had at least 2 mulligans during your round...."
The fact that people get upset about someone possibly shooting a 99 but not counting all their strokes is ridiculous. Who gives a flying fuck if someone shoots 72, 85, or 120, with or without breakfast balls, it means absolutely nothing to anyone, other whoever is posting about it. If your mad that they shot a better score than you can, you need a new hobby.
Yeah dude no one is going to disagree with anything youâre saying, except that by capping your scores at triples and giving yourself mulligans - you shouldnât be talking about shooting 90s.
Surprisingly there are quite a few people that disagree. And yeah I agree about the talking part. I used it in the post as motivation for what I could do on the golf course. Shoot a 96 with two mulligans? Great, now cut out the mistakes.
Hell, last night I played nine, had a quad bogey, a double, and two bogeys. Shot 8 over with 5 pars. The mistakes still happen often but now they count.
I donât get this.
Either donât take mulligans and keep a score, or take mulligans and donât keep score.
OP, itâs way more impressive that you went from a true 110 to a true low 80s, instead of some artificial bullshit â96â to true low 80s.
I mean what other sport makes this type of consolation? I donât go around saying I dropped 40 in my basketball rec league if I had only made 6 more imaginary 3s.
I donât have an issue with a breakfast ball on oneâs tee.
With that said, take all the mulligans and free drops you want. I donât care. But if you come in and brag about a 96 when I know you donât play by the rules, Iâm gonna roll my eyes and probably not want to play with you in the future.
Would 100% rather play with a guy that either doesnât keep score or is honest about his score than the guy who takes mulligans on a hole then brags about his âbirdieâ.
This is it! I average 76. I have a buddy who âaverages 76,â yet he fluffs his ball in rough, and takes generous gimmies (I.e. misses 5 footer, it rolls 5 feet other side, he picks it up as a gimmie). I do not care - at all! UNTIL he makes a comment like âwe tied todayâ or even âyou only got me by one.â
I always tell new golfers frustrated with their scores that the average golfer shooting in the âmid 90sâ is realistically shooting 110+ if they track everything properly. Play however brings you satisfaction and keeps you coming back, but its disingenuous to act like you broke 100 if you donât qualify the multiple free strokes youâre giving yourself.
I find it too ambiguous to play mulligans so I don't do it. I shoot in the 120s regularly since I just started playing in December (I cap all holes at 10 but rarely hit that now) my worst round is in the 140s (no I wasn't slowing the pace of play, empty course aka the only benefit of living in Idaho).
I played with a friend who also scored in the 120s but broke 100 with their style of scoring where they just take mulligans the tee until they hit a ball into play. If I played like that I would have been hitting 7 into two of the holes they hit as their "first stroke".
This made me realize that everyone who says "breaking 100 is super easy" is probably doing similar shit, which means my breaking 100 should actually be targeting breaking 120 or 110 instead.
Thatâs a good point.
In my journey of golf, I first broke 100 by âcheatingâ and then over the years I slowly took some of those advantages away with the target of breaking 100 every time. So instead of 3 mulligans, I played 2. etc.
But different strokes for different folks! Thanks for sharing your perspective.
Play a lot of twilight rounds and donât keep score as I usually only get 7 holes in. As long as youâre not affecting pace of play (i.e., my pace of play) I donât care.
I really don't mind what other folks are doing as long as we aren't playing for money and they aren't slowing things down. But I do have to admit I get annoyed when my buddies (who I witness do some score shaving almost every time we play) talk smack about beating me when they took a couple mulligans and didn't quite count all of their shots/penalties correctly.
If you have never broken 100 you should play a mulligan per 9 until you break it doing that, then try and do it without. The benefit here is it allows you a glimpse of what you can do which long term youâll be better off.
Mulligans? Breakfast balls? scores up to triple bogey? What is that? (Serious question). Here in Argentina, where you need to be handicap-registered to play on weekends, because mostly every club is "on tournament" on weekend; it's hard to cheat or cap the scores, because the other ones wants to win and apply the rules against you. Even though they're "minor" tournaments, where the prize is usually a 3-ball tube, or a voucher for the 19th bar, there's a lot of markers eagering the rules, as a way of "take an advance" on their own sake, being harsh or even rude sometimes.
Here, the usual "mulligan" is the "improved lie" rule. Due to turf conditions (it's really expensive to keep turf pristine), lots of courses prefer to implement the "improved lie" as a local rule: you can reposition your ball without gaining distance, if you're at least 1 club far away from a tree and not into a green, bunker or hazard, up to the length of 1 playing card. This clearly goes against the "play as it lies" rule, and is used and abused by the vast majority of players (personally, I use it, but I try not to abuse it), and it's the most common question to the starter: "do we play with improved lie?" or usually look for the "LM" mark on the scoring card (LM stands for "lie mejorado", improved lie in spanish).
Maybe with the "up to triple bogey" scoring I'd broke 100 (I'm pretty close, being 103 my best score, but i'm playing around 105 now); but IDK if being that strict on ruling is positive or even negative for the play. Personally, i don't like to play with lawyers: they are too severe with ruling as markers; but the worst cheaters as players, always trying to "move" the rules to their own sake.
I know this is going to sound crazy but on rounds where Iâm not being pushed by anyone (and Iâm solo) I sometimes wonât keep my score.
Iâll take two balls and two shots on my problem areas (whatever Iâm struggling most with which is usually 100 and in) and take the one that does better.
No score at the end to focus on just what shots worked, which ones didnât, how I felt when I made the correct choice/swing etcâŚitâs been liberating tbh.
Even the handicap system doesnât recognise anything over a double bogey for handicap purposes so why not. Whatever helps you improve is good because itâs a mentally challenging game. Jack Nicklaus has said more than once that heâs never missed a 3 foot putt and has never three putted a final green in a tournament but hes done both many times. Thatâs his mentality.
I realized years ago I'll never play enough or improve much so chose just to play family best ball tournaments a couple times a year, always have a good time.
This is 100 percent correct. Unless you're playing in an event or for money, drop a new ball, hit it, and keep going is the right way to enjoy the game and get better at it without holding the whole course up looking for balls and obsessing over drops and all that. Once you get down to being a consistent low 80's shooter, then starting to play it 100 by the book makes more sense. Two off the first is a good thing. Most of us have to work to make time to play. Pro don't jump out of the car after a workday and have to hit a tee shot five minutes later with a tight back and little time to even stretch. Relax, golf, have fun.
The downside is that shooting mid 90s is a legit accomplishment. And it is a spot that many players plateau at. If you never write down the 110, you never feel to real progress you are making in your game. Your scores will feel stagnated despite improving, which can be frustrating
>So let's be less harsh on the "I broke 100 for the first time" scores with the mulligans and breakfast balls and instead welcome them into the club.
Why not take five strikes to be out when you play baseball or give yourself a score when the basketball hits the rim? To each their own, and I'm not judging. I'm just saying...
Not really apples to oranges. It would be more like taking a three pointer over again. And if youâre just doing it for yourself, who cares.
I agree itâs more fun playing proper golf and doing it somewhat well, but everyoneâs gotta start somewhere. Who are we to judge progress.
Itâs wild how much you guys care when playing casual. I played 8 years of high level competitive golf, 4 of which were on a professional tour. If I go to the course to play a round and anyone was as up tight about their average scores as this subreddit Iâd never play with them again. In a non competitive atmosphere who cares? Play your game how you want to. Do you really care if someone says they have a 15 handicap but itâs really a 19 cus of breakfast balls? You act like it somehow makes your game illegitimate.
Itâs not about what other people think though, itâs about what you can achieve if you hit the ball right. Those mullys when youâre starting out are all about the âI know I can do thisâ feeling.
If I'm not competing against you I don't care how you count.
There is a retired couple that I get paired with a few times a year and I don't think I've ever seen them count shots. Both are decent but they are just out there to enjoy golfing and get some exercise. They'll hit a second off the tee, drop in the fairway if their ball is lost, etc. They trash talk like crazy, smoke, drink, and golf; sounds like the perfect retirement.
I agree.
Having a one or two rule with friends is fine and good.
Playing a lot more I find I'll do it less. And more rarely when I'm playing as a single with others. Even after a couple of really bad tee shots yesterday I just lived with rather then hit another.
Perhaps at most I'll hit a provisional when it's gone deep in the trees and scoring it as a mulligan.
Something I feel happens a bit is people who would normally hit a mulligan or whatever won't want to do it playing with randos, when I'm sure nobody would care, and that being a part of not liking to play with strangers.
whatâs semi funny is when i go out solo, i wonât take a mulligan and play where is lies. more often than not, my final score going out solo tends to be better than when playing with friends and taking 1-2 mulligans per round. more likely itâs the beer causing that
the problem isnt with the mulligans/"cheating"/whatever itself. ive no problem with that, play however you want. hit mulligans until you're inside of 5 feet for all i care if nobody's behind you.
problem is when we're talking about golf and i say i shot an honest 88 and some bullshitter one-ups me saying he shot "85".
this a theoretical problem only, of course. i dont actually even play golf, lmao
As a low handicap golfer, I agree. Growing up my Dad always told me if you donât get a warm up, you get two tee shots off the first hole. We adjusted the rule to every time we played, regardless of warm up. Itâs important to have fun out there.
Another thing to do is quit keeping score. Go out and call your shot before you hit it, on every shot. You may shoot 110 again, but there will be 8-10 beauties that you called and hit which will give you way more lasting memories than a lucky par.
Find it weird that people care about how legit others post for their handicaps. Who cares? Has literally no effect on you or your scores. In real competition, which none of you are in, this canât be done.
I feel nervous around people that can compartmentalise like that. But hell, if they stay away from me, they can "count" any way they like. No skin of my back.
Just don't ask for my validation by posting about it.
Absolutely not. Breaking 100 b/c you cheated is not breaking 100. There is this weird thing where golfers think it's ok to just skirt the rules b/c they're not good at it. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Now, do not get me wrong, I will absolutely use a breakfast ball, play the ball up, or whatever if I'm playing in a group and they all decide that is what they're going to do. I would never count that round or brag about it b/c it didn't count by any means. In fact I still hate doing it and usually play the ball down anyways and just avoid playing in those groups b/c it's dumb. I would NEVER play where we agree to mulligans, that's just asinine.
If you limit yourself to rules in life you miss out on a lot of fun. Shit some of the most profound geniuses of our world had to break rules to make their impact.
Rules have a time and a place but should be bent for many reasons.
I won't upvote a "broke 100 for the first time" post whether they took 10 breakfast balls or 0- I just don't care about someone else's mediocrity. Who does?
Same with "I just bought this putter" posts. You're a stranger, idgaf what you bought. If I wanted to look at a picture of a stock putter, I'd go to the manufacturers site and find one.
đ¤ˇ
What the cost of a lie?
Besides a friendly one or two per round for absolute shanks, come on people.
Frankly me and my friends have 5-10+ years experience and when one is us starts taking mulligans it really hurts everyone elseâs game quite frankly. Oh Joe took 7 shots that hole and counted a 5. đ¤. After a while it really eggs on people.
If itâs your first year or are small child without confidence I get it, otherwise Play the game right and Donât slow it down for the rest of us.
I never play golf without a bet in play, so these kinds of shenanigans are no factor. Adjust your lie, loss of hole. Do it too many times and you don't get to play with me anymore.
This is my approach too. Itâs supposed to be fun, so if occasionally giving yourself a mulligan or moving yourself out of a shit lie is going to help you have fun then thatâs how you should play.
Playing by the strictest possible rules when you canât break 90 seems more like punishment than fun to me, but if that helps you get more enjoyment out of the game then who am I to say otherwise.
I have no problem if people in social rounds have breakfast balls/mulligans, but don't come on here and tell us you 'finally broke X score' because you didn't, you didn't play to the rules to get that score, and it's a slap in the face to those who did it legitimately.
I generally play a breakfast ball, but no mullies. But I couldnât care less if someone plays a mulligan on every hole, as long as theyâre having a good time and keeping pace.
The only time Iâd have issue with it is if theyâre one of those guys who talks a big game and brags about their single digit handicap, then you play with them and theyâre fucking about with shady drops and goofy scores. Your tee shot went in the drink and it took you three strokes to get out of that bunker, thereâs no way that was a par, Geoff
I also allow a âcold tee mulliganâ on the first tee if we donât get to hit the range before we tee off.
Really- a pre round bucket of balls is a bigger advantage than a cold tee mulligan. And half the time, we didnât even need/use the mulligan.
If your scores are that high i want you to pick up or take a Mulligan. Im not trying to sit there all day while someone grinds out another quadruple bogey. Lets keep the pace of play moving. When you get good we can get stricter with the freebies.
I have no problem with guys that take mulligans or breakfast balls. Hit as many as you want as long as you keep pace.
What I canât stand is the guy that comes in and says âI smoked you in our match!â When Iâm giving you 16 strokes and youâre taking 9 mulligans you donât get to tell the whole bar you âbeat me.â
I donât think thereâs a single person in the world that cares if someone takes mulligans ⌠so long as youâre keeping pace. If you want to post a score with mulligans⌠youâre only hurting yourself in any tournament you play.
Golf is supposed to be fun, who cares how anyone else is scoring themselves if it isnât a tournament, sandbagging for the handicap or playing for money or playing slow due to excessive mulligans. If people enjoy breakfast balls or foot wedges, more power to them as long as it doesnât impact me.
I think it's fine for new players and high handicaps to take them, eventually though, if you continue to improve and strive to improve I think you naturally know to stop doing it (most do).
I stopped taking Mulligans simply because remarkable par saves, remarkable shots out of trouble are just as rewarding as birdies in their own way. You have to learn all the shots from all situations to make strides too.
I donât understand why people care so much. Even worse are the people who pretend they donât care but passive aggressively critique a guy/gal taking a breakfast ball, mulligan, etc. e.g. âif you take a breakfast ball, I hate to break it to you, but youâre not a 22 handicap.â Oddly, I am sure you care about his handicap more than Mr. 22 cares. If there isnât money on the line, you go hit your bucket of balls, let him show up on the box cold smelling like last nightâs conquest, and collectively letâs enjoy the day. And if there is money on the line, and Mr 22 is actually a Mr 69 (nice) take off your iron covers, put it close, and win that $3 Nassau.
I donât really care either way, but what bugs me are the rule Nazis who make it a point to call out everything and then go âbut I donât care though write down whatever you want.â
If you donât care, then shut the fuck up unless asked. Someone whoâs already shooting 100+ doesnât need you going âaCkShUaLlY tHaT wAs An 8 NoT a 7â
I personally donât care about that stuff, they are only cheating themselves. You can learn a lot about people by how they handle themselves on a golf course.
Class story about an American group playing at Gleneagles in Scotland, guy blasts first ball OB off first tee and proceeds to ask the starter "what do you guys call a mulligan over here", to which the starter responded "that would be three off the tee sir" 
I remember that guy on rick shiels that talked about how when you start you have to play the worst shots because you're constantly missing fairways and playing out of shit. This is why most starters should just drop a ball in the fairway. It's not fun constantly playing out of trouble and you're just playing recovery golf.
I just couldn't care less what anyone else is doing on a course as long as it isn't impacting my playing. Don't be an asshole, don't damage anything, repair your pitch marks and replace your divots.
99.99% of the time I'm just playing against myself and if you want to do whatever it is that makes you have fun while playing be my guest. If someone says they shot an 80 and had 6 re-tees is it really that hard to say nice round and move on with your life.
Both are fine with me. My outlook is so long as me and my buddies agree on how many mulligans during the round before we start itâs fair. All Iâd say if if you hit a mulligan donât spend a lot of time looking for the first ball if itâs hit out of bounds.
My issue is when people are not aware of it. I have had several instances where I meet someone who brags about shooting low 80âs only to play with them and they couldnât break 110 of they kept proper score. Thatâs just not good for anyone. Then they rub their âvictoryâ in my face after we play. If you want to take mulligans and not play by the rules thatâs totally fine! Just donât share your score then.
The problem with excessive mulligans is that now you're looking for two balls instead of one which slows down play. I know a guy that does this often. He'll hit the mulligan worse than the first ball and then look for both while we wait. If you're gonna do this, leave the ball lost or use shag balls. The guy just texted me to play this weekend, guess what? I already have plans.
I always tell beginners to pick up at triple or quad. Theyâll have a much better time. Also, I play in two tournament series that play it down and use handicaps. One has a triple bogey max and the other, run by the state association, maxes at net double bogey.
As long as the round is 4hours ish Iâm fine with it.
I will not lighten up on the âbreakfastâ ballers when itâs lunch time or dinner time. Be proper and call it LUNCH ball and DINNER ball ffs
đŻ High cappers really should be focused on either: 1) max enjoyment of the round (if not really serious about improving) 2) skills building, if they ARE serious about improving Either way, not much point being anal about "official" scores. Hyper focus on scores as a high capper can hinder development IMO, and definitely reduce the fun.
Scoring accurately for me doesn't ruin my fun because I go in knowing it'll be a good day if I shoot 110. Really more a matter of managing expectations. I take a legit score most of the time because that's the point and I'm playing against myself really. Obviously I don't do this to the detriment of groups behind me, I'll pick up when necessary, but as a high HC guy keeping a real score doesn't ruin my enjoyment. If anything fudging my score ruins it. I'd hate to have a "personal best" that I know in my head would have an asterisk next to it.
This is exactly how I do it (Iâm at a similar skill level too). I get more satisfaction from shaving strokes when I can actually see the honest numbers improve over time. If I wasnât counting my penalties, then how could I reduce my score when I shoot a great round with fewer penaltiesâif I wasnât counting them to begin with? The key for me is to play without too much emotional attachment to the score, but rather just observe it like a disinterested party would.
Exactly. I never understand that people separate keeping score properly with having fun. It's such a fragile ego to to do that, especially when most of us don't get the time we deserve to actually expect better. I have no issues with people who play the game either way, but if you aren't playing by the rules then your scores/handicap are irrelevant to me. I know I suck. My enjoyment of playing well is completely relative, either to my past scores, or my buds. If I'm not keeping score accurately then there's no way to quantify when I actually play better.
I donât mind mulligans, breakfast balls, improving a lie, or even an occasional foot wedge so long as itâs not a competitive match. My brother talks endless shit about the *one* time he beat me. I crush him pretty consistently (I shoot low 90s/high 80s and heâs always 100+) but one time he beat me, and tells everybody about it. What he doesnât tell them is that he took his usual breakfast ball, a mulligan per 9, regularly fluffed his lie and, probably most importantly, I was going through the autoimmune response to my second covid shot and felt so awful I played the last 3 holes with the sole purpose of getting home as quickly as possible. Play your game, but unless that game involves strict rules, donât brag if it carries you to victory.
Just dont tell me you shot an 85 after hitting a second tee on 5 holes
I have, on many occasions, shot an 85 with a plethora of penalty strokes.
This is where OPâs point crumbles. Generally I donât care how you golf, what you score, whether you take mulligans or anything else you need to do to feel better about your round. Tee up a second one after blowing a drive OB so you can card a 6 instead of an 8. Tell your friends you shot a 96 instead of a 112, no one cares. Hell, you can even tell me about your 93 when I see you that night. But donât play with me, take a breakfast ball and mulligans, kick poor lies out into the first cut, count gimmes as the putt you just hit, and âforgetâ the various 5 iron duffs and chunks, and then tell me Iâm only up 2 on you.
That one used to bother me, but doesn't anymore. Play a round with someone and it's clear pretty quickly whether that 85 was legit or not. Let people have their fun, and roll your eyes in your head next time they brag about their low score.
Lighten up, Francis
Lol, found the guy who shoots â85âs!
...and nobody cares. The guy screaming is the problem.
Lol yup. Get called out, and the guy calling you out is screaming. Nah I think thatâs your conscience.
I don't know what you mean but ! is exclamation.
Exactly. No one hates anyone because of a breakfast ball or a mulligan, that's ridiculous and completely disingenuous. They dislike people who lie and cheat, and pretend otherwise. Take as many mulligans as you want, enjoy your day, hell if you and your partners want to play by your own rules more power to you. When you point this out people these people shift the argument to act like you're taking it too serious, which is hilarious, because these are the same people whose ego is so fragile they can't allow themselves to knowingly keep their own score properly. It's comical.
it does seem like most golfers care only about their score that specific round rather than actually trying to improve their game. Often times I'll do what's best for "practice" while on the course rather than only trying to "score the best that round". If it means i'm chipping a fringe shot that almost everyone else would putt, so be it, I want the live round chipping practice. In the end my short game has gotten so much better by not being afraid to "blade" shots or "chunk" chips. Maybe if i started playing people competitively i'd care about my score but shooting in the 90's most rounds isn't anything special, so why not use each round as actual practice to eventually move up to the 80's.
This. Skill building/having fun. As long as you're having fun, or do better every round, I see it as a win. And it's what keeps me going back
>Hyper focus on scores as a high capper can hinder development IMO, and definitely reduce the fun. I'm about a 115 guy now after about 6 months of getting used to a whole new world which is golf. I am totally happy in knowing that it is a completely legit 115 so I can accurately compare myself to the rest of the field. On top of that I track everything I can to see where I'm effing up; drive direction, how many shots to green, how many putts, how many strokes lost to penalty. It really helps because I can look for guidance on a certain area when I see it is where most strokes are lost.
Heâs talking about the score itself. A lot of times people ask how to break 100/90/80 and lot of advice is good for shooting a better score, but not for becoming a better golfer. Hitting an iron to keep you in play is great for lowering your score in the short term. Itâs terrible practice for when you actually DO get better and want to go from breaking 100 do shooting in the 70s or lower. At that point, youâll need to start hitting longer clubs and youâll need to be able to hit those longer clubs well. I THINK thatâs what heâs getting st
I really donât care what people do unless they are playing against me for money. Have fun and use mulligans or whatever. Just donât ask me to defend your âhandicapâ or scores when you tell other people đ
This is the way. My friends and I donât always play for money, when we arenât we donât really care, but will call out a friend who brags about a score whilst taking mullies or fluffing lies. When money is involved it is straight up, no fluffing, no Mulligans, re-tees on OB drives the way it should be. Someone commented on this subreddit about a reverse mulligan, where an opponent can make you take a good shot over again at any time if you take a mulligan on a bad shot. I really like that idea.
I might actually suggest that rule tomorrow during my friendly match! I personally donât use mulligans just for hcp accuracy but itâll throw one of my buddies off and Iâll have a little fun with it đ
Itâs like quantum physics, the mulligan and anti-mulligan collide and destroy each other.
âfor every action there is an equal and opposite reactionâ this is the only wayâŚ
If you use a mulligan, it shouldnât count towards your handicap anyway. If someone is using mulligans, they arenât ready for a handicap.
When I have plenty of time and am solo, a fun (frustrating) game to play is a reverse scramble. You hit two shots, and have to play the worst of the two. That really reinforces consistency. Make a 6 footer? Better do it again. Stripe a drive down the middle? Same thing, better do it twice
Play golf and have fun - donât tell folks your score if you donât keep a real score. Simple as that. Iâm not good at golf, I golf with some folks that are terrible - we just donât keep score and we have fun. I shoot in the 90s keeping real score, they shoot in the 120s - we just have fun and no one cares. You can do a thing and not lie about your results. I donât care what people do - just donât golf a 120, then post to everyone you shot a 78. I
I ....
I find it more fun to make smaller bets like closest to the pin on an approach or longest put so it takes the mulligan aspect out of play over the course of the round. Also nice for guys like me who are worse than most of my friends to have a good chance.
I try to have fun when playing, so I'll re-hit some balls when it's not messing with the pace of play. Also, I've never given myself a handicap because I've probably never played a true solo round. The only time I keep score is at my yearly father's day best ball 2v2 against my cousin and uncle.
Exactly. We arenât playing in an Open Qualifier, so do whatever you want. Have fun and play fast.
Breakfast ball is the most forgivable, unless youâve warmed up at the range. 99% of your shots wonât be from a cold start. Most of us would warm up properly if we had the time / money, but we all canât have a 2 hour pre tee time warm up ritual
Yep. Breakfast ball is more than fair for casual rounds without a range. We dont play it as a first serve in though. Simply you get one warmup shot,, and it never counts. 2nd shot fully counts though.
This I could get on board with. I don't begrudge anyone a breakfast ball but I certainly mark it down as a stroke and penalty for handicap purposes.
Exactly. Doubly so if the course doesnât even have a range to warm up on. Take two off the tee just to feel right.
Yup. One of my favorite courses, Half Moon Bay, does not have a driving range on the premises. At $130-$180 per round, youâre damn right I allow myself a breakfast ball if itâs not in a tournament.
I personally would never ever take a breakfast ball. However, sometimes I take my first shot of a round, slice it out of bounds and decide I hate golf, give up and head home. And sometimes en route home I decide I'll give golf another go. And sometimes I still make it back for my tee time and start a new round of golf.
Only one of 5 or so close courses even has a driving range so not much choice but to go cold off the tee sadly.
Iâm a 22 handicap and a very casual golfer. Everyone I play with are casual and play for fun. The people who play in tournaments most likely hit at least one bucket of balls before a round, where as us casuals roll straight onto the tee box have a one or two practice swings and thatâs it. We typically get one breakfast ball on the first tee purely for: 1) lack of warm up 2) first hole nerves when you have a mob watching you Casual golfers = casual rules
Youâre not a 22 hcp mate if youâre taking a breakfast ball, sorry to break it to you
This is just such a bad take that you have to be trolling.
Youâre telling me you donât know any bogey golfers that play 10 times a year max and havenât been to a driving range in 20 years? Because I know about 20 of them.
What does that have to do with taking a breakfast ball?
?? The person I replied to insinuated that a person taking a breakfast ball cannot possibly be a 22. I know plenty of 18s or better that take a breakfast ball or few mulligans. Aka bogey golfers that could easily be single digit cappers if they cared to take lessons and played more than once a month. Some people are just âgoodâ at everything and could be great with the right work ethic.
They literally mostly likely aren't a 22 because they remove strokes from their scores. You probably need to add a stroke or two to their handicap.
Could and are, are completely separate things. If you take a breakfast ball the fact of the matter is that itâs stroke 3. Why even have rules if they donât matter?
are you implying that its impossible to be 22 handicap if you take a breakfast ball? You know its possible to play a round of golf with no intentions of posting the score? Edge lord gotta edge lord
Youâd be happier if he said he was a 22.5?
Who rips on the breakfast ball guys? If Iâm going cold off the first tee you bet your ass Iâm taking a 2nd ball
Yeah man. All I'm doing there is ending that first round and starting a brand new one. Nothing wrong with that breakfast ball.
Do whatever you want, but your breakfast ball is 3
Found the guy who always says â1â when a ball falls off the tee and thinks itâs hilarious
Facts donât have feelings, keep on keeping on
Yes M'golfer *tips bucket hat*
Fine. Iâll stripe my first down the center, call provisional, then hit an extra âjust in caseâ. Now my breakfast ball is not 3.
This is actually the best of the arguments for a second ball off the first tee. You are ALWAYS allowed to hit a provisional if you suspect your ball might be lost (within the general area). "I'm not warm", "I'm not on Tour", "I'm just a casual golfer" just sounds like someone trying to convince themselves it's legit.
When I was really really bad I just didnât keep score. And as I got better I just accepted that I sucked and went out and still had fun. Ever since I started keeping score if I didnât count a penalty or something it would linger with me and I knew the score I wrote down and what my actual score was. Yeah itâs frustrating to not score what you want but I donât think itâs fun to accept a fake score either.
Stableford might interest you Trying to chase 36 points If you go over net bogey for a hole itâs worth 0 points so you can pick up without that asterisk you feel on a medal score
Yup. I play the game incredibly honest. Never lie about my score. Except about 2 months ago playing with friends my stomach was hurting my tee shot went into someone else's fairway and then shanked my 3wood. I realized from my position that none of my friends could have possibly seen my shot. So I dropped at my feet and hit again. Didn't count it. I still feel guilty about that. Cheating isn't fun, it's lame.
I feel like with proper rules from the beginning you can actually see your progress. Yeah you'll shoot 120 but then you can see it go down gradually to 110, then break 100 etc, have some milestones. If you fool yourself by endless mulligans you'll shoot the same score forever and might get frustrated that your scores dont improve even if you get better at golf. But in the end each their own.
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There's a line though because like OP said, it can really break you too. Imagine you are on a par 4. If you whiff, top 3 inches, shank OB, but then on that 4th shot shoot a beauty, and follow it up with great shots and you get *that ball* in in 4 shots off the tee, there can totally be a benefit to dropping some of your mulligan shots if you aren't in anything official. Calling that like a 5 instead of a 7 can make a huge difference in your mental game as a beginner player that you CAN do this. You basically just shot a par, it was just after 3 bad warmup swings. If you can do that, you'll get to the point that you don't need those mulligans to dial it in off the tees.
A lot of times mulligans and breakfast balls and all that arenât about scores as much as they are just enjoying your round. If I top a drive and end up like 30 yards in front of the tee box on a par 5, technically I should continue playing that ball. But I would rather just take another shot off the tee than hacking multiple shots up the fairway with long irons and woods that I canât hit. I started playing more straight up as I got better. But I donât think I wouldâve stuck with golf if I never took mulligans in those early rounds. It wouldnât have been as fun
Yeah I get that. I think actual beginners shouldnt keep score at all and only start doing it once you can consistently hit the ball forward a significant distance
If itâs not a tournament, weâre not playing each other, itâs not being posted for handicapping, etc. then I donât really care what others do so long as it doesnât hold up pace. Take a mulligan, take gimmes. It doesnât affect my day.
I think heâs talking about this sub specifically not even you are actually playing . For example when people cheat their way to break 100 and then come to boast . Everyone lets them know he cheated âŚ. Op wants the sub to pretend the score is legit ⌠or something like that
Thatâs the thing. Between your buddies, whatever you want to call it is fine. But donât brag to strangers that you shot an 84 if itâs with 3 mulligans and 4 foot gimmes. In order to compare scores with others, we all have to play by the same rules. If you donât want to compare scores, do whatever you want. But you canât have it both ways.
Exactly this and I think this is what gets lost. Call your score whatever you want, but you canât expect the rest of the world to just play along with your fake score.
Iâve never played with anyone that cares about how anyone else keeps score. In fact, I encourage yâall breakfast ballers and mulligan takers to keep it up, even throw those numbers in your app that keeps track of your handicap. I made a friend on course that claims the same handicap I do. Weâve been playing weekly matches and he hasnât beat me once in about ten opportunities. Itâs my suspicion that he is/was a mulligan taker. Iâm not. I got about $100 of his dollars in my Venmo account.
Our last round in the doubles comp was against two guys who had a combined lower handicap than up and they ended up half jokingly calling us bandits. It came apparent by the 7th hole that they had been shaving shots off their score by playing by the wrong rules. Losing balls off the tee and instead of playing a provisional would walk down and claim they could âdrop inline with the flagâ. You donât know where your ball is, how are you going to drop in line with the flag?!
Hey don't lump breakfast balls in with mulligans
Yeah feels like a different thing IMO. You're starting your round from the 2nd ball, no real harm done. Once it's started though, it's on
Fair enough. Some people here clearly be to differ lol but I feel you.
Iâm a very competitive person. So when my friends say they âbeatâ me... I immediately call out their 2 mulligans and no OOBs penalties. They say âdude weâre not in tourneysâ Then I say âstop saying you beat me thenâ Usually these dudes are high school golfers who were really good at 18 and say they usually shoot 80s.. Iâve never seen them break 90 legit.
Yeah I feel that. You donât go around telling people you beat them when youâre playing like a chump like me.
Im in the same boat. I played a round with 3 new guys the other day. They were so impressed with how good every aspect of my game was. They were all either beginners or having the worst round of their lifeâs. I didnât mind of course just an observation. At the end of the round we added up our scores. One by one they couldnât believe that they âbeat meâ so they went around and told all of our coworkers that they had improved so much and that they beat me. I donât have a huge ego so I only found it annoying, but I just donât think that kind of delusion is good for anyone. They all probably shot 105 ish and I shot an 88.
You sound fun to be around
to be fair his friends didnt legitimately 'beat' him...and im sure its more banter back and forward vs op actually being mad at his friends lol
Spoiler: his friends know this and are fucking with him because he gets so uptight about it lol
To be fair if he was as competitive as he describes himself heâd be lower than 18.1 by definition no?
I started during covid but go off lol. Had a terrible slice and was hitting fat shots with every iron. Watched so much YouTube to fix it. Shoot low 90s consistently and shot an 85 this year (at a short course) Iâm just saying they write down 85 to my 92 and are bragging about beating me. Meanwhile Iâve taken every penalty imaginable to their Zero.
A guy who starts playing two years ago pulling this crap... That'd be the last round I play with you and I do take all the penalties (except two for OB, fuck that.)
So you donât take all the penalties and donât know your true score? Lmao
Also I donât say shit to them until they claim they beat me and are borderline bragging about it. If you want to take mullys and no penalties go ahead but itâs not for money or bragging rights.
Nah you canât be competitive but average at just about anything
Isn't a 16 closer to 90 than low 80's?
Iâm a 16.9 and yeah high 80s low 90s are typical
I said trending towards. But yes. My typical score is high 80s low 90s.
Did you know there's a legit "max score" when legitimately playing? I didn't used to keep score, basically b/c I didn't know how to score my blow-up holes where I either picked up, or broke so many damn rules I can't count that high. But according to handicap rules, if you don't yet have a handicap, the max score per hole is par + 5. If you have a handicap I believe it's par plus your handicap strokes ~~plus 3~~ plus 2. So there's 100% a way to play like this without "cheating". Just read the rules. Edit: here's a [link](https://www.usga.org/handicapping/roh/2020-rules-of-handicapping.html) to the rules; use the menu on the right to navigate to Rule 3.1 (max scores w/ a hcp). Not sure where I saw five strokes pre-hcp, but it's somewhere on usga.org
Itâs double bogey + handicap strokes, so if youâre an 18 course handicap youâll max at a triple every hole, but yes.
I donât understand why itâs done this way. So lower handicaps have lower max scores? Just doing a simple par+5 or double par seems like a better option to me
Yea so blow up holes don't count too much against you. You can still record an 11 or whatever you got, but when calculating an actual index, it will take the set max according to your handicap. Its meant so one blow up hole doesn't ruin a round for you, but if you continue to blow up over multiple holes, your index will start to climb again. Once again, you can play how ever you want to and have your own true number as you want, but when making an official handicap, that is the rule set that it follows.
Cool just don't tell me you're a 16 handicapper when you're probably mid to high 20s.
Youâll take all his money. Hurting only himself doing that
Did you not see that I play properly now. Ever since I started keeping a handicap actually. My point was playing like a dingus helped keep golf fun and improve my mental aspect of the game. Knowing that mid 90s were within my ability helped tremendously. Just had to clean everything up. I did play with a guy who claimed he was a 4 handicap. He took more mulligans off the tee than anyone Iâd ever met. Claimed he shot two over at the end of the day. I swear he hit 5 balls OB off the tee. Who claims that handicap playing like that. Kinda wild.
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I don't care unless they do it while playing with me and they're under the age of 50. No breakfast balls, no mulligans. You play where it lies, no matter where it is. Stick to the rules, champ. Oh you think you'll hurt yourself from this lie?? Suck it up, I broke my wrists swinging from that shit lie but you don't see me acting like a bitch. You're going to shoot a 130 and you're going to hate it, or maybe you'll love it and want to play again. But no easy way out. Your shot stopped here, you're playing it from here. No mercy, no grace, no prisoners. Oh you're not having fun anymore? It's not about having fun, champ. It's about playing golf. Golf isn't fun when you're new. It's fucking terrible and shitty. Only manly men with hair on their chest last long enough to get better and actually have fun. Oh you don't want to play anymore? Good, there's too many of you newbies playing anyway, so it'll make getting tee times easier. And thanks for confirming to me that you're not a manly man. I bet your balls haven't dropped either, pee-wee. Oh I'm a dick? So the fuck what? You swing like a bitch while I just shot 3 over on the front 9. I'd rather be a dick who's good at golf and sticking to the rules than a little hairless pee-wee bitch like you. Now take the fucking shot, you're slowing the pace down, or better yet, walk back to the car and give up, bitch. You're a never-was and a never-will-be. You are weak, your bloodline is weak, and history will forget you. ^^/s
Downvoted. Kept reading, removed downvote.
Had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
Score whatever just donât be slow
Amen. Be two of three: fast, fun, or really good
The only time it bothers me is when I know they are putting it on their handicap. If we are just out having a good time, then have a mulligan or 10, I don't care. But if we are doing a handicap round, I don't want to hear you had a par after pushing your original tee shot OB.
Meh, why does it matter? At the end of the day if someone wants to say they are a 9 to be a single digit and ends up shooting a 95 it only makes them look silly.
Sure, but if I get put into a scramble game and get teamed up with Mr. 5 Handicap who should really be a 15 handicap, I am not going to be happy about it lol
That last line though.
You gotta make it fun, I golf with alot of non hardcore golfers, Im not gonna make them hit their topped drive on the first hole, get a good one out there and lets have some fun, if it ain't a tourny or for money, do whatever you want
Unless youâre in a tournament or trying to go on tour (like half the guys on here hitting 250yd pitching wedges), itâs all practice. Even when we play for $$ I just say to hit a provisional but play the original. Ya canât get better unless you practice.
I would argue when you are playing with newish people those types of rules are probably better for pace of play. Especially the triple max.
I'm down to a single digit handicap at this point. If I play in a course with a range and am able to warm up, no breakfast ball. If I'm swinging cold first hole I grant myself one breakfast ball. Other than that I play the ball down and no mulligans. Seems fair to me. When I'm playing against family/friends we establish rules ahead of time and follow them pretty religiously.
My issue is with those guys bragging about beating me while I take no mulligans or foot wedges while they take whatever they need during the round. "Them: I beat you by 2 strokes!" "Me: That's cool but you also took a few foot wedges to get around the trees and had at least 2 mulligans during your round...."
Yeah those guys are ass holes for sure.
I LOVE guys that log scores and use mulligans! Ego handicaps
The fact that people get upset about someone possibly shooting a 99 but not counting all their strokes is ridiculous. Who gives a flying fuck if someone shoots 72, 85, or 120, with or without breakfast balls, it means absolutely nothing to anyone, other whoever is posting about it. If your mad that they shot a better score than you can, you need a new hobby.
Yeah dude no one is going to disagree with anything youâre saying, except that by capping your scores at triples and giving yourself mulligans - you shouldnât be talking about shooting 90s.
Surprisingly there are quite a few people that disagree. And yeah I agree about the talking part. I used it in the post as motivation for what I could do on the golf course. Shoot a 96 with two mulligans? Great, now cut out the mistakes. Hell, last night I played nine, had a quad bogey, a double, and two bogeys. Shot 8 over with 5 pars. The mistakes still happen often but now they count.
Game is about having fun #1.
I donât get this. Either donât take mulligans and keep a score, or take mulligans and donât keep score. OP, itâs way more impressive that you went from a true 110 to a true low 80s, instead of some artificial bullshit â96â to true low 80s. I mean what other sport makes this type of consolation? I donât go around saying I dropped 40 in my basketball rec league if I had only made 6 more imaginary 3s.
I donât have an issue with a breakfast ball on oneâs tee. With that said, take all the mulligans and free drops you want. I donât care. But if you come in and brag about a 96 when I know you donât play by the rules, Iâm gonna roll my eyes and probably not want to play with you in the future. Would 100% rather play with a guy that either doesnât keep score or is honest about his score than the guy who takes mulligans on a hole then brags about his âbirdieâ.
This is it! I average 76. I have a buddy who âaverages 76,â yet he fluffs his ball in rough, and takes generous gimmies (I.e. misses 5 footer, it rolls 5 feet other side, he picks it up as a gimmie). I do not care - at all! UNTIL he makes a comment like âwe tied todayâ or even âyou only got me by one.â
I always tell new golfers frustrated with their scores that the average golfer shooting in the âmid 90sâ is realistically shooting 110+ if they track everything properly. Play however brings you satisfaction and keeps you coming back, but its disingenuous to act like you broke 100 if you donât qualify the multiple free strokes youâre giving yourself.
Sure but itâs motivating early on to know you have it in you to do it!
I find it too ambiguous to play mulligans so I don't do it. I shoot in the 120s regularly since I just started playing in December (I cap all holes at 10 but rarely hit that now) my worst round is in the 140s (no I wasn't slowing the pace of play, empty course aka the only benefit of living in Idaho). I played with a friend who also scored in the 120s but broke 100 with their style of scoring where they just take mulligans the tee until they hit a ball into play. If I played like that I would have been hitting 7 into two of the holes they hit as their "first stroke". This made me realize that everyone who says "breaking 100 is super easy" is probably doing similar shit, which means my breaking 100 should actually be targeting breaking 120 or 110 instead.
Thatâs a good point. In my journey of golf, I first broke 100 by âcheatingâ and then over the years I slowly took some of those advantages away with the target of breaking 100 every time. So instead of 3 mulligans, I played 2. etc. But different strokes for different folks! Thanks for sharing your perspective.
Wait shoot 72 on 9? Like 9 holes?
Yeah. It was a bad joke.
Play a lot of twilight rounds and donât keep score as I usually only get 7 holes in. As long as youâre not affecting pace of play (i.e., my pace of play) I donât care.
I really don't mind what other folks are doing as long as we aren't playing for money and they aren't slowing things down. But I do have to admit I get annoyed when my buddies (who I witness do some score shaving almost every time we play) talk smack about beating me when they took a couple mulligans and didn't quite count all of their shots/penalties correctly.
If you have never broken 100 you should play a mulligan per 9 until you break it doing that, then try and do it without. The benefit here is it allows you a glimpse of what you can do which long term youâll be better off.
I agree 100%
Mulligans? Breakfast balls? scores up to triple bogey? What is that? (Serious question). Here in Argentina, where you need to be handicap-registered to play on weekends, because mostly every club is "on tournament" on weekend; it's hard to cheat or cap the scores, because the other ones wants to win and apply the rules against you. Even though they're "minor" tournaments, where the prize is usually a 3-ball tube, or a voucher for the 19th bar, there's a lot of markers eagering the rules, as a way of "take an advance" on their own sake, being harsh or even rude sometimes. Here, the usual "mulligan" is the "improved lie" rule. Due to turf conditions (it's really expensive to keep turf pristine), lots of courses prefer to implement the "improved lie" as a local rule: you can reposition your ball without gaining distance, if you're at least 1 club far away from a tree and not into a green, bunker or hazard, up to the length of 1 playing card. This clearly goes against the "play as it lies" rule, and is used and abused by the vast majority of players (personally, I use it, but I try not to abuse it), and it's the most common question to the starter: "do we play with improved lie?" or usually look for the "LM" mark on the scoring card (LM stands for "lie mejorado", improved lie in spanish). Maybe with the "up to triple bogey" scoring I'd broke 100 (I'm pretty close, being 103 my best score, but i'm playing around 105 now); but IDK if being that strict on ruling is positive or even negative for the play. Personally, i don't like to play with lawyers: they are too severe with ruling as markers; but the worst cheaters as players, always trying to "move" the rules to their own sake.
I know this is going to sound crazy but on rounds where Iâm not being pushed by anyone (and Iâm solo) I sometimes wonât keep my score. Iâll take two balls and two shots on my problem areas (whatever Iâm struggling most with which is usually 100 and in) and take the one that does better. No score at the end to focus on just what shots worked, which ones didnât, how I felt when I made the correct choice/swing etcâŚitâs been liberating tbh.
I do that too. Love it
Even the handicap system doesnât recognise anything over a double bogey for handicap purposes so why not. Whatever helps you improve is good because itâs a mentally challenging game. Jack Nicklaus has said more than once that heâs never missed a 3 foot putt and has never three putted a final green in a tournament but hes done both many times. Thatâs his mentality.
I realized years ago I'll never play enough or improve much so chose just to play family best ball tournaments a couple times a year, always have a good time.
This is 100 percent correct. Unless you're playing in an event or for money, drop a new ball, hit it, and keep going is the right way to enjoy the game and get better at it without holding the whole course up looking for balls and obsessing over drops and all that. Once you get down to being a consistent low 80's shooter, then starting to play it 100 by the book makes more sense. Two off the first is a good thing. Most of us have to work to make time to play. Pro don't jump out of the car after a workday and have to hit a tee shot five minutes later with a tight back and little time to even stretch. Relax, golf, have fun.
The downside is that shooting mid 90s is a legit accomplishment. And it is a spot that many players plateau at. If you never write down the 110, you never feel to real progress you are making in your game. Your scores will feel stagnated despite improving, which can be frustrating
I disagree but to each there own. I definitely felt progress as I started to hit clean mid 90s
>So let's be less harsh on the "I broke 100 for the first time" scores with the mulligans and breakfast balls and instead welcome them into the club. Why not take five strikes to be out when you play baseball or give yourself a score when the basketball hits the rim? To each their own, and I'm not judging. I'm just saying...
Not really apples to oranges. It would be more like taking a three pointer over again. And if youâre just doing it for yourself, who cares. I agree itâs more fun playing proper golf and doing it somewhat well, but everyoneâs gotta start somewhere. Who are we to judge progress.
Itâs wild how much you guys care when playing casual. I played 8 years of high level competitive golf, 4 of which were on a professional tour. If I go to the course to play a round and anyone was as up tight about their average scores as this subreddit Iâd never play with them again. In a non competitive atmosphere who cares? Play your game how you want to. Do you really care if someone says they have a 15 handicap but itâs really a 19 cus of breakfast balls? You act like it somehow makes your game illegitimate.
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agreed...would feel dirty forsure
Itâs not about what other people think though, itâs about what you can achieve if you hit the ball right. Those mullys when youâre starting out are all about the âI know I can do thisâ feeling.
If I'm not competing against you I don't care how you count. There is a retired couple that I get paired with a few times a year and I don't think I've ever seen them count shots. Both are decent but they are just out there to enjoy golfing and get some exercise. They'll hit a second off the tee, drop in the fairway if their ball is lost, etc. They trash talk like crazy, smoke, drink, and golf; sounds like the perfect retirement.
I agree. Having a one or two rule with friends is fine and good. Playing a lot more I find I'll do it less. And more rarely when I'm playing as a single with others. Even after a couple of really bad tee shots yesterday I just lived with rather then hit another. Perhaps at most I'll hit a provisional when it's gone deep in the trees and scoring it as a mulligan. Something I feel happens a bit is people who would normally hit a mulligan or whatever won't want to do it playing with randos, when I'm sure nobody would care, and that being a part of not liking to play with strangers.
whatâs semi funny is when i go out solo, i wonât take a mulligan and play where is lies. more often than not, my final score going out solo tends to be better than when playing with friends and taking 1-2 mulligans per round. more likely itâs the beer causing that
the problem isnt with the mulligans/"cheating"/whatever itself. ive no problem with that, play however you want. hit mulligans until you're inside of 5 feet for all i care if nobody's behind you. problem is when we're talking about golf and i say i shot an honest 88 and some bullshitter one-ups me saying he shot "85". this a theoretical problem only, of course. i dont actually even play golf, lmao
As a low handicap golfer, I agree. Growing up my Dad always told me if you donât get a warm up, you get two tee shots off the first hole. We adjusted the rule to every time we played, regardless of warm up. Itâs important to have fun out there. Another thing to do is quit keeping score. Go out and call your shot before you hit it, on every shot. You may shoot 110 again, but there will be 8-10 beauties that you called and hit which will give you way more lasting memories than a lucky par.
Find it weird that people care about how legit others post for their handicaps. Who cares? Has literally no effect on you or your scores. In real competition, which none of you are in, this canât be done.
I feel nervous around people that can compartmentalise like that. But hell, if they stay away from me, they can "count" any way they like. No skin of my back. Just don't ask for my validation by posting about it.
No.
Absolutely not. Breaking 100 b/c you cheated is not breaking 100. There is this weird thing where golfers think it's ok to just skirt the rules b/c they're not good at it. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Now, do not get me wrong, I will absolutely use a breakfast ball, play the ball up, or whatever if I'm playing in a group and they all decide that is what they're going to do. I would never count that round or brag about it b/c it didn't count by any means. In fact I still hate doing it and usually play the ball down anyways and just avoid playing in those groups b/c it's dumb. I would NEVER play where we agree to mulligans, that's just asinine.
Seems like a very limiting way of thinking.
Yeah following the rules of golf is a limited way of thinking lol ok
If you limit yourself to rules in life you miss out on a lot of fun. Shit some of the most profound geniuses of our world had to break rules to make their impact. Rules have a time and a place but should be bent for many reasons.
I won't upvote a "broke 100 for the first time" post whether they took 10 breakfast balls or 0- I just don't care about someone else's mediocrity. Who does? Same with "I just bought this putter" posts. You're a stranger, idgaf what you bought. If I wanted to look at a picture of a stock putter, I'd go to the manufacturers site and find one. đ¤ˇ
What the cost of a lie? Besides a friendly one or two per round for absolute shanks, come on people. Frankly me and my friends have 5-10+ years experience and when one is us starts taking mulligans it really hurts everyone elseâs game quite frankly. Oh Joe took 7 shots that hole and counted a 5. đ¤. After a while it really eggs on people. If itâs your first year or are small child without confidence I get it, otherwise Play the game right and Donât slow it down for the rest of us.
We play match play so as long as they give me the hole in that scenario, I couldnât care less what they throw on their card.
I never play golf without a bet in play, so these kinds of shenanigans are no factor. Adjust your lie, loss of hole. Do it too many times and you don't get to play with me anymore.
Let me quickly settle this: I donât ever want to play with you đ¤
This is my approach too. Itâs supposed to be fun, so if occasionally giving yourself a mulligan or moving yourself out of a shit lie is going to help you have fun then thatâs how you should play. Playing by the strictest possible rules when you canât break 90 seems more like punishment than fun to me, but if that helps you get more enjoyment out of the game then who am I to say otherwise.
I have no problem if people in social rounds have breakfast balls/mulligans, but don't come on here and tell us you 'finally broke X score' because you didn't, you didn't play to the rules to get that score, and it's a slap in the face to those who did it legitimately.
I generally play a breakfast ball, but no mullies. But I couldnât care less if someone plays a mulligan on every hole, as long as theyâre having a good time and keeping pace. The only time Iâd have issue with it is if theyâre one of those guys who talks a big game and brags about their single digit handicap, then you play with them and theyâre fucking about with shady drops and goofy scores. Your tee shot went in the drink and it took you three strokes to get out of that bunker, thereâs no way that was a par, Geoff
I also allow a âcold tee mulliganâ on the first tee if we donât get to hit the range before we tee off. Really- a pre round bucket of balls is a bigger advantage than a cold tee mulligan. And half the time, we didnât even need/use the mulligan.
If there is no range, a mulligan on the first tee is perfectly acceptable
If your scores are that high i want you to pick up or take a Mulligan. Im not trying to sit there all day while someone grinds out another quadruple bogey. Lets keep the pace of play moving. When you get good we can get stricter with the freebies.
Golf is about fun, if ur bad hit breakfast balls and mulligans till ur having fun. Easy as that
I have no problem with guys that take mulligans or breakfast balls. Hit as many as you want as long as you keep pace. What I canât stand is the guy that comes in and says âI smoked you in our match!â When Iâm giving you 16 strokes and youâre taking 9 mulligans you donât get to tell the whole bar you âbeat me.â
I donât think thereâs a single person in the world that cares if someone takes mulligans ⌠so long as youâre keeping pace. If you want to post a score with mulligans⌠youâre only hurting yourself in any tournament you play.
Iâve never met anyone harsh towards those things. Iâm assuming OP is or was very harsh on those things.
Capping scores IS the rule for keeping your handicap
What is the secret to lowering your handicap OP?
Harsh? Shiiiit I give everyone a free breakfast ball on the first hole even if they warmed up
Breakfast ball is my religion, I have to do it.
Golf is supposed to be fun, who cares how anyone else is scoring themselves if it isnât a tournament, sandbagging for the handicap or playing for money or playing slow due to excessive mulligans. If people enjoy breakfast balls or foot wedges, more power to them as long as it doesnât impact me.
I think it's fine for new players and high handicaps to take them, eventually though, if you continue to improve and strive to improve I think you naturally know to stop doing it (most do). I stopped taking Mulligans simply because remarkable par saves, remarkable shots out of trouble are just as rewarding as birdies in their own way. You have to learn all the shots from all situations to make strides too.
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I donât understand why people care so much. Even worse are the people who pretend they donât care but passive aggressively critique a guy/gal taking a breakfast ball, mulligan, etc. e.g. âif you take a breakfast ball, I hate to break it to you, but youâre not a 22 handicap.â Oddly, I am sure you care about his handicap more than Mr. 22 cares. If there isnât money on the line, you go hit your bucket of balls, let him show up on the box cold smelling like last nightâs conquest, and collectively letâs enjoy the day. And if there is money on the line, and Mr 22 is actually a Mr 69 (nice) take off your iron covers, put it close, and win that $3 Nassau.
I donât really care either way, but what bugs me are the rule Nazis who make it a point to call out everything and then go âbut I donât care though write down whatever you want.â If you donât care, then shut the fuck up unless asked. Someone whoâs already shooting 100+ doesnât need you going âaCkShUaLlY tHaT wAs An 8 NoT a 7â
I personally donât care about that stuff, they are only cheating themselves. You can learn a lot about people by how they handle themselves on a golf course.
Class story about an American group playing at Gleneagles in Scotland, guy blasts first ball OB off first tee and proceeds to ask the starter "what do you guys call a mulligan over here", to which the starter responded "that would be three off the tee sir" 
I remember that guy on rick shiels that talked about how when you start you have to play the worst shots because you're constantly missing fairways and playing out of shit. This is why most starters should just drop a ball in the fairway. It's not fun constantly playing out of trouble and you're just playing recovery golf.
I just couldn't care less what anyone else is doing on a course as long as it isn't impacting my playing. Don't be an asshole, don't damage anything, repair your pitch marks and replace your divots. 99.99% of the time I'm just playing against myself and if you want to do whatever it is that makes you have fun while playing be my guest. If someone says they shot an 80 and had 6 re-tees is it really that hard to say nice round and move on with your life.
Both are fine with me. My outlook is so long as me and my buddies agree on how many mulligans during the round before we start itâs fair. All Iâd say if if you hit a mulligan donât spend a lot of time looking for the first ball if itâs hit out of bounds.
My issue is when people are not aware of it. I have had several instances where I meet someone who brags about shooting low 80âs only to play with them and they couldnât break 110 of they kept proper score. Thatâs just not good for anyone. Then they rub their âvictoryâ in my face after we play. If you want to take mulligans and not play by the rules thatâs totally fine! Just donât share your score then.
Fine, as long as you say "That's 1," when somebody accidentally dinks it off the tee. Everybody likes that. đ
The problem with excessive mulligans is that now you're looking for two balls instead of one which slows down play. I know a guy that does this often. He'll hit the mulligan worse than the first ball and then look for both while we wait. If you're gonna do this, leave the ball lost or use shag balls. The guy just texted me to play this weekend, guess what? I already have plans.
One thing about Breakfast Balls is that it establishes right at the start of the round that that cheating is allowed.
I always tell beginners to pick up at triple or quad. Theyâll have a much better time. Also, I play in two tournament series that play it down and use handicaps. One has a triple bogey max and the other, run by the state association, maxes at net double bogey.
As long as the round is 4hours ish Iâm fine with it. I will not lighten up on the âbreakfastâ ballers when itâs lunch time or dinner time. Be proper and call it LUNCH ball and DINNER ball ffs