Hot topic: Are you an unlucky golfer?
Colin Montgomerie reckoned luck was against him in Singapore. How unlucky a golfer are you? Tell us your experiences
Golf, they say is 90 per-cent mental, ten per-cent skill. But, hey! What about luck? How big a part does that play in our game? Some might claim that the more you practice the luckier you get and for the professional that’s partly true. They surely rely on chance even less and concentrate on honing their skills to the point where technique becomes automatic. And then it’s only down to mental toughness. For us golfing mortals, some experts claim that four out of five breaks tend to go against us. Playing in the Caltex Masters in Singapore on Sunday, Colin Montgomerie wondered what he had done to deserve a slap in the face from the golfing gods. Having just birdied the 15th hole in the final round at Laguna GC, to get within a shot of leader Nick Dougherty, he split the fairway with his tee shot at 16 and saw Dougherty pull his drive into a fairway bunker. | |
Game on, he thought, until referee Jon Paramor gave Dougherty relief because his ball was lodged on ground under repair against wooden sleepers in the bunker face. The 22 year-old from Lancashire got a free drop outside the hazard and angry Monty mouthed his disdain with words like ‘unbelievable’ and ‘pathetic’ as Dougherty, clipped his approach to within three feet of the flagstick for a birdie to regain his two shot advantage. It was a lucky break for the youngster, but a bitter blow for the Ryder Cup hero, who subsequently found a wicked lie in sand at the 17th. Dougherty went on to claim his first Tour win by five strokes. | |
It was one of surely dozens of incidents where luck, or the lack of it, has played its part in major golf events. Remember how Lee Trevino outrageously hit a bunker escape half way up the flagstick and saw his ball drop into the hole at Muirfield in 1972? How Fred Couples’ ball hung perilously on the bank of creek by the 12th green on his way to winning to win the US Masters 20 years later? Then there was Jean Van de Velde’s approach that ricochetted wickedly off the grandstand to rob him of the 1999 Open Championship. Multi major winner Johnny Miller claims that over a golfing career, the average player is going to get more unlucky bounces than good ones by a ratio of about 5 to 1. He says: "As you age, you become aware of the bad things that can happen, and they tend to rear their ugly heads more often. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy." He quotes Seve Ballesteros, who has descended into a sort of golfing hell. "When I was young, no matter where I hit the ball, I always had a shot to the green. Now when I go off line, I am a lways dead," says the Spaniard. Apparently, only kids are immune to his 5-to-1 theory. "They play with an optimism that beats bad luck to death," says Miller. "They have no scar tissue from past experiences." That’s certainly the case with Dougherty, while for Monty he fears his luck may have run out. How lucky, or unlucky are you at golf? Tell us your experiences on the forum. |
