And Then He Gave Up Prize Competition

Michael Cain says:

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