Here we go again! Should gimmes be banned?

The 2022 Presidents Cup was a case of another match play event and another player unhappy at not being handed a gimme.

And though not quite as dramatic as that Solheim Cup incident all those years ago, the Presidents Cup did throw up an amusing incident in the lead singles match between Justin Thomas and Si Woo Kim at Quail Hollow.

Despite the head shaking, and having lost his singles match, JT eventually got over the incident as the USA whooped Team International 17 ½ to 12 ½ at Quail Hollow.

But should gimmes now be banned altogether? Or should Thomas have kept his thoughts to himself and putt when told to? Two members of the NCG are quite stern but bat for different teams in this age-old debate.

The gimme in golf debate

‘If you miss a putt you thought was a gimme, then it wasn’t a gimme’

What a nonsense, writes Dan Murphy. A gimme is simply a means of speeding play-up when the ball is hanging over the hole.  

Here are three things that a gimme isn’t: 

1. An act of psychological warfare. There is no need to get involved in any mind games. If the ball is adjacent to the hole, invite your opponent to pick it up. If it is your ball, then proceed as normal until either it is in the hole or you are invited to pick it up 

2. An act of charity. Nobody has the right to expect their putt to be conceded. And if you expect nothing then you won’t be disappointed if your opponent has a different interpretation of what a gimme is compared to you 

3. A way of balancing a game out in any way. It doesn’t make any difference if you have just had a two-and-half-footer on each of the last three greens. It doesn’t matter if you are three up or four down. It’s just a ball in proximity to a hole. The entire point of the game is to get the former into the latter. Enjoy the final act of the drama 

It would be a shame to lose the gimme from the game because, let’s face it, anything that speeds rounds of golf up has to be a positive thing. But that’s up to us, as golfers, to treat gimmes as they were intended.  

It’s hard to put an exact distance on when a putt becomes a miss-able entity but I wouldn’t have thought it is more than a foot. Come on now, don’t pretend to be shocked – we’ve all seen some very short putts missed, haven’t we? 

If your opponent says nothing then just get on with it and whistle while you work. There are only really two scenarios.  

Either the putt is a formality in which case it is no big deal to go and tap it in and on we go. Or it is a putt that you can miss, in which case it isn’t a gimme and your job is to go and hole it. 

Let me end by making one thing clear: if you ever miss a putt that you think should have been conceded then the only thing you have proved is that – incontrovertibly – it shouldn’t have been conceded in the first place. 

Yes, you’re angry. But there is only one person to blame. And it isn’t the oppo. 

ALSO: 5 golf rules I’d change tomorrow

ALSO: Donald Trump to Kim Jon-il – world leaders that loved to tee up

‘I once had two putts from two feet to win, and wasn’t given them. This has scarred me for life’

I am never one to look for gimme’s, nor ask for them. Asking to pick up a putt is the sport’s biggest sin and maybe, you should play until you are told otherwise, writes Matt Chivers.

But aren’t we all obsessed with playing quicker? Don’t we all want to be home earlier and adapt golf into a game that doesn’t take up your entire day? We all whinge about these things so the answer is ‘Yes we do’, so let’s not be too hasty about removing gimmes from the game.

Instead of making your opponent go through a mental breakdown over a two-footer, you can walk to the next hole having given them the putt and knowing that they would almost certainly have holed it anyway. I’m not talking about four/five footers, we all want to see them holed.

This act saves the precious minutes we all crave and of which we lambast the professionals for using too many. Get on with it. Pick it up. Keep the momentum of the match going and build on your lead/claw back the deficit by slamming a drive down the middle of the next hole.

We also like to sit on our high horse and boast of golf’s honour, tradition and etiquette. It is a sport full of courtesy and respect, is it not? So if your opponent rolls his ball within a bin lid of the cup, celebrate the aforementioned qualities of this game we all love and invite them to pick it up.

I once played in a junior match ages ago where I was in the privileged position of having two putts to win the hole. But my opponent stood, silent as a statue, watching me eye up the hole from two feet away. Two feet. ‘Just lag this one up, Matt’, my partner joked. I holed it in one and ironically fistpumped it home.

Maybe it’s this memory that makes me so passionate about gimmes. Maybe one person’s stupidity shouldn’t shape my entire outlook on the gimme concept. But I’m afraid it has.

If you don’t think they’ll miss it, tell them to pick it up and let’s get one hole closer to the clubhouse. The inevitable is over sooner for the pair of us. Make a few more birdies and pars then perhaps you won’t need to worry about petty knee-knockers in the first place.

NOW READ: Outdated and unfit for the modern game: why these golf club dress code rules need to go NOW!

NOW READ: Can you concede holes to shorten a match?

What do you make of the gimme in golf debate? Do you agree with gimmes in golf? Tell us on X!