Donald Trump's Handicap Index

He may not be willing to release his tax forms, but thanks to the providence and foresight of those other founding fathers—of golf in the USA that is—Trump’s USGA handicap is indeed a matter of public record.

Unattested Handicap Round Blues

photo by byronv2 on flickr

Once upon a time the United States Golf Association held a secret magic formula. Taking a person's last twenty scores and, after trimming down any catastrophe holes, throwing out the bad outlier rounds, and factoring in the difficulty of the courses played, the formula would spit out a number that, better than any other single metric, reflects that person's current ability to play golf. Far from a scoring average, it's a more nuanced data point that manages to reflect the hard reality of What's Going On on the course lately, while also providing some approximation of your so-called potential--a prickly concept to try and measure mathematically if ever there was. Yet somehow golf handicapping actually works.

Legitimate Golf Diaries, volume 1

#10 at Dyker Beach, first hole of the day.

It was a muggy 93 degrees today in NYC, and I attempted to play some golf. So this blog's gonna be some kind of a journal for every one of your boring rounds, huh?

I don't know! We'll see. But as I'm working on some cool content for you all, in the meantime this'll just have to do.

Temp-wise 93 wouldn't seem so bad. But the humidity was severe, enough to put us under heat advisory from the Weather Service. I knew that going into it. But here's some indication of the psychological scarring I've built up from playing a lot of golf in the city--extreme weather calls out to me, because it means I just might score a quick round.

It was empty enough alright. That's because it was officially too hot to play. Brutal sun and sticky air that makes it a challenge just to grip the club right. Let's cut to the chase--it was an abortion. I shanked an iron on the second. I had a ball vanish on me on the seventh hole, and didn't finish it. Three holes to go and an unexpected isolated t-storm sent me running back to the clubhouse--from the furthest end of the course.

The storm didn't last long but I was exhausted from all that running, and rather than go back out to the course I jumped on the last bus into Manhattan. I've been questing for a solid 18 hole round since I haven't broken 80 once this year, but it would have to wait, again.

It was a logistical headache, but using ESC I cobbled together a simulated score of 91, for handicap purposes. It definitely occurred to me to pretend like this whole wreck never happened, as far as statkeeping's concerned. But no, that's not how I'm gonna roll.

Yup, just gonna let it all hang out, let my handicap index go wherever it's meant to go. No fudging, no denials, no deciding mid-round that a round is now a "practice round". USGA says thirteen holes is enough to constitute a score for handicap, guess I will have to enter it. Sure I'd rather my handicap not balloon upwards, but hey--what good is a handicap system if it's built on a foundation of lies. To be dishonest with the system would render it all a big elaborate lie. And who needs that.

So yeah after entering this score my handicap goes up nearly a full stroke to (11.6). I played around a seven for most of last year, so this is bumming me out right now believe me. But what can I do; the number reflects the times. My golf consumption is way down this year.

Anyways not much else really to say about the round, cept that I strung together a bunch of GIRs at the end there, so things are looking okay for my quest to score one in the 70s soon. Guess that'll be a theme for the time being I guess.

Thanks for reading.