The Devil is in the Sand Bag

This weekend I will be playing in an individual handicapped tournament so along with my regular obsessive mental preparation I will also have another issue to wrestle with-getting over the fact that there will be sand baggers hidden amongst the field. Put another way, if I am to win on Saturday, I will not only have to hope my swing is grooved and putting is rock solid but also that the golf gods will curse the dreaded sand baggers.

To be clear, there are two types of sand baggers.  The first kind are more like pool sharks. They play for money and try to get you to give them more strokes than they deserve.  To me this is just good old fashion hustling and gamesmanship.  On the other hand, there are the guys who deliberately keep their USGA handicap higher than it really is in order to get a competitive advantage in tournaments.  These are the people who really suck!

Anyone lugging this around is sure to be one of the bad guys.

Sand baggers are an evil group.  Golf is hard enough without having to compete against someone who has intentionally swayed the odds in their favor.  Most sand baggers will defend their position by saying that their regular Saturday round should not be part of their handicap because they did not putt everything out or they did not play the ball down but in the end, they are just distorting the truth-and they know it.

Or, maybe I am just the only dummy who enters every score and strives to get their handicap as low as possible.  On the one hand it makes me feel good when my index actually goes down, but whenever I play a tournament, I get whacked because not only do I have to play my best, but I have to give strokes to some dude who is really 4 stokes better than his handicap.

There is no sure fire defense against the evil sand bagger, but I have found that constant public berating can help the cause.  On Saturday I will be paired up with stated sand bagger and to be sure, I will be giving him a regular reminder of his evil ways in hopes that one day he will see the light and start playing fair.