How To Skin A Cat

Filed in archive Golf Wanderings on August 20, 2007

One of my favorite golf bloggers is Kristen Williams. I find her opinions both entertaining and down to earth.

kristen writes a regular column for World Golf.com and her current musings are right on the money.

She wonders about the relevance of "par" as it pertains to the vast majority of golfers who struggle to make par. Kristen suggests there should be another score to go alongside "par".

"...does it really matter if par is 70 or 72? You know if 85 is a good score for you or not. Aren't personal goals more relevant than par?" she writes.

Kristen has some numbers to back up her point and weaves a convincing position in her column.

I happen to agree with her (possibly because I am struggling with my game this year...), especially when it comes to personal goals.

Yesterday my wife, Wendy, and I played a quick nine holes at our new favorite course, Royal Ashburn.

We were paired up, as it turns out, with NHL hockey legend Bobby Baun and his charming wife, Sally (one of the never-ending beauties of golf: the people you meet on the tee).

Sally, who is in her 70s, stood on the par 3, 16th hole, 122 yards over some junk and several bunkers to a slightly lowered green.

She said to Wendy, "I'm just going to lay up", and proceeded to poke her tee shot about 60 yards into some light rough. From there, she popped a wood onto the green and then drained a 15 foot uphill putt for par!

She had her personal goal for that hole and her own way of playing it. She exceeded her expectation and was able to put a "3" on her card instead of another number.

The point is, she didn't gun for "par" on that hole, yet ended up making par, anyway.

As the great philosophers have always said, "there are many paths to God".

Or par, for that matter.