These golf proverbs were published in the April-May 1994 issue of Modern Maturity, the magazine of the AARP.
- A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponent's luck.
- The only thing you can learn from golf books is that you can't learn anything from golf books, but you have to read an awful lot of golf books to learn it.
- Since bad shots come in groups of three, a fourth bad shot is actually the beginning of the next group of three.
- The only sure way to get a par is to leave a four-foot birdie putt two inches short of the hole.
- It's surprisingly easy to hole a 50-foot putt when you lie 10.
- Whenever there is money riding on a hole, someone will appear riding on a mower.
- It's often necessary to hit a second drive to really appreciate the first one.
- Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe.
- If you want to hit a 7-iron as far as John Daly does, simply play to lay up just short of a water hazard.
- If you leave your 2-iron at home, then your 3-iron will become impossible to hit; if you leave your 2- and 3-irons at home, your 4-iron will become impossible to hit.
- When you select a club for a shot to the green, there are three possible outcomes:
- It's the right club, but you change your mind.
- It's the right club, but in the middle of your backswing you decide it's the wrong club so you hit it too hard or too easy.
- It's the wrong club.
- You really only need four clubs to hit every bad shot in golf.
- The only time your ball ever bites is when it lands 30 feet short.
- A ball hit to the wrong green will always land two feet from the hole. *
- If there is a ball in the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is in the bunker. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is in the footprint.
- No matter how early your tee time, there will always be a foursome in the middle of the first fairway.
* Except occasionally when it lands in the hole! I have a friend whose mother played a whole round of golf in one stroke. She hit the ball off the number 1 tee, and it landed in the hole on number 18!!
File modified March 15, 2001; 10:30 a.m.