2 thoughts on “And Then He Gave Up Prize Competition”
I remember, in the 1970’s, my dad was part of an every-saturday golfing group. There were, like, more than 30 guys who golfed together on Saturdays. And that was enough for there to make it worth gambling for stuff. A buck for closest to the pin on the 8th hole, a buck for longest drive on the 14th, it’s only two bucks for you but, for one of the guys in the group, it’s 30 bucks! And those were Carter dollars!
Well, they had a trophy to hand out at the end of the year for the best golfer or something like that. My dad had the great idea to pick up a trophy of a horse’s butt and hand it out for something or other and, that first year, he won it!
I think there might be a moral lesson in there, maybe.Report
When I worked at Bell Labs many years ago, the Holmdel location (~6,000 people post expansion) ran golf leagues at many of the local courses in the summer. Mostly middle-aged or older guys, some of us newer ones. One other new guy in my center and I formed a team and were almost unbeatable under the scoring system used. IIRC, we won whichever of the leagues we signed up for five out of six years.
One time we worked out why we were so “good”. What the scoring system did was favor teams that had one really consistent player and one erratic player who was either brilliant or terrible. I was the consistent player: I could go a whole league season and shoot my average plus-or-minus one stroke every week. Gary might shoot four strokes better than me over nine holes one week, four strokes worse the next week.
My wife, who was not a golfer, went out and walked the course with us one day when we were playing for entertainment. “You’re so boring,” she said to me in the clubhouse later. “Hit it in the fairway, hit it on the green, putt twice. Gary is interesting: under the bush, behind the tree, skips it off the water onto the green, makes long putts.”Report
I remember, in the 1970’s, my dad was part of an every-saturday golfing group. There were, like, more than 30 guys who golfed together on Saturdays. And that was enough for there to make it worth gambling for stuff. A buck for closest to the pin on the 8th hole, a buck for longest drive on the 14th, it’s only two bucks for you but, for one of the guys in the group, it’s 30 bucks! And those were Carter dollars!
Well, they had a trophy to hand out at the end of the year for the best golfer or something like that. My dad had the great idea to pick up a trophy of a horse’s butt and hand it out for something or other and, that first year, he won it!
I think there might be a moral lesson in there, maybe.Report
When I worked at Bell Labs many years ago, the Holmdel location (~6,000 people post expansion) ran golf leagues at many of the local courses in the summer. Mostly middle-aged or older guys, some of us newer ones. One other new guy in my center and I formed a team and were almost unbeatable under the scoring system used. IIRC, we won whichever of the leagues we signed up for five out of six years.
One time we worked out why we were so “good”. What the scoring system did was favor teams that had one really consistent player and one erratic player who was either brilliant or terrible. I was the consistent player: I could go a whole league season and shoot my average plus-or-minus one stroke every week. Gary might shoot four strokes better than me over nine holes one week, four strokes worse the next week.
My wife, who was not a golfer, went out and walked the course with us one day when we were playing for entertainment. “You’re so boring,” she said to me in the clubhouse later. “Hit it in the fairway, hit it on the green, putt twice. Gary is interesting: under the bush, behind the tree, skips it off the water onto the green, makes long putts.”Report