I've arrived at the brutal crossroads of the mediocre recreational golfer

Golfpocalypse is a meandering collection of words about golf (professional and otherwise) that sometimes, but not always, has a point. Reach out with your questions or comments on absolutely anything at shane.spr8@gmail.com. We'll publish the best emails here.

I have something called an "annual pass" at my local public course, which is vaguely analogous to a membership at a private club—I pay for the full year in advance, I get free use of the range, free golf if I'm walking, and a nominal cart fee for when it's hot, plus a few discounts on pro shop stuff. It's a great way to play a lot of golf for cheap, but beyond that, one of the massive appeals for me is that I'm not wasting money if I just stop playing mid-round. Even if I'd only spent $30 to walk nine holes on a weekday, I'd feel guilty leaving after two holes because my game deserted me, but if it's all pre-paid? I can bolt without any negative feelings at all.

Well, except for the towering rage about my abysmal golf game that made me leave in the first place. But other than that...

Anyway, I need the freedom the annual pass provides, now more than ever. I wrote a couple weeks ago about the hellish process I endure every fall, where I stop playing so frequently and my game abandons me, and even though I broke 80 more times than ever this year, and even though my handicap got close to single digits (10.6), the fall-off (no pun intended) is worse than ever. I'm playing once a week at most, and when I go out, every shot is a weak fade, I have no distance, I can't hit an iron cleanly to save my life, I'm boomeranging between stupid fixes that don't work, and the short game that saved me all summer is rusty enough that I kinda suck there too.

Unlike previous years, though, it's taking more of a mental toll this time around. My golf obsession was as deep as ever in the summer, but now, with no confidence, it's started to feel like a chore to go out at all. You can laugh at this next year when I'm in the thick of the addiction again, but I can start to see a future where I don't play that often. I'm running out of love.

Here's my problem, as I see it: I've gotten about as good as I can get without really knuckling down and becoming scientific about things. To this point, I've had a few lessons, I figured some stuff out on my own or via the Internet, and I played constantly enough that I knocked on the door of single digits. Any skill I have comes by virtue of repetition and feel, which is why when I stop playing I lose the foundation of that skill almost instantly. If I keep going this way, I can probably break through and become a 9 handicap, but it feels like that's my ceiling. If I want to do better than that, I'm going to have to treat it like a job.

Here's the important point, though: I don't think I can keep going this way. Psychologically, I'm sick of it. It's either knuckle down and make golf a bigger part of my life, or go fully casual and be content to shoot an 88 once a week until I die. The volume-shooter life I've led for the past couple years no longer feels sustainable; I either couple that with some more discipline, or I let it all slide.

I think of this as the golf crossroads, and I hate it. Both sides of the coin feel fraught to me. If I just fade into a casual once-weekly golfer, I can see the slippery slope to where I barely play anymore, lose my golf friends and become detached from the scene. One of my strengths in life is never looking back, but that can be hazardous in situations like these, because it won't take long to lose the connection with what I love so much about the game, and I don't want that to happen. But if I start nerding out in an attempt to get really good, I can see it all failing and sparked a hatred for the game, which might eventually produce the same result as option one.

Where does that leave me? As usual, wishing that I wasn't such a lunatic about this game, and could content myself with mediocrity. Failing that, I'll probably err on the side of going full bore, at least at first. For one thing, I just paid for my annual pass for 2026, and I don't want to waste all that money. For another, I have the ironclad delusion there's a 5-handicap buried somewhere deep within me, and I want to see that mythical player come to life, even just for a season. So I'm taking a tentative step down the "hardcore" path, come what may. But I'm scared of the crossroads, and wish I could go back to where it all began.

FIVE TOUR THOUGHTS, BERMUDA EDITION

1. Good God, it is a brutal field this week. Go here, sort by FedExCup rank, and you'll find exactly one guy who finish in the top 50 this week (and that guy is Sam Stevens, who, no disrespect, has to be the most anonymous of 2025's elite tour players). I know weak fields are standard for the fall, but this has got to be the worst tournament of the entire year. Right? There's exactly one major winner in the field (Danny Willett), and the most famous guy is Matt Kuchar, who at this point is only going to make waves if he finishes by himself on Monday morning or stiffs a caddie. Next week should be fun, when we see the final battle for cards, but Bermuda is a truly tough sell.

2. Reading through the names in the field, I came across one of the favorites, Thorbjorn Olesen, and played a game of "guess his age." Olesen feels like he's been around a long time, but I also kind of associate him with the influx of young Danes who always seem to be lurking in the top ten of major scoreboards. The range of potential ages was incredible. I felt like the absolute minimum was 29, but I could see as old as 45. I settled on an answer of 36. The answer? 35. [Pats self on back] Good work by me.

3. Why doesn't LIV play on weekends like this? Looking at their schedule for next year, the majority of tournaments will be competing with signature events or playoffs on the PGA Tour, which at this point is a formula for total doom. If you're LIV and trying to figure out any possible way to gain traction, you'd think maybe holding a tournament on a quiet November weekend, where you'd almost have the stage to yourself, might be a good idea. But it doesn't fit the schedule, you say. Change the schedule! What have you got to lose??

4. Kai Trump is playing on the LPGA Tour this weekend, and my first thought when I heard the news was. Sure. From a marketing angle, why not? Maybe get a few more eyes on the tournament; it's worth a try. But if you think about it for a second longer, and reach the obvious conclusion that it's not going to have any meaningful, impact on ratings after this week, doesn't it start to look like a desperate novelty act? Then again, even the price of looking desperate is pretty negligible. All of which leads to the nihilistic take that none of it actually matters, which is unfortunately the correct take. It leaves us with one question: How many people will gamble on her to own the libs?

5. An out of nowhere thought: If you step back, isn't it kind of wild that there's an old person's golf league that actually makes enough money to support tens of millions of dollars in annual prize money? I know this is not a profound statement, but it feels like we don't talk about this enough. You can be 60 years old, have a great year on the Champions Tour and make more than a million dollars. Twenty-one guys have done it so far in 2025! And yet you never hear anything about this tour unless it's in your hometown. It's astonishing.

THE DUMB TAKE I KIND OF BELIEVE

They should have a "Battle of the Decades" tournament once per year where the six teams are made up players in their teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Fourball matches, round robin, over a week. I'd watch that for an entire lifetime just to see the one year the old guys won. It'd be like Hoosiers meets Matlock.

READER EMAIL OF THE WEEK

This one's from George, who came to a similar crossroads in his own game and lived to tell the tale. This is inspirational:

My move to become a “good” golfer was a few years ago when I was in my mid-40’s. I had spent a while stuck in the 5-7 index range but was constantly getting grief from regular golfing buddies who were mostly near scratch. I had the distance and shots but no consistency. That summer I made 2 decisions - first was that I was going to start playing them in matches for $100 straight up. I’d either get better or go broke. Second, I played a bunch from the red tees with my young son who was showing interest in the game.

I can’t say for sure which of those things did it, but being able to drive most of the greens got my short game and putting MUCH better. Also, I hated losing $100 every time I played. By mid-Summer I was down to 2.1 and have stayed in the 2-4 space ever since.

Now I just have to tell my wife I'm putting up $100 every time I play against much better players, and also that I'm adopting a son.

Previously on Golfpocalypse:

None of LIV Golf's format ideas ever mattered, and they won't start now
Playing golf in bad weather is a mental paradiseWhy don't we care when a journeyman or no-name wins on Tour?
I hate that I am riveted by Bryson DeChambeau's ping pong challenge
Let me teach you where to stand on the tee box to not annoy people
I turned down two free rounds at the best course in the world because I'm weird about golf
I don't want your gimme putt, pal
I will no longer be entering nine-hole rounds, GHIN, and you can't make me
I will abandon my friends during a round. Does this make me a bad person?
Did I dishonor the game via handicap shenanigans?
Rory's Masters win was the ultimate "dudes crying" moment in golf
I want to be a draw alpha, not a fade beta
If you had to give up golf or sex for the rest of your life, which would it be?
I am the recent victim of golf snobbery, and I'm mad
Should the Tour just move to an F1 style schedule and be done with it?
I was the world's most annoying teenage golf maintenance worker
Can golf still be a spiritual experience in 2024?
There is nothing stranger than a golfer's brain...just ask us
I have the dumbest golf pet peeve, but I can't shake it
If you talk about politics on the course, please, for God's sake, stop
Loving Golf in 2024 is about finding where the money isn't
I believed in the magic of Tiger Woods when I was a kid, but I'm a cynic now
If you can enjoy playing golf alone, you have achieved Nirvana
I took 12 stitches to the head for golf before I even loved it
An annual 'Friends Ryder Cup' trip is the greatest thing in golf
Marshals at public golf courses need to get way meaner
I, and I alone, have the genius tweak to fix the Tour Championship
It cannot be fun to play golf when you're egregiously bad
Confession: I break clubs when I'm mad
Playing golf in bad weather makes me feel alive
Caring what other people think of your golf game is annoying to other people
Sympathize with Rory, because choking sucks