Everybody has \u201cthe hole.\u201d The one that keeps you up at night, staring at the ceiling wondering how you\u2019re going to walk off with double, at best. The hole you try to envision on the range, practicing your \u201cfairway finder\u201d (you are not going to find the fairway). It doesn\u2019t matter how many you hit into the open field, once you get out to whatever hole it is, regardless of how you\u2019re playing, the obstacles will be there. Out-of-bounds left (you\u2019re miss is a snap hook). Water down the right side (you haven\u2019t hit a draw in six years). Heavily-wooded areas lining the fairway (\u201cstraight down the middle\u201d is something you only hear in that stupid commercial during tour events).<\/p>\n
Sure, once in every 10 rounds, you do step up and hit a good one on \u201cthe hole.\u201d A brief confidence boost before you inevitably find a way to f up the hole anyway. Next time you play it, you\u2019ll do the math in your head and realize the percentage is very high that you revert back to the mean.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure if my co-worker E. Michael Johnson, a very worthy adversary on the golf course, was playing his version of \u201cthe hole\u201d when this situation occurred, but it brought up a good debate. Here\u2019s a direct message EMJ sent me last week:<\/p>\n
Possible stupid golf problem. Hit one OB. Went to cart to get another ball. Returned to tee only to catch grief for not carrying another ball. I countered bad karma to do so. Led to an interesting discussion. <\/p>\n
Oddly enough, this also happened in a group I was in last week \u2013 the person who hit what we thought was a lost ball did not have another one on him. Luckily, my other co-worker, Steve Hennessey, did have another. The carts weren\u2019t even that far away, but having another ball does A. save a small amount of time and B. saves the person who hit one OB the shame of walking back to the cart and back to the tee while everyone waits and watches.<\/p>\n
Having said that, I could not be more in EMJ\u2019s corner on this one. I realize I sounded like a mentally weak little boy in the beginning of this column, but no golfer that I know goes to a tee box planning to hit one out-of-bounds. Bringing a second ball with you, even on \u201cthe hole,\u201d is already admitting defeat. You are quite literally manifesting an OB ball. \u201cWell, I got another one, just in case.\u201d No, you have another one because you are clearly planning to use it. Bad karma, indeed.<\/p>\n
Of course, some golf courses, particularly ones where you have to use carts, may have tee boxes that require long walks up steps or over bridges to get to them.. Those holes may also have a number of fearsome hazards or white stakes or what have you. And if you\u2019re playing for money with some buddies who might be rules sticklers, in those situations, bringing two to the tee might just be necessary to keep play moving. If you\u2019re playing casually, though, you can play everything lateral and just go drop wherever it \u201cwent in\u201d to whatever it went into.<\/p>\n
I also respect the people who know their limitations and just always carry another one on them no matter what. Personally, I hate having anything another than tees, ball markers and a repair tool in my pocket. Another whole-ass ball is just plain uncomfortable in there.<\/p>\n
Even on \u201cthe hole\u201d (for me, the par-5 second at Basking Ridge, begging for a snap hook into the woods), I don\u2019t ever bring a second ball. My plan is to aim down the ninth fairway way right and hit a power draw back to the second fairway and set up a momentous 5-iron into the green for a two-putt birdie, which has happened one time in approximately 20 rounds there so far. Nowhere in those plans is \u201cbring a second ball just in case you\u2019re dead off the tee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do you have a “stupid” golf problem? A question you’re too ashamed to ask your close friends? A conundrum that needs to be talked out in a public forum? We’re here to help. If you have etiquette-related inquiries or just want to know how to handle some of the unique on- or off-course situations we all find ourselves in, please let us know. You can email me (chris.powers@wbd.com) or send me a DM on Twitter\/X (@Cpowers14) or on Instagram (@cpthreeve).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everybody has \u201cthe hole.\u201d The one that keeps you up at night, staring at the ceiling wondering how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[44,82,1047,20284],"class_list":["post-53419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-golf","tag-story","tag-stupid-golf-problems","tag-stupid-golf-problems-does-anybody-have-another-ball-on-them"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}