12 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re A Mid-Handicap Golfer

While everyone who plays golf can enjoy the feeling of hitting their longest drive, getting up and down from an unexpected place, holing a long putt or experiencing the many mental health benefits the game can offer, players of different skill levels undoubtedly go through contrasting emotions and challenges on the course.

A 20-handicapper who’s never broken 80 clearly isn’t going to understand the pressure associated with shooting par or better for the first time. Likewise, a scratch golfer can’t relate to the little joys experienced by someone in the high teens, like breaking 90.

Three-putting from ten feet or making a rules mishap that costs you shots will irk everyone from professional to complete beginner, but some specific scenarios are more relatable to certain handicap groups.

Below, I've listed 12 things you’ll only understand if you’re a mid-handicap golfer…

Stress from the 5th hole

If you’ve started uncharacteristically well, it will be almost impossible to maintain that for a whole round – you’re acutely aware over every shot that you’re playing good golf and could be on for your best ever round. Cue the inevitable meltdown.

Bye bye, balls

It’s virtually impossible to make it through a round of golf without losing at least one golf ball. If you do, it’s nothing short of a miracle. And if you somehow finish up on 18 with your original ball, you’ll almost certainly have chipped and putted appallingly.

The waiting dilemma

On occasion, you’re capable of driving a short par 4 or attacking a par 5 in two, so you have to wait for the green to clear in both scenarios. But if you wait, you know you have no chance of pulling off the shot. Paradoxically, if you don’t, you will almost certainly flush it.

Second shots into par 5s

Similar to the above, second shots into par 5s cause you real difficulty when you’ve hit the fairway and are in range. You rarely find yourself in this position, which adds pressure as the thoughts of ‘wouldn’t it be amazing if you made an eagle’ infiltrate your mind. Cue a top, thin, slice or duff.

Failure to reset

If you don’t feel comfortable over a shot, you know you should reset and start the process again… but for some reason you don’t, even though you almost never hit a good shot when you have doubts about set-up and it’s an easy thing to rectify.

Pre-shot routine

You don’t really have a proper pre-shot routine, even though all the best players in the world and at your club do, and even though every coach worth his or her salt tells you to. You’re not really sure why.

Reading putts

Similar to having a consistent pre-shot routine, you know you should read putts from behind the hole as well. And, on the occasions when you’ve done it, you’ve found it to be useful. Yet for some reason, you don’t do it on every putt and often go 18 holes without even thinking about it.

Taking the wrong club

You know you should be using a 5-iron from a particular distance, but that club has wronged you in the past and you’re not prepared to give it another chance. The problem is you either need to under- or over-hit the club you pick instead, which doesn’t often end well.

Quiz: 10 questions every golfer should know the answer to

A bunker between your ball and the hole fills you with dread

If your approach shot comes up just short of the green and there’s a bunker between your ball and the flag, you’re in trouble. You just can’t stop thinking about duffing your pitch into the sand, which either leads to that exact scenario or a skull over the green, often into a bunker on the other side.

Wind factor

It shouldn’t be too difficult to work out what to do, but wind really seems to get in your head. You really struggle with clubbing and committing to a shot when you’re playing into the breeze and you never seem to capitalise on downwind holes.

Subconscious adding

If you’re playing well, you always know how many Stableford points you’re on. Even when you actively try not to add up as you go along and commit to staying in the moment, you just can’t.

Gear dilemmas

You’re never sure what your optimal bag set-up is. How many wedges should you carry? Should you have more forgiving irons? Does your driver have the right shaft? Should you be carrying a zero-torque putter? It’s a constant dilemma.