Six lies and excuses every golfer uses: Wind, bad bunkers & more
It is a well-worn cliche that golf is a sport in which the ball lies poorly but the player well, however, there are some fibs that aren’t fooling anyone.
The lies golfers tell have evolved over the years, adapting to technology that provides inconvenient data for the ego.
Here we look at the well-worn lies that still aren’t fooling anyone.
“I meant to do that”
This one has been made so much harder to get away with by social media and pesky ‘friends’ filming your swing.
While nobody believes you, there are few golfers out there who will ever admit to getting lucky.
“I’m working on some tweaks to my swing”
This one hurts to admit for anyone who really means to work on their swing but only gets as far as watching a few YouTube videos and hoping for the best.
The only way you get this one to fly is by actually producing a drastically improved swing, and who has the time for that?
“The sand in this bunker is a bit funny/wet/dry/sandy”
There is always something wrong with the bunkers that you find yourself in. Everyone else is stepping into a zen garden with their ball neatly perched on a sand tee, but you have found yourself in a mud pit.
The bunkers everyone else is in are always too easy. This lie doesn’t typically generate very much sympathy even though we’ve all been in the bunker from hell.
“There was a gust of wind that took my ball”
We have to concede that some golfers are haunted by bad weather, but gusts of wind that plague the slicers of this world remain an unexplained phenomenon that is only detectable to the ball striker.
Who really knows which way the wind is blowing and who are you to tell me to strengthen my grip.
“I’m not sure what I had on the last hole”
You might be able to get away with this one if you are generally very forgetful or you’re playing on more than one type of grass.
Depending on who you are playing with this might bag you a few strokes, but just because someone co-signs your lie doesn’t mean that they actually believe it.
“If I had a spotter I would never lose balls”
This one can come out anywhere, but it’s usually deployed looking for the last ball you had left in your bag with the rest already consigned to a watery grave.
If you had a spotter or multiple TV cameras following your round, every ball would be accounted for, even the ones you hit clear out of the course and over a road.