Scant reward for a good round

Have you ever thought of this?

You take up golf for what? The exercise, the days out with mates, or getting away from the missus taking you shopping  - whatever it is we don’t play the game because it’s hard.

Think of it from another angle - no matter what level we are at, the game gets harder the better we get at it. I reckon it’s the only sport in the world that the better you get, you actually get penalised for it.

Be it stroke play or match play there is enthusiasm and competitiveness that you want to win, beating your best mates or your opponent in a competition and that in turn brings a degree of difficulty.

If that isn’t hard enough in stroke play we stand on the first tee box and the thoughts start to run through our heads, how we intend to play the hole, what club am I going to play, then it hits home…you only have a certain amount of strokes awarded to you to help you achieve a decent score.

So you play a decent round and use fewer strokes than you were entitled to, what happens next? Your score gets entered into a computer and the next time you play a medal they tell you that you now have one or two fewer strokes to try and achieve a similar result.

In match play you are paired against a fellow player in a competition, because of your lower handicap you are classed as a better player, which is not always the case but that player is allowed more strokes than yourself, giving him an advantage before even a ball is hit in anger.

Golf is a harder game than people give it credit for and gets harder the more we play, and the better we get!

What do you think?