Golf/skins question

If it is on the lip I think he was being a dick, but the other guy should have waited to have it given to him.

 

There was a Ryder Cup many years ago when Ballesteros was playing somebody and he didn't concede a very short putt. Turns out he just wanted his opponent to mark the ball so that he could use the opponent's marker as a reference point for his putt. Entirely within both the letter and spirit of the rules, but the opponent -- I can't remember who -- acted a bit like a dick at first and then stirred the crowd up a bit. Pretty distasteful.

 

I'm OK with conceding putts ... it's long been a part of the game ... but a part of me prefers putting them out. No way any of this nonsense occurs if that's the rule.

 

Friendly rules, if 18-24 inches has been good all day, the raked putt should be good. If you're giving putts left and right - which is fine - you've established what the circle of friendship is. If the putt needed to be putted, someone should have said "that's got a little meat left there" or something like that to let the guy know he needs to mark and putt.
Another thing to consider is what kind of putt it was. If it's a straight uphiller, it's good. If it was a downhill slider and he was pulling it because he didn't want to puke on his shoes, then he's the dick.

 

Can't ever give yourself a putt. I play an extremely low-stakes game every week, and we can get pretty generous, unless there's a lot of carry-overs on the line. Then both of us will sometimes develop lock-jaw on short putts.

But neither of us would ever think of picking up without it being conceded.

 

Our schedules don't overlap much, but there's this guy in my circle who's probably 4-, 5-handicap material tee to green. On the green, however, he's a disaster, which is why he fluctuates between 11 and 13. I'm not kidding when I say that a three-incher is absolutely not a gimme with this guy.

I've been in foursomes with him where we're giving standard gimmes to everyone ... except him. He's got absolutely NO personality and it's hard to tell when he's disgusted with more than his game. I'm very uncomfortable playing with him generally, but when it's been "That's good" and "Pick that up" all day and suddenly everybody's got lockjaw as he's marking his ball ... whoo baby those are some fun times.

 

If you're giving 2-footers, I want to play in that group.

 

Well ... there's one guy, who sort of heads up our big circle ... I LOVE watching him struggle with that. He's pretty good -- his handicap varies from around 7 to, currently, 10 -- but a gambling fiend. If we play a fivesome, he cannot rest unless we're playing Wolf (where one guy leads off and then picks a partner to play the remaining three). Whoever's low man going into 16 gets to: A) be the picker; and B) increase the stakes up to 3X the original bet. He LIVES to be low man so he can triple the bet. Plus, he talks ... and talks ... and talks ... and talks ... and talks.

Anyway, the last couple of years he's developed the yips. It started with his putter, so his solution was to start carrying three, four putters ... and then provide a running dialogue as to which one is being used and why. Now, the yips have spilled over to his chipping.

I wouldn't give that fucker a one-inch putt for all the tea in China.