By Any Means Necessary: Winning Golf Tips

We all want to win our weekend hackfest, but who wants -- or even can -- actually get better at golf? In terms of pure competition, let presidential politics be your guide. The first person to go negative has an exceptional advantage, along with the abiding, potentially life-long hatred of his victim(s). Use the following tactics at your body and soul's peril.

Cart Work

The driving of the cart is really an art form all to itself. From the subtle parking issue (do you put it right on top of the guy and mess up his light and maybe even his back swing, or drive it a quarter of a mile off to kill his legs?) to the surreptitious passenger seat spill ("How did that get there? Jeez, you smell like a homeless guy now"), there are any number of possible effective gambits.

Personally, I'm blessed -- yes, blessed, I tell you -- with a lack of depth perception, due to non-binocular vision. Which means that I'm very likely to get a little too close to that line of bushes that's just on the passenger's shin or (even better) face level. I believe we have a clip as to the final effect. Skip to the 1:05 mark.



This medical condition is totally legitimate and a Darn Shame. As far as you know. Or your opponents.

Swing Buddy

Who doesn't appreciate a little advice?

Wow, you're really getting some distance off the tee there. That's nice. But I just thought I should mention that you are really not clearing the hips -- see, like this, where you are more like this -- on the follow-through.

You know what's good for that? Changing the speed of your back swing. Yeah, you're going too fast/slow. Don't go crazy with it -- as I said, you really don't want to lose that distance -- but if you can change it just a hair, I think it will help.

Oh, and you are teeing the ball way up / down. That's an easy fix. Now, try not to think, and just swing easy. Yeah, you know, that looked worse, but it felt better, didn't it? No? Well, I'll be damned.

Lost ball help

It's the only neighborly thing to do.

Shame about your swing going so off -- you were hitting it so well earlier! You should definitely go back to what you were doing. Oh, right, we're trying to find your ball. Is that it, way the hell over there, beyond the out of bounds marker? I really do think you were hitting a... Slazinger 5. Yup, this is your ball -- the ground is really uneven here, it'll carry a long way. You sure? Oh, OK. Um, I hate to rush you, but those guys are right behind us. Better take a drop and pick up the pace.

A little lubricant

This one works even better if you have a higher alcohol tolerance, or the sleight-of-hand skills to be drinking something with a whole lot less proof. Remember, winners have a game plan.

Damn, you need to relax -- you're just all over the place now. Come on, you're drinking a light beer? I've got some 40s here. Don't wuss out on me now -- we've got hours to sober up before we have to drive. Are you some kind of pussy?

Pace Setting

Pitchers work the rosin bag. Hitters step out of the box. Basketball and football teams call timeout. It's all done to break the rhythm, and it all works.

Can you believer how fast / slow these guys are going? It's like they've got dinner plans / all day. You should definitely slow down / hit up on them and show them who's boss. Hey, is that guy flipping you off? He is totally flipping you off. You going to take that?

Try my club

But only if it is dramatically different.

Hey, I just got these -- yeah, I know they look old, but they just need a little polish. Why don't you take a shot with my 1 iron? It won't mess up your own swing or nothing, and it's really not a club you should miss.

Wow, that didn't go well. No big thing. Oh, I know -- these have been custom-sized to my swing and height. You should totally look into doing that. It'll take strokes off your game.

(And add them to someone else's.)

Mooch

Why are you out here if you aren't spending time with friends? And what kind of friends don't help each other out -- especially when they are a little light in the wallet right now. We're all good for it!

And the seething resentment and/or worry that the unwilling borrower will feel, especially if they then blame themselves for being so cheap as to worry about it... why, that won't distract them from their game at all. Nope. Not a whit.

Too Much Information

If you're this deep in for the pot, the betting minimums just do not apply. Go for the gusto.

I had to change my swing after the hernia, and again after the vasectomy. Here, come take a look at this scar -- it's a nasty one. Now, if I don't clear my hips the way I was telling you before, I'm bleeding. And not from a good place. It's like a fricking menstrual flow, and I pretty much have to drop trou then and there to apply direct pressure. Boy, you try explaining that to the Ranger. But that's golf. You going to hit?

Pay the Homeless

This one actually happened to me. (Or at least, I'm pretty sure it did.)

I was playing at a once-great, now tragic, course for hackers in the Philly area called Cobbs Creek. It's on the edge of a rundown neighborhood and run by the city's Park Department, so the price is right but nothing else is. My buddy and I played there a lot, since it was close to his house, cheap and long (7000 yards from the blacks). If you caught it on a good day, in good condition, with low crowds, it was great. If you didn't, Magic Happened. This one of those moments.

I'm in the fairway on the 18th, down a couple of shots. My guy is on the green but has putted like a blind man with a nervous condition all day, so there's hope. If I can get up and down from 80 yards, I'm going to make him sweat hard. So I need the wedge shot badly.

Cobbs, being on the edge of a bad neighborhood, frequently had kids, people with dogs, just dogs, or worse wandering the course or the road that bisects it. And as I'm over the ball for my shot, one of their number pipes up with a collection of fearsome animal noises and grunts that would startle cattle a mile away.

I look up, and it's some random homeless guy, just babbling into the air, waving his arms around like there were bees in his head. My opponent is shaking with laughter, and I pretty much know right then that I can pick up the ball and go home now. But Homeless Guy eventually quiets down to a low geeble, so I get over the ball again... and it starts anew, in mid-back swing.

Eventually, I just put the ball in a bunker and take my double bogey like a man, but not before asking my friend, "How much did you pay him?" "Twenty bucks," is the answer, which if true is both sad (our stakes were not that high) and savvy (in that, well, he won -- and showed true imagination in doing so).

As we say in the business, golf clap, sir. Golf clap.

Add your own tips in the comments, and further the disease...