There's A Lot of Ways to "Skin a Cat"-One Reason I Love This Game!

[Golf2Much]

Golf is a great game for a number of reasons.  One that hit home this morning is that there's a lot of ways to "skin a cat" or score with respect to your peers. 

We all have or strengths and weaknesses and not everyone approaches the game in exactly the same way.   The overall game is measured on what you scored, not how you get there.  It freaks my playing partners when I'm on the green fringe and pull out a wedge to get it close rather than a Texas wedge to putt it close.  I'm have a hard time judging the speed of the fringe and its impact on the ball so I choose to chip over it!  The data suggests that my average of four up and downs for pars (and too many for bogey) is that I made the right decision for me.  That's one reason they nicknamed me "F%$kin' Norm!"

Then I tried to see if this held true in a bigger context.  I try and post every week on the MGS Virtual Tour page and enjoy seeing how I do with respect to my MGS playing peers.   As I scan of scores, number of net birdies and driving distance, I noticed that I'm typically the shortest driver that posts.  So, I went back from week 47 to 20 to see if indeed that was the case.  Sure enough, my intuition was correct.

I posted scores 24 of the last 27 weeks.  For those weeks I posted, I counted how many golfers had longest drives less than or equal to 190 yards, how many were mine and where I stood in the ranking of shortest "longest drives."  Of those 24 weeks, I had the shortest or second shortest "longest drive" eighteen times (or two-thirds of the times I posted)!  

Even with being one of the shortest drivers, on the latest VCT second season's yearlong standings report, I was in top 10 in points.  Granted, there are several other factors that come into play during a year (e.g. I play 12 months a year, typically three days a week, etc.) it's amazing that I could be ranked that high hitting the ball so short.  Then I looked at the other consistently short driving participants and saw that three of them are within to top 32!  In the long run, short does not necessarily mean bad and conversely long doesn't necessarily mean good!  That's what prompted the "skin the cat" comment.  

We all approach this game of golf differently and we can be successful against our peers no matter how we get there.  

You gotta love this game!