[Michael Goldstein]

Never, and I don't keep score.

Only exception I can think of in last three years was playing 4 rounds of club champs at PBGC last year. 

[Pete Lavallee]

I do love competitive golf, which is why I belong to three different Men's Clubs. Not a big fan of the events that involve others like scrambles, firecracker scrambles and 1,2,3 waltzes. Do I take those competitive rounds seriously, of course I do. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy our casual Sunday group that plays skins and junk also. There really is room in the game for both scenearios, although some clearly think otherwise!

[HarryBrinkerhoffDoyleIV_aka_Barry]

For me, golf revolves around 3 axis's.
1) Who I'm playing with.
2) Where I'm playing.
3) How I'm playing.

I used to focus way too much on how I was playing.  Focusing on shooting as low of a score as I can, regardless of where I played (mostly norcal munis, that would be a -1 on the Doak scale).  However, golf became much more enjoyable once I started focusing on the other 2, and stopped focusing on how I was playing.  And when I played with folks I love, and places I love, I generally played well.    If I played with folks I didn't enjoy, my game generally suffered.  The holy grail is to play somewhere you love, with people you love, AND to play well.  However, you shouldn't let how you play ruin your round when you have one of the other 2 dialed in.  More times than not, the how well you play axis fails.  Let's face it, almost all of suck in the grand scheme of things.  Do you let that ruin a round?  Again, for me, golf is most enjoyable when I focus on where I'm playing and who I'm playing with.....everything else is gravy.  My 2 cents on "how often I take a round seriously".

[Steve Lang]

  Not very often..  most serious i can remember was September 1996 at TOC.  Studied layout & shots several days before, on flight over the pond, at Museum looking at topo, marking up guidebook...  but mostly after the two caddies in our group (working for others) started calling me Laddie, and told me to put my notes away.. & started helping me, because their guys could not hit a target to save their lives... Since my normal mantra is either  "i never met a sucker pin i didn't like" or "I didn't travel all this way to lay up"...I stayed left at TOC except for the road hole.

[Brett Wiesley]

Barry, well said.  I think it takes many a year and more than a grey hair to learn that your score is the last thing that matters.  Enjoying architecture has brought me there.  Sharing architecture with others makes the round enjoyable, memorable, and I remember the day, course, and memories much more than any score.

[Doug Siebert]

Never.  I would practice if I wanted to play seriously and that ain't gonna happen.

Took the words right out of my mouth....glad I'm not the only one on GCA who feels/plays this way!

[Lou_Duran]

Never.  I would practice if I wanted to play seriously and that ain't gonna happen.

Took the words right out of my mouth....glad I'm not the only one on GCA who feels/plays this way!

WTH!  All that time we spent tracking down your impressively long foul balls in the Nebraska plains and you weren't being serious!

I play each shot seriously and with purpose.  Forty years in the game have taught me patience and humility.  When I was much younger, my wife could tell when I had a hard day on the course.  Perhaps my expectations have adapted, but today she has to ask me how things went.   

[Dave McCollum]

I’m in the fun camp.  That said, there must be betting and some sort of game.  Small stakes stuff to keep it interesting.  Mostly match play; low guy plays scratch, the rest of the guys spinning off the cap difference.  We never give full hc in match play; we give 66-75% to make the arithmetic easy.  We pretend the competition matters.  It does, but only for the laughs.   

When traveling, I tend to play well (for me) on courses I really want to see, although I don’t really care what I shoot.  On really hard courses I try to keep it in double digits as my only goal.  I don’t play tournament golf because I get ADHD after four hours on a golf course.  Another reason is if I have to wait around between shots, I look at the architecture and wonder why they did this or that.  A couple of years in a row, I was a last minute sub to fill out a Pro-Am team at a nearby course.  The pace was so slow I did a lot of looking and started to hate the course.  That tends to reduce the fun.

[Doug Siebert]

Never.  I would practice if I wanted to play seriously and that ain't gonna happen.

Took the words right out of my mouth....glad I'm not the only one on GCA who feels/plays this way!

WTH!  All that time we spent tracking down your impressively long foul balls in the Nebraska plains and you weren't being serious!

I play each shot seriously and with purpose.  Forty years in the game have taught me patience and humility.  When I was much younger, my wife could tell when I had a hard day on the course.  Perhaps my expectations have adapted, but today she has to ask me how things went.   

And I had a blast playing with you guys, and even have a great time looking for my foul balls!  It's about the fun for me, not about shooting the lowest score.  Not that shooting a low score isn't fun in and of itself, but given a choice between shooting par by splitting every fairway and green, and two putting 18 times, and shooting 8 over with an eagle, four birdies, six bogies, three doubles and a quad, I think I'll take the latter.  I probably have more fun that way, and definitely have much better stories to tell over beer after.

It isn't that I don't play each shot with purpose, I have a plan when I hit each shot.  Its just that I don't choose my shots based on what I think will produce the lowest score, but rather what I think will be the most fun way to play the shot/hole.  Not that I was planning to hit all those drives into the plains, that just happens to me some days whether I like it or not!  I can either play 90% of my rounds angry at my bad shots, or learn to enjoy the recovery from my mistakes.  I tried the former when I was a teenager, decided the latter made golf much more fun.  If I still had a mindset where I took myself seriously during a round, I would have quit the game years ago.

If I was playing my rounds seriously and with purpose, I might try taking my first lesson, or at least visiting the range once in a while - the only times I've been on a driving range this decade have been on my trips to Nebraska...probably just because everyone else is going there.  Me, I'm used to teeing it up about 4 minutes after my clubs leave the trunk

[Pete_Pittock]

Only during match play. I find in medal competition I try too hard, and when I "give up" because I'm out of the money (usually about #14) I seem to score better the rest of the way.

I always try, but I get in my own way. And I am serious about da golf because I will think about quitting the game at least once a year.
I'm no longer at the low point as once again I have spent my way back (thank you, technology!) with three new fairway woods and going cross-handed.

[Tom_Doak]

When I went out to play in the opening at Sebonack, I started to take it seriously [I actually warmed up on the range].  Then, all of a sudden, I realized that would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I just refocused on making sure I enjoyed it.  And I actually played very well, for me, considering the situation.

Maybe two holes into the round I realized that Jack Nicklaus had the opposite problem.  He had been taking every round since he was 12 years old, seriously, and had not played a round of golf just for fun in more than 50 years!  I really felt kind of sorry for him.  I was pleased to note that a couple of years later, he was back in the Hamptons to play a few courses with friends; I guess he has made the transition to being just another golfer.  I wonder if he will look at architecture a bit differently now.

[Matt MacIver]

I always start the round seriously, taking 30 minutes at least to methodically warm up since there is A Chance this will be a Career Day.  But, it all rarely helps and I'm 6 over through 4 so it all goes to heck. I rarely get a chance to play match play but would choose it over medal every time.

[Mickey Boland]

When I used to coach my kid's Little League teams or youth basketball teams, one thing I would always tell the kids the first day of practice was that we were going to try hard, but that we were going to have fun.  I also told them that winning was a lot more fun than losing, so we were going to try to win, but we were going to have fun even if we didn't. 

That's the same way I take my golf.  I try hard to play well every time I play, because for me it is more fun to play well.  I'm a low single-digit handicap.  So I probably play "seriously" 90% of the time.  But that doesn't take away my fun.  I try to hit the best shot I can, then get back in the cart with my partner and we can talk about a movie, where we ate last night, the trip he just got back from, etc.  I'm confident in saying most of the regular group I play with is that way as well.  No matter how we played, there is always a lot of laughing and talking as bets are settled up.

I don't see where "taking the game seriously" and "having fun" are mutually exclusive.

[David Bartman]

I think its important to define "take a round seriously" because I know people who think that they are , but are doing all the wrong things. 

I take only about 50% of my rounds seriously, and I play in a lot of tournaments, over 50 rounds a year.   

Here are few things I don't do when I fail to take a round seriously.

Before Round
  No pin sheet
  No game plan for each hole prior to playing the round
  No stretching, rolling ,
  no proper warm up
  not eating the right foods at the right time before the round
 

During Round

 not walking on both sides of the hole in each and every putt
 not walking on both sides of the hole on every chip
 not walking up slopes to get a better feel for blind or semi blind pitches
 not backing off a shot and restarting routine when bothered or mind wandering
 not having snacks for the said round
 not having water and drinking it during the round
 making poor decisions, usually too aggressive during my round
 


If I do 90% of these things I would consider that taking the round seriously,  I usually only do about 50% of these things because they have become habit , but the older I get, and  the less ALL my results matter to me , and I see these automatic activities becoming less and less habitual.   

 
 
 

[Randy St John]

I would guess 1 in 5 rounds I actually focus for everything.  I am more concerned with the feel of the place (physical and mental), the company, keeping my cigar lit and the most important number in every round, 34....the temperature of the beer at the end.

I figured out a long time ago if I really wanted to be good it would require more practice than I'm built for.

[Rich Goodale]

Great topic, Dave

My answer is probably "never" in regards to such things as:

--thinking in advance abot the round
--thinking in advance about the shots
--practising/exercising with a purpose (other than flexibility)
--really caring about the outcome

That being said, when on those random occasions where I begin my round well and seem to have a one-ness with my equipment and balls (literal and virtual), and I get over the hump of "God, I'm 2 under and it's only the 5th hole!" I sort of take things serious, but through entering into some some of trance that I can never replicate if I want to, rather than through conscious actions.

Amongst many other things, that is why you are a scratch golfer and I am a hack.

All the best

Rich

[Lester George]

Seldom, if ever anymore.

Lester

[Charlie_Bell]

I play my home course regularly for free, and though I'm competing with a friend I don't approach it with the kind of focus you're describing.

There are also about 4 courses that I play only once every other season.  Because I don't play them very often, I've made a set of notes for each course to remind me of the best strategy based on my limited ability.  I'll refer to the notes regularly in the days before the round, the better to visualize the holes and to be disciplined and confident as I play them.  I usually keep the notes in my bag as a reminder, but I seldom refer to them if I've done my homework.

[Brent Hutto]

Recently I joined up mid-round with another member at my club who is probably the best player I have even occasional opportunities to play with. At one point I prattled on about how I had recently started teeing off with a 4-iron on one Par 5 because my driver could reach the pond on the right or trees on the left side of the landing area. So it's safer to play like 4-iron, fairway wood, short iron than try playing it driver, 4-iron, wedge or whatever.

This guy is sort of quiet and keeps his opinions to himself, mostly. But on that occasion he favored me with a succinct reply. He said, "Yep, we all think we can figure this game out".

After reflecting at length on that somewhat cryptic comment I decided to defer to his 50+ years of golf experience and give up my long-time habit of trying to "figure this game out". And to me, to "take a round seriously" is just another form of "figure out".

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