[Shawn Arlia]

I had a revelation this past wknd. I was able to play Tot Hill Farm. It was an absolute blast to play! The visual presentation and the dramatic shot values easily made it one of the most fun  courses i ve ever played. However, As i was walking off the course, i looked at my scorecard and saw some big numbers along with my birdies and pars. Needless to say, i didnt break 80 which i am somewhat accustomed to. And the truth is that as much as i enjoyed the course, i think i really like my Donald Ross course back home better. Very rarely will I ever take a double or triple bogey as easily as i made a couple at THF. It kinda made me sad because i never thought of myself as a scorecard golfer. But after this wknd, i found out i really am. How many here are scorecard golfers?

[PCCraig]

Any golfer trying to get the ball in the hole in as few shots as possible is a "scorecard" golfer. If you're not doing that you're either playing match play or at the range.

[Bill_McBride]

I keep a card because in the US you have to post a score for handicap purposes even playing match play with concessions, pick ups, etc.  Doesn't really make a lot of sense, does it, but there's no choice.

Since I definitely prefer match play, I am not a "scorecard and pencil" guy, to quote the good Doctor.

[Carl Rogers]

I am usually not that high over par, so I just keep it in my head as I go along.

[Jaeger Kovich]

I am mostly concerned with the analyzing the architectural features of the golf course when playing. However I try to play each hole for the sake of that hole, and wont add up my score normally until I'm in the car. You always know when you are putting for birdie though!

If I'm playing at match at my home course it can be a bit different, but I tend to play worse when concerned about score. I'd rather just try to hit the ball as best I can and immerse myself in the architecture.

[Dan Herrmann]

Match play all the way.  That's one of the best things about having a golf-addicted wife - you always have a game

Ok - I do like checking the scorecard, but fun, architecture appreciation, and winning matches is a helluva lot better.

[Bill_McBride]

Match play all the way.  That's one of the best things about having a golf-addicted wife - you always have a game

Ok - I do like checking the scorecard, but fun, architecture appreciation, and winning matches is a helluva lot better.

Dan, I have great matches with my wife Kathleen, who is a fiery competitor, but I have to keep a card then to know where she gets her 14 shots!   

[Matt Elliott]

I typically either keep track of my round in my head or defer to someone else who wants to keep the scorecard. Unless it's a tournament where I have to keep a card, I would much rather just take in the course for what it is and figure out how to hit the next shot. After the round however is a different story, I almost always figure out my stats (GIR, putts, fairways) once I'm done.

[Steve Lang]

  Bill, I have same with Ms Sheila.. but she keeps the card and tells me how many strokes she's getting! and keeps me aprized at how many i may be down, or whether I'm pressed..

[Bill_McBride]

Bill, I have same with Ms Sheila.. but she keeps the card and tells me how many strokes she's getting! and keeps me aprized at how many i may be down, or whether I'm pressed..

Exactly.  Have you ever won a match?   

[Garland Bayley]

I must not be a scorecard golfer, because I have never won against the scorecard. It beats me up every time.

[Peter Pallotta]

Yup, Shawn, I sure am. I enjoy and appreciate many aspects of golf and of being on a golf course. But maybe because I took up the game fairly late in life, I still tend to keep score the way I would in a basketball or soccer or hockey game. Even when playing with a friend I know is much better than me, I don't want any shots and I don't like match play. I want to play 18 holes and count up the strokes at the end, and the guy who took less strokes wins and is better.  One day that guy might be me.
Peter  

[Scott Warren]

I keep stats for every round - fairways, greens, putts etc, and I always seem to know roughly where I am in relation to par whether I am actively keeping score or not.

I think it's one of the great myths that if you're playing for the best score, you can't appreciate the architecture as much.

[Mark Chaplin]

Bill - thinking back to the Ted Dexter method of speeding play isn't conceding putts and submitting scorecard a rule bend? I wonder why the club / association insist on it.

Scott - you are surgically linked to your pencil and card 

[Ally Mcintosh]

I am no longer a scorecard golfer...

In fact, in the true sense I never was because I just kept score in my head... These days though, I sometimes have to deliberately make myself forget my score during a round... When a low handicapper, it's too easy to mentally know where you are... It's much more fun if you don't though...

[John Shimony]

I keep a card because in the US you have to post a score for handicap purposes even playing match play with concessions, pick ups, etc.  Doesn't really make a lot of sense, does it, but there's no choice.

Since I definitely prefer match play, I am not a "scorecard and pencil" guy, to quote the good Doctor.

Bill or anyone else,
What is the protocol for taking score of concessions, pick ups, etc.?  Do we just count them as one stroke for scorecard purposes?  I'm mostly thinking of pick ups when I'm laying five but still twenty feet from the hole but my partner just made a par four. I pick up to speed up play but should I putt out for handicap purposes.

[jonathan_becker]

I think it's one of the great myths that if you're playing for the best score, you can't appreciate the architecture as much.

Scott, I agree with you.

Back in my junior golf and tournament days, I was only worried about score.  That's not really the case anymore as I now like to seek out courses of architectural interest.  However, just because I'm now studying the golf course more, it doesn't mean that I don't care about score.  When it's my turn to play, I'm still looking to get my ball in the best position for scoring opportunities.  It's like I have the best of both worlds now. 

[Paul Stephenson]

Yes, although I generally keep score in my head.  Even when I see some neat shots I'd like to try I don't, because if it doesn't work out as I thought it may hurt my score.

I think having two young kids and not playing as much as I did in the past is a big reason.  I want to play as well as I can with my limited number of rounds.  A positive of this situation is that I'm a much better grinder than in the past.

What I do miss are the evening 9 hole rounds when I would play a couple balls and try different things.  Those days will return one day.

[Jud_T]

I keep a card because in the US you have to post a score for handicap purposes even playing match play with concessions, pick ups, etc.  Doesn't really make a lot of sense, does it, but there's no choice.

Since I definitely prefer match play, I am not a "scorecard and pencil" guy, to quote the good Doctor.

Bill or anyone else,
What is the protocol for taking score of concessions, pick ups, etc.?  Do we just count them as one stroke for scorecard purposes?  I'm mostly thinking of pick ups when I'm laying five but still twenty feet from the hole but my partner just made a par four. I pick up to speed up play but should I putt out for handicap purposes.

John,

You are supposed to give yourself what you would have likely gotten from your position.  So if you honestly would have 3-putted the majority of the time from that particular position then you give yourself an 8....

[Bill_McBride]

I keep a card because in the US you have to post a score for handicap purposes even playing match play with concessions, pick ups, etc.  Doesn't really make a lot of sense, does it, but there's no choice.

Since I definitely prefer match play, I am not a "scorecard and pencil" guy, to quote the good Doctor.

Bill or anyone else,
What is the protocol for taking score of concessions, pick ups, etc.?  Do we just count them as one stroke for scorecard purposes?  I'm mostly thinking of pick ups when I'm laying five but still twenty feet from the hole but my partner just made a par four. I pick up to speed up play but should I putt out for handicap purposes.

No, I think the USGA wants you to put down your likely score. 
Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, I really would prefer the UK method where you play specific medal rounds that are the only ones used for handicap purposes.  Our system leads to vanity handicaps, particularly when only the lowest 10 of your last 20 rounds are used.

It's a good idea to take this discrepancy into account when handicapping a match with a UK player - although they won't agree!   

[Jud_T]

By definition, anyone in the U.S. posting a USGA handicap is a scorecard golfer.

[JESII]

Along these lines...trust me...I have been curious if the architects on here do their work with the players score in mind.

To be clear, it wouldn't be advisable to have scoring defense as the primary (or even secondary) consideration...but is it on the list?

Assuming it is...and ideally for a wide range of skill levels...then what I would like to know from those claiming to not care about score (for the round or even one hole) is; how can you claim to be "appreciating the architecture" when you refuse to even challenge it?

Keep in mind, Doak's highly contoured greens act as an obstacle to scoring every bit as much as RTJ placing bunkers on both sides of the fairway for 50 yeards around the driving area...maybe disproportionately more for the lesser player.

I think judging the architects work is fully dependent upon the players intention...which must include trying to figure out how to score well.

[Brent Hutto]

I think Jim's point is well taken. While I enjoy a occasional round (or nine holes, more likely) hitting the ball here and there with no thought toward getting it in the hole expediently, scoring on at least a per-hole basis is pretty essential to the game.

If you literally don't care whether it take four strokes or ten strokes to complete a given hole or if perhaps you "play" the hole with no intention of holing out in any event then you're off in some kind of Golf In The Kingdom contemplative exercise that could as take place in an anonymous, empty stretch of prairie  as at Sand Hills or Muirfield.

That said...I do think the original question has more to do with the divide between playing an 18-hole round under the  Every Stroke Is Sacred mantra of medal play versus starting afresh with a score of zero on each tee. Regardless of the received wisdom that says treating match play exactly like stroke play is an optimum strategy I believe in fact we all approach head-to-head match play with a different mental outlook and that this different outlook has implications for how we view the features presented to us by the course architect.

There would seem to be a whole class of design features more appreciated by match-play mindset than someone avoiding any possibility of a "card wrecking" number on a particular hole. We do occasionally see do-or-die shot temptations that are frankly idiotic under medal-play circumstances. Just to take a top-of-the-head example a weaker player on the sixteenth at Cypress Point in a very strong wind could easily try the direct route to the green two, three or more times without successfully getting a ball in play. In a strict stroke-play scenario surely that player's mindset is to try and assure a maximum score of five or so by bunting the ball off to the left, playing a low runner onto the green and accepting two or three putts as a compromise rather than taking the 1-in-10 or worse chance of making par or birdie with the worst case being a completely blown round.

I think the fundamental question posed under the stroke play mindset is (or should be if players were rational) something like "What is the approach that will result in the smallest average number of strokes if used 100 times on this hole?". That average can in some cases be dominated by an occasional score of 7, 8, 9 on a really "tricked up" hole rather than posing a tradeoff between birdie changes and bogey chances. If that is indeed the question, then it may be perfectly reasonable to assess a course or a hole or a feature and conclude that variation above that "average number of strokes" is unacceptably high so as to render the average question moot. Under a non-scorecard mindset the question might be "What is the approach that will result in the highest probability of a good score?", where "good score" may be eagle or birdie or even par depending on the skill of the player and the conditions.

I would submit that features and designs providing the most interesting answers to the "highest probability of a good score" are often the very features and designs which provide unacceptable answers to the question of assuring a low average score with minimal chance of a outlier high score, so to speak.

[Ken Moum]

I'm probably guilty as charged.  It's too hard to completely separate my success or failure on the course from how I feel about my game and the course.

That said, I have worked hard to be able to look at a course without letting my score be too important in my opinion.

Sometimes thats virtually impossible.

A recent example -- Last Thursday, I played Deer Island CC in Fla., which has one of my "favorite" features, water on all 18 holes.  Despite having a 9 handicap, I am a short, crooked driver, and a course like that just eats my golf balls, and causes me to pile up penalty strokes.

By the time we had reached the turn, I was forced put myself on timeout for my inability to act like an adult.  I was playing with my wife and Aunt, so I told them to go ahead and play without me, and I would follow them until such time as I felt able to act like a grownup.

Fortunately, we were on a sub-three-hour pace and had lots of room behind us.  I finally rejoined them on the 16th green.

Now, I have to say that I am no fan of that course, but not just because I played like a fool.  The fact is that I don't think I could ever give a good rating to a course with as many truly penal water hazards as Deer Island has.

I know it's a reflection of my crappy driving, but I have played enough courses that can challenge good players without beating guys like me to death that I don't feel obligated to like courses that do the opposite.

K

[John Chilver-Stainer]

Mark me down as no score!!

I hardly ever keep a score card unless in a competition. Usually I’m not really playing for a total score -  if I have a playing partner it’s always match play and they keep the score. Mind you if I notice I’ve played well I might retrospectively add up the score after the round.
I gave up keeping statistics of my game some time ago - it was interesting  then but after a while became repetitive and meaningless.

As a golf course architect I prefer playing alone with a half set (lighter to carry)  and experiment with different shots from different angles to different landing areas. If one can pull off a tough one it's very ego boosting!!. It’s less stressful, very entertaining and for me all part of the education.

My special moments on the golf course are when I have the course to myself, usually at twilight and feeling the surrounding nature enveloping the course - whether it’s just the wind blowing through the tall grass, or observing a butterfly float by, or hearing the callsong of a sky lark. Although I can get excited about a potential birdie it doesn’t compare to catching the feeling of nature enveloping the golf course.

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