Perhaps there is more to be said for keeping one’s score for the round
when playing a match than is allowed by many people who occasionally
discuss this matter with some heat. It may be agreed at once that the
golfer who consistently subordinates the importance and interest of his
match to his anxiety regarding his aggregate score is to be condemned,
and more than ever so when his reckoning of his figures is done openly
and audibly, and when he is guilty of remarking, for example, a
splendidly fought match being all square at the eighteenth tee, that he
has a 4 left for 79, showing in what direction his strongest ambition
lies for the time being. Such a person is an undesirable opponent, and a
nuisance on the links. In match play the match is the thing, and those
who do not want the match, but only the score, should go out alone with
their caddies. Yet at the same time it must be remembered that a man’s
scores for the round are often the only real indication that can be
afforded him of knowing what exactly is his form for the time being, and
how well or badly he is playing, and it is eminently desirable that he
should from time to time be posted with this knowledge, which in either
case should act as an incentive towards the improvement of his game. A
man may be winning all his matches with two or three holes to spare, and
if he is of a placid temperament and not given to any closely
discriminating analysis of the details of his own game, he may often be
living in a fool’s paradise with regard to the quality of his golf and
the accuracy of his handicap. It may be true that handicaps are provided
chiefly for match-play purposes, and that if a man can win half his
matches with the handicap that is given him, there is not much cause for
fault-finding; but, after all, handicaps are supposed to represent the
relative strengths of all players, even though they do not, and it is
reasonable to expect that the holder of a certain handicap should be
able to go round his course, say, one time in three or four at a net
score that would come out at par. One must doubt whether the average
seven or eight handicap man does this, which, of course, leads to the
usual conclusion that the general tendency in medium handicaps in these
days is to make them too flattering.
And, again, when a player finds himself winning his match with so much
ease that the match itself has really very little interest for him, if
any at all, when he is playing well and his opponent’s game has gone
completely to the dogs, it is surely pardonable for him to concentrate
his chief attention upon his score for the round, so long as he does not
do it obtrusively, and does nothing to indicate to his opponent that he
has other things in mind besides the question as to whether he shall
achieve victory at the twelfth or thirteenth hole. It is simply a matter
of common sense and good manners, and all scores should be kept
mentally, and should not be spoken of until the round is over. The
keeping of a score will often urge a man to greater effort and the
display of greater skill in a particular emergency, and will thus tend
to the improvement of his game. Nearly all players of great skill and
long experience agree that there is nothing in the world like much score
play for the betterment of the golfer. It strengthens the sense of
responsibility, and of the need for the utmost concentration of thought
and effort upon every shot that is made, and when a golfer has taught
himself to do this he has gone a long way towards the achievement of
that severe self-discipline which is an essential characteristic of the
good and sound player whose game has always to be feared. It is because
they have not that self-discipline and have not cultivated that sense of
responsibility, that the majority of amateurs are absolutely terrorised
by a card and rendered incapable even of playing anything like their
real game. They do not so much fear to make a bad shot when it will only
mean a lost hole, which may be won back five minutes later; but it is a
different thing when the bad shot may cost three strokes, which have to
enter into the final reckoning. Yet the bad shot is equally bad in
either case and ought to be equally regretted, but is not. And if an
amateur does not keep some mental account of his score when engaged in
matches, he has scarcely any other opportunity of practising medal play,
since it is not customary and is not desirable that pairs should go out
together matched with each other on the strokes for the round and not on
holes.
Apart from the objections which have been urged against it, and which it
has been suggested may not be quite so well founded as some people
appear to think, one is inclined to fancy that in many cases one of the
drawbacks to the continual counting of one’s score is the inclination
that is bred in the player to self-deception, and in the course of our
golf we come across many curious instances of it. The simplest and most
frequent is the waiving of the lost stroke for a stymie. If the
player’s ball is within two feet of the hole when the stymie is laid
him, it may be legitimate enough for him to reckon that if he had been
engaged in pure score play he would have holed the putt that he was in
the actual circumstances unable to hole, and therefore to deduct a
stroke from the actual number taken on the round. But in the weakness of
their human nature many who are thus engaged in score counting go much
farther than this in giving themselves the benefits of doubts. It is
difficult or impossible for them to draw any line between that which it
was very likely they would do and that which they might possibly do. If
for the purposes of their score they give themselves the two-feet putt
which they would have holed but for the stymie, then surely there can be
no objection to giving themselves a thirty-inch putt, and if that, then
one also at a yard, and a yard and a half--two yards, three yards, four.
And, pursuing this process of self-cheating, you will find the golfer
submitting it to himself that he may count it as one stroke to get down,
when he is fifteen or twenty feet from the hole, on the reasoning that
many a time in his life before he had holed such putts, and was certain
to do so again, so why not this time?
This is but one of the many frauds that players are brought to practise
upon themselves in their yearning for a good round. Have we not known
them to give themselves a four or five feet putt when their opponents
had already given up the hole, because, though they had the time and
opportunity for making the stroke, they were afraid that they might miss
it, and so spoil that nice score which they were building up? They say
to themselves that if they did putt it they would be certain to succeed,
so what matter. And worse still is the case of the man who goes up to
his ball in such a circumstance and putts at it, perhaps with one hand,
pretending to himself that he is not trying! Yet if the ball goes in he
feels a wholesome satisfaction of having done his duty by his card; and
if it does not go in he still counts it as having done so, because it
would have done if he had tried properly. There is also the case of the
other man who, having missed such a putt by half an inch, perhaps
unluckily, makes a bargain with himself that if he can do that putt
immediately and successfully four times one after the other, he will
count it to him after all, having thus proved that it was well within
the scope of his ability, and that his first failure was an accident and
not likely to occur again. And I have heard of men who, counting their
scores, and having obtained a lie of most exceptional badness after a
good shot, have declined to include in their mental reckoning the
fruitless stroke that followed, on the ground that the chances of their
getting such a lie in a medal round were a thousand to one against!
Strangest case of all, I once played with a man who told me at the end
of his round what a good score he had done, and proceeded to detail the
figures 4 5 5 3, etc. “But,” I said, “you were in the bunker at the
first hole and took 6.” “Yes,” he said, “but in counting my score I
always give myself a 4 at the first hole, no matter what I take;
because, don’t you see, if I were out to make the best return possible,
as if trying to break a record, I could play the first hole two or three
times, if necessary, until I got my par 4, and then go on with that
round. I would be giving up the round each time when I failed, and
starting a fresh round; so, you see, the 4 at the first is always
certain, and so I always count it, whatever I do.” I saw,
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive,”
even to deceive ourselves.
Thus does this score counting and this yearning for one’s record round
breed a moral cowardice in such men. There is only one score to count,
and that is the one which would be passed according to the rules of
stroke play. If golfers must count scores they must be just to
themselves, and they must not even temper their justice with any mercy,
for the laws of golf are inexorable, and in them there is no mercy.