Why does golf have to be fair? Fairness is really an American golf concept. Travel to the UK, play their golf, and immediately you notice something different…they don’t care as much about fair. Good players have bad days, bad players have good days…and it’s all taken in stride. They play match play as a mechanism to overcome the need for fairness. Can’t get out of the bunker, lose the hole, lets move on. Drive in the gorse, lose the hole, lets move on. Forty mile per hour wind in our face, it will take is quite a few extra shots to get there, matching 7’s today, lets move on. (On a side note, don’t even get me started on pace of play. Think about the “let’s move on” mentality and it’s effect on speed).
In America, there is an obsession with fairness. Those tees are too far back, those are too close. The pin is cut too close to the edge, sometimes too close to slopes. The greens aren’t all the same speed. The bunker sand is not consistent. The fairways are crappy, we need to fluff the ball. Tees are not level. Blind shots suck. The handicap stroke holes are all near the end.
I heard that a loyalist had elected not to play in our club championship, and I found out why. He believed I might not set up the club championship fairly. I don’t even know what that means. I’m actually brilliant at setting up tournments. I roll out of bed, drive here and launch the players. Maybe the greens were double mowed, maybe they weren’t mowed at all. We all play what we are given today. Tomorrow will be different. What is more fair than that?
They say golf mirrors life. When we can’t even accept a little unfairness in golf, how are we going to accept unfairness in life? Golf used to train us. It helped us understand that we don’t have control. Now there is insatiable appetite to control every factor in golf. Human attempt to control fairness is futile. Embrace what is.
