Listen. Can you hear it? That low pitchy whine. It’s the kind of noise that makes you want to rip out your ear drums and flush them far out to sea with the rest of the sewage.
Yes, once again, it’s the corner of the internet that’s forever bitching. I understand the irony in moaning about people moaning, but dear me golf social media is an unhappy place.
If they’re not banging on about LIV, or nailing their cross to a socks mast (the hills on which you people are prepared to die), they’re getting in a tizzy about handicaps.
Type in the letters W, H, and S. Go on, I dare you, and try to drown out the tortured screams of low handicappers pledging they’re never entering competitions again because someone with a higher number on that bit of the scorecard took their ‘rightful’ prize.
‘There’s no point’. ‘I can’t compete any more’. ‘I’m not wasting the money’. Let me get out my violin and you can chuck it along with that dummy you’ve hurled out of the pram.
Their argument centres around one point. I’m a good player. I’m better than most of you and, therefore, I should be winning more often.
And no-one should ever shoot more than 40 points in a Stableford. If they do their handicaps are wrong. And if you play off more than 18 and you win, you’re just a stinking cheat.
Waaah, waah. There, there, settle down now.
Imagine the entitlement. Imagine believing that just because you occasionally find the centre of the clubface more than the rest of us, we should bow down, salute your magnificence, and offer you those vouchers like they were a medieval tribute.
It ignores statistics, for a start. If fewer than five per cent of players have a handicap of 5 or less and more than 30 per cent have a mark between 21 and 28 – England Golf’s figures, not mine, then aren’t the latter statistically more likely to win? Because there are far more of them?
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That doesn’t even account for possible rates of improvement. It’s obviously far easier for a 28 handicapper to shoot a 4 under round than it is for scratch.
Low handicappers: ‘It takes a special kind of idiot to use Stableford as the vehicle for discontent’
Yeah, but they shouldn’t be able to enter. Well, why bother with handicaps at all then? I mean, if you think about it, it’s why they were introduced in the first place. So the best players didn’t win all the god damn day.
An, oh yes, the too many points complaint. It really takes a special kind of idiot to use Stableford as the vehicle for discontent. Honestly, what did you expect?
It’s a format where you don’t even have to hole out and you can still win. Are you really surprised it favours a group of players who may be more erratic?
But round and round the ’46 points’ bus we go. It’s just one format. You’ve still got the medal, the scratch championship, the scratch knockout, gross prizes and division prizes to play for. You also dominate the 2s. I’m sorry, is that not enough?
If you think barely getting into the top 20 off 4 requires months of therapy, imagine those of us who’ve just slinked into double digits.
It’s the Bermuda Triangle of handicaps. You’re totally invisible in most competitions. Too rubbish to win the gross, and not rubbish enough to take the nett. If you’re lucky, you might land a minor spot in a division.
Do you see me threatening to take my clubs and balls home with me? No, but that’s because I don’t see a low handicap – and flaunting that by taking prizes – as a crude shaft extension.
Buy a sports car if you need that validation so badly.
Look, nothing is perfect. Everything has its flaws. Only one person can win the trophy. If just being one of the planet’s better players isn’t good enough, then I genuinely feel bad for you.
Because there is surely more that defines our game than whether your gross 72 scoops enough to buy a bag of tees in the pro shop.
Now have your say
The Angry Club Golfer is back but should he retreat to his cave? Has he got this one badly wrong or should low handicappers take a chill pill in competitions? Let him know by hassling him on, er, X.
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