Golfers are generally honest people. Upstanding citizens. Salt of the earth types who rake bunkers, replace divots, and call penalties on themselves even when nobody is watching. I said generally…lookin at you Steve 👀.
They also lie constantly. About golf. To each other. To themselves. With complete and total conviction.
Here are five things you will hear on every golf course in America every single weekend that are absolute, provable, documented fiction worthy of a place next to Bilbo’s Hobbit hole.
1. “I Just Haven’t Been Practicing Lately”
This is the most popular lie in recreational golf and it is deployed like a patriot missile immediately after a bad shot, a bad hole, or an entire bad round. The implication here is clear. This isn’t the real me. The real me practices. The real me is good. You’re just catching me at a bad time.
The truth is the speaker has not practiced since Carter was in office (For you youngins, he was the Pres that liked peanuts). The swing you just witnessed IS the practiced swing. This is as good as it gets. But “I just haven’t been practicing” buys another six months of bad golf with a built-in excuse already loaded and ready to fire. The beauty is the speaker actually and truly believes the malodorous garbage that just came out of his or her mouth. I know because when I say it, it feels as natural as saying the grass is green and sky is blue.
2. “The Wind Really Got That One”
The wind. Always the wind. Never the swing, never the club selection, never the fact that the player addressed the ball with the body language of someone who to whom body language is a foreign language. Or a dead one, like Latin. Nope, it was that 3 mph easterly squall that dumped that ball in the pond.
There is a thing about the wind excuse though, it is occasionally legitimate which is precisely why it survives and is royally abused. Every golfer has had one genuinely wind-affected shot in their life, and they have been dining out on it ever since applying it liberally to every subsequent disaster, regardless of actual meteorological conditions. The kicker, every crap golfer in your foursome will say, “Yeah man you got screwed, it kicked up during your backswing.” Why? Because they damn well know they will be invoking the god of gusts the next time they yank one right, and they expect your support right back.
Calm day? Doesn’t matter. Mother Nature is a fickle lady. And a provider of one of the best excuses in the game.
3. “I’m Just Here to Have Fun”
Nobody who says this is just here to have fun. They sit in a golf cart made of lies.
The person who says “I’m just here to have fun” is keeping meticulous score in their head. They know exactly what they’re shooting. They know exactly what you are shooting. They know exactly what they need on the last three holes to break 90 for the first time this season. They are not having fun. They are competing with the white-knuckled intensity of someone who bet the deed to their home on the outcome.
“I’m just here to have fun” is what you say when you want to establish low expectations, so that when you inevitably crash and burn after you announce you only need to bogey the last 3 holes to set your personal best, you can say “Ah well, it was still fun being out here.” Your playing partners aren’t buying it and that broken 7 iron hanging half out of your bag is the proof they have that you are a lyin’ Bo Diddly.
4. “That’s Good, Pick It Up”
Ah the gimme. Golf’s great social contract. I’ll pretend you would have made that three footer if you’ll pretend I would have made mine.
The gimme is a beautiful lie because it requires the cooperation of everyone involved. Nobody actually knows if you would have made that putt. You don’t know. Your playing partner doesn’t know. The golf gods know but they remain silent. And so we all agree to proceed as though it was a certainty, because the alternative, watching someone miss a two-footer for the fourth time today, ceases to get laughs and starts to feel like the next charity golf outing should benefit you. Nobody wants that.
The gimme is a lie we all tell together. It is golf’s greatest act of collective fiction and honestly one of its finest traditions.
5. “I’ve Got a Great Feeling About Today”
Said on the first tee. Means nothing. Has never once predicted the outcome of a round with any accuracy whatsoever. Wait. That’s not true either. It almost guarantees you shoot your way into a
The person who has a great feeling about today will make triple bogey on the first hole, AFTER using their breakfast ball. They will blame the wind, claim they haven’t been practicing, and concede a four-footer to their playing partner. They will then talk about a birdie on the second to get back on track. They do not get back on track. The tracks AND the train have been moved to another county, where birdies chirp and eagles soar, not just in the sky but on someone’s score card. Not your buddie’s, but somebody’s.
They will have a great feeling about next week though. That one’s really going to be different.
The Bottom Line
Golf is a game of honesty. It says so right there in the rules. You call penalties on yourself. You count every stroke. You report your own score.
And then you tell everyone on the 19th hole that you would have broken 80 if it wasn’t for that one hole.
We wouldn’t have it any other way. And if we would, we wouldn’t tell you.
If you laughed at any of these because you’ve said one or all of them, welcome home. Subscribe to Wormburner Weekly here for more of the same. It’s golf’s most disreputable newsletter, free every Tuesday. We’ll never judge you. Mostly because we’ve said all of them too.