[Jason Topp]

I leave for Kiawah tomorrow with a fun group of 16.  I'm playing very poorly this year and prospects for good play are remote. Fortunately, very few people on this trip can play at all so I will fit in.

Should I embrace playing like crap and enjoy the people, the courses, the setting, and the competition?

Should I struggle against the darkness?

[Ian_L]

The few times I've been on golf trips, I've found my game on the trip doesn't reflect what I was doing back home.  I went to Ireland shooting in the mid-90's, and came back with an 84 at Lahinch and Donegal, which I was quite pleased with.  So my advice would be to start fresh.

[Ash Towe]

I found I was in awe of the surroudings.  Did not want to make a mistake which of course I did.  Then after taking advice from my wife my play improved.  The advice was to play aggressively and to think it was just another round.
Hope this helps.

[Andrew Hastie]

I would suggest give your self a golf lesson.
Most of the time when things go hay wire it's because the swing gets a bit long and quick.

Maybe try a few drills to slow you self down and get back a bit timing in the swing.

Go out with a new attitude,"Play the Game"remember play one shot at a time. It's a old cliche but it works.

[cary lichtenstein]

Here's a trick I use for playing poorly. I hit chip and pitch shots to get my tempo back. About 30 of them, and then I hit 1 shot with every other club in the bag and go to the first tee.

[Rich Goodale]

Jason

Just do whatever you did at BUDA VI.  Everybody seemed to enjoy your company and you seemed to be enjoying theirs.  What else is there in life, or even in golf?

Rich

[Mark Pearce]

What Rich said.  I enjoyed our game at BUDA and you appeared to play well enough to enjoy it too.

[Andy Troeger]

I leave for Kiawah tomorrow with a fun group of 16.  I'm playing very poorly this year and prospects for good play are remote. Fortunately, very few people on this trip can play at all so I will fit in.

Should I embrace playing like crap and enjoy the people, the courses, the setting, and the competition?

Should I struggle against the darkness?

Jason,
From what you've written it sounds like you're not going with serious golfers with should help. I've played awful for most of the year (finally broke out of it some last month, but its still not where I'd like it to be). Unless forced, I wasn't even keeping score most of the time, I'd just figure it out afterwards. Enjoy the trip, the company, and the courses, and hope for the best with your game if you can't figure out what's going wrong. My handicap is 8 shots higher than it was 2 years ago at this time, but I feel like its going back down. Hope springs eternal! 

[Mike_Cirba]

Jason,

Embrace your imperfections and play conservatively.

Enjoy!

[rjsimper]

Play for small victories and relish them.

If your goal would normally be to break 80, maybe make a goal to break 40 on one side
If you're north of 40 on both sides, make your goal to make a birdie.
If birdies aren't coming, make a fairway/green par

If none of that is working, screw it all and just have fun.  I've found that I've gotten more enjoyment at times (particularly on great holes) if my score does not matter any longer by taking a treed tee shot out and putting it down in the fairway at the point where you'd typically hit your approach shot so that you can actually see the golf course - don't get so caught up with score that you grind out a double that means nothing when you completely miss the shots the architect intended.

That is, assuming its a good course of course.

[Adam Clayman]

Lose your subjectivity and open your eyes to everything else. How one scores is immaterial to the thrill of creating shots. The apathy will free yourself to be a better self.

[PCCraig]

Jason—

Where will you be playing while at Kiawah??

It’s interesting considering I made a trip to Kiawah this past New Years (Yes the middle of Winter) for a long weekend. I hadn’t touched a club in about three months. The first night I was there it reached the coldest it has ever been in Charleston (17* I believe) and the first round I played was in about 38* weather. Needless to say I had the weather playing against me. I didn’t play any better or worse than I expected that day, playing the fun and sporty Briar’s Creek Club just down the road from Kiawah. The next day / round was at the famed Ocean Course, I’m not sure if it was the intimidating tee shots and course, weather (40* and windy), or my lack of practice, but I had a tough time getting around, probably shooting 15 shots over my handicap! However after that round I played the nearby Osprey Point course, a fairly easy Fazio layout with a cart hitting several balls to regain my form a bit. After feeling a little better, I decided to try out TOC the next morning. The weather was great (50* and sunny) and after hitting balls for an hour before the round, I played a really fun round birdying 18 to shoot 79! (One of the best three woods I think I have ever hit into the wind to 3 feet!)

By the way, I know it has been talked about often on GCA…but if you can, get out and play TOC. It really is an amazing experience…the par-3 14th hole is probably one of the best par-3’s I have ever seen. Also the winter there is highly underrated!, Considering the weather was a little rough, I played two rounds at TOC in roughly 3 hours each being the first person to tee off both days…can’t beat that!

[Brian Cenci]

I've shot some pretty bad rounds at some great courses....96 at Oakmont, 94 at Olympia Fields, 92 at Pacific Dunes, etc.  If you know you're going to stink it up then my philosphy is tip it out so you can at least preface your bad round with "I played the tips"

-Brian

[John Kavanaugh]

Jason,

Fake a back injury and bail.  Kiawah will break you as it has better men before.

[Dan Kelly]

More easily understood than accepted:

It's only golf.

Even crappy golf is only golf.

Even great golf is only golf.

Just remember this: You could be in a meeting, with a bunch of stuffed shirts, in downtown Minneapolis!

Check your BlackBerry after every really bad shot.

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

The Ocean Course is a zen experience.  Seldom will you score well there.  Just enjoy the experience.  My advice is to not try to overpower the course -- play connect-the-dot-golf, i.e. hit to spots in the fairway and green rather than swinging for the bleachers.  You'll have a better round.  Also, look around you at times.  You're be in one of the most beautiful spots on the planet...

[Rory Connaughton]

Bring a deck of cards and some dice and chase your losses in the evening.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Jason...
Prior to writing this , a disclaimer...this is the kettle calling the pot black!

enjoy the experience of being on a great golf course with friends, dont let the poor play stress you out and spoil the experience.

I have always struggled with that philosophy so much so that it has almost ruined my competitive career...and trust me it is not worth it...the stress induced from the desire of wanting to play well , will creep into your life eventually if you let it....DONT....have fun and enjoy the ride
have a great trip
michael

[Doug Wright]

Jason,

Good advice above so I have only 2 words to add:

Beer cart.


PS1 Kiawah is terrific. If your golf game stinks just go for a walk or bike ride on one of the most beautiful beaches on the planet.

PS2 Mike's correct (of course), The Ocean Course is very much a connect the dots course. If you do that and the conditions are not overwhelming you should be OK even if you're not at your best.

PS3  Cougar Point was much better than I expected. Although it winds through housing it's not intrusive and there are some surprisingly solid golf holes.

[Tom Huckaby]

Interesting topic, very timely for me as I leave on one myself tomorrow.

My advice?  NATO.

Not
Attached
To
Outcome.

You simply have to play that way.  Enjoy the course, screw the scores.

It's not easy to do, of course.  But if you can pull it off, your time invariably seems to be better spent.  And it's funny how the tail wags the dog... the less attached to outcome you can truly make yourself, the better those outcomes tend to be....

TH

[Bill Brightly]

Well, you could moan and groan the whole trip, throw clubs and curse a lot. Discussing your swing problems at dinner is always a good idea. I've found that higher handicappers really have a surpising amount of sympathy for a low handicap whining because he pulled an 8-iron into a bunker.

[JNC Lyon]

I know on my only trip to the Ocean Course I struggled with my game, and I'm pretty sure anyone worse than a 3 handicap is guaranteed to have great difficulties with the course.  The only way to truly to enjoy the Ocean Course or any great course is to look at playing well as only an added bonus.  Rather, you should really try to see all of the great features of the course and relish in them.  I played at Garden City Golf Club earlier this year and I was totally blown away by the place.  As a result, I was overly excited to play the golf course and played very poorly, struggling to find tempo in every part of my game.  However, the experience was incredibly enjoyable, playing golf with three great guys and enjoying a thoroughly unique golf experience.  Playing poorly left me longing for more, but I resolved not to let it affect my impression of the course.

My advice follows what Cary Lichtenstein says above: focus on your tempo above all else in your game.  Playing the Ocean Course is exciting like any other course; the demanding nature of the course only adds to the nervousness.  Getting your tempo will help you relax, enjoy the course, and definitely play better.

[Ken Moum]

That sounds a bit like my one and only trip to Scotland.

I did a pretty good job of just playing and not letting my sideways shots get into my head, but it wasn't easy.

In my case, the problem was exacerbated by having a member of the group who bitched about almost every shot he hit and every other thing on the trip--while hitting it so well that the caddies were fawning over him. 

Worse, amid the constant griping, he claimed to be enjoying himself and said he didn't have a negative attitude. I still can't look at him without getting ticked off.

K

[Rick Sides]

Hey jason,
My advice is to have fun.  Enjoy the company of others and play within yourself.  You may also have a caddy at Kiawah, and if you do that is fun. I don't know if you ever played with a caddy before.  It can make you a bit nervous but remember,if you hit a bad shot, they have seen thousands of bad shots before.  I sometimes struggle playing with poor golfers because they spray the ball all over.  Last week i was in a tournament with 3 other guys who were not very good  and they were hitting two or three balls of the tee and cheating like hell which got me frustrated.  I would say that if people around you play bad, just look around the settings and enjoy- Kiawah is suppose to be beautiful.

[Phil Benedict]

Every year I struggle with the question "is not playing at all better than playing badly" at some point during the season.  If I played like crap at Cypress Point I am more likely to remember how I played than how magical the course was.  To some extent the better the course the worse I feel after stinking up the place.  This is probably a character weakness.  

The notion of the Ocean Course being a sort of Zen experience is interesting.  The course obviously works as a commercial venture but what's the appeal of a course where almost everybody is hopelessly overmatched?  Other Dye courses may fit this description as well - Whistling Straits for example.  Hard as it is they can still charge $300 greens fees.

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