Collecting golf course scorecards- OT?

[John Kavanaugh]

Why do you want blank scorecards?  It is not like they are worth more without your score, your coplayers names and any possible bets included.  Seems to me that a collection of filled out cards from every course you have played would have far more value and interest.

[Andy Troeger]

John,
Because I often don't play well enough to want to remember that whole score bit. Co-players are often featured in photos (yes, another strike against me...)

I have some scorecards with scores/notes on them to commemorate special rounds but like to have a blank one too.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I collect signed photos of all the major winners, I got most back to say 1920 and I collect the programmes from the US Open, USPGA, The Open and The Amateur Championship, I got loads of duplicates of the British stuff to swap.

[Brian_Sleeman]

I still wonder how the Top 100 flags are collected.  I know of at least one where they're not sold, and my curiosity is piqued as connections would make no difference.

[Bill Brightly]

3 racks of logo balls and 5 racks of pencils. Actually switched to pencils only now. Cheaper (free...) and easier to read!

[Ian Larson]

Theyre really not sold at any of them, Im in the turf industry and have worked at several myself. Then you account for friends and friends of friends that work at them as well. The superintendent is the one that has the stash of flags around the shop. Then when you start bartering a flag for a flag like trading cards....viola.

I forgot to note they are the flags from the classic top 100 list

[David_Madison]

I started collecting scorecards from the very first round I played when I was 14, and now have nine looseleaf notebooks filled with plastic sheet protected cards from every course I've played since - -  roughly 475 courses over 37 years, sorted by state, region, and so on.  I've got all kinds of notes written on each card, memories of practically every trip I've ever taken, the friends I played with, people I've met, girlfriends I've brought along on some of the trips (hope my wife doesn't read this!) - - all in all, a true diary of the best times in my life. If there was a fire in my home and all I could do was grab one thing (after making sure my wife, kids, and dog were safe) it would surely be that collection.

[PCCraig]

Flags are collected by being a teenage golfer who is willing to drive around chicago, phily, and boston to well known clubs in the middle of the night...with a screwdriver.

[Sandy Smith]

Pat , that is the funniest and coolest thing  I have read on this site !

[John Burzynski]

Be a man collect Porn books if you must, but yardage books. Did I not say distance/yardage is take over – Robert, wake up before it is to late.

Now that line is funny...

Funny, my wife said that she'd rather I collect score cards than porn.   I am not sure which way to go now, I am on the fence.  Either way, both sit in a box in the bottom of my sock drawer.

[Brad Tufts]

Classic discussion...I do collect scorecards from wherever I have been, but more to remember a certain hole or course if I want to look something up.  My strangest quirk is that a card really means nothing to me if I haven't played the course, so I have lots of great-course cards I've been given by friends over the years that don't mean too much.

I also have been collecting stymie scorecards (pre-1953) for quite a while now.  My collection numbers probably just over 1000, which has to be one of the largest in the US.  My favorite are NLE cards, but I have a good number from many of the greats around the country, and a few that came from the collection of a prominent MA golfer in the 30s that are scored with matches he played against Francis Ouimet.

My oldest is a 9-hole Macrihanish card from 1896.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Scorecards.

To those intending to travel to Fife in the coming year I attach a blank scorecard from a fun little 9 hole course at Leslie in Fife.



It’s worth stopping off between your visits to the well known courses (on your short stay in Scotland) to view and collect scorecards as they give you an impression of the courses you miss or did not have time to play.

I have always suggested planning not just the courses you will play during your visit but also your route between towns/courses .i.e. Dornoch-St Andrews or St Andrews-Musselburgh-North Berwick. I attach a map of 45 courses in Fife – some of you have already received a copy from me in previous e-mails over the last few months.  It just goes to show how many course you can miss on route to your next game.



Scorecards are very useful and I would certainly suggest that you stop and collect them direct from each club but also take the time to savour the course and its surroundings, just in case the next time you may want to experience the course first hand.

Far more useful and enjoyable than collecting Distance/yardage books IMMHO

[Tom Yost]

I see by the map that Fife lies north of the Firth of Forth.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom

It’s never changed in my life time – always between the Tay & Forth.

[Mike_Cirba]

I was fortunate as a kid when I started playing that I already loved collecting football and baseball cards.

Keeping a souvenir golf course scorecard seemed a natural thing to do.

Today, 37 years later, I have a card from every course I've ever played and many from courses I haven't.

Like Brad, I value the former much more than the latter.

It's a priceless collection...at least to me, and it's brought joy to me.

So John, I say go for it! 

[Eric Franzen]

It's a priceless collection...at least to me, and it's brought joy to me.

In other words, you would rank "You want to check out my scorecard collection?" as one of the most underrated pick-up lines in history?

[Rich Goodale]

Reminds me of the old sharks don't eat lawyers due to professional courtesy joke.....

[Andrew Mitchell]

Melyvn's various pleadings against yardage aids has so far fallen on stoney ground as regards my collection of yardage books.  I probably have somewhere in the region of 80 - 90.  They are a souvenir of the courses I've played and assist my fading memory when trying to recollect individual holes etc.

[Marty Bonnar]

Boy, aren't I the lucky one, living as I do right in the middle of this wonderful golfing nirvana (house is midway between nos. 22 and 44, Home Course Balbirnie Park, no. 4...)

An ode to Bonnie Fifeshire:
"Fife lies North of the Firth of Forth,
and South of the Firth of Tay,
To the West is Perth and Kinross,
and Clackmannanshire, I do say".

Crap, I know - it's a gift.

best,
FBD.

PS Meant to say, I collect scorecards, ball markers AND Yardage Guides. (but NEVER for use on the course, Melvyn!!!)

[Melvyn Morrow]

Martin

Hung, drawn and quartered seems rapidly to spring to mind if they appeared on a Fife course.  Fife & Yardage Books are like a 25 year old Single Malt being mixed with an equal amount of water, just purely for the barbarians. If you need water, it’s a tea spoon full max. - on a course if you need distance your God gave you eyes to judge. Yes, come to think of it,  hung, drawn and quartered is to soft a punishment, perhaps keelhauling on the length of the QE2 may be a start, survive that , yes then the old hung drawn & quartered. 
 
Not one to want people to suffer more than they have to, but the punishment MUST fit the crime. 

[Anthony Gray]

    I like to collect wives on golf trips. Once at Pebble Beach and once at Teeth of the Dog.


 

[John Moore II]

Anthony--That sounds like me and trips to Wal-Marts. Long story. I collect golf balls from courses. That should impress Kav, as I don't have to take any of those, they are all paid for in full.

[Dan Kelly]

I have a bin full of found balls with commercial logos (Fortune 500 corporations, local companies, union locals, law firms, drugs [lots of drugs, from those MD "outings"]).

Plus the usual assortment of course-logo balls, scorecards, mini-pencils, green-repair tools, yardage books ....

[C. Squier]

I'll always hang onto my scorecard from the round.  If the course is good, I'll try to buy a putter headcover w/ the logo (if anyone has one they don't want, I'll buy it if I've played the course) and if the course is great I'll buy an overpriced golf shirt. 

I too have a weird aversion to buying/receiving something from a course I haven't played. 

CPS

[Lester George]

I have about 300 score cards if I recall

Lester