We’ve all been there before. You’re halfway through a round of golf, and quite frankly you are NOT playing your best. You’re leaking drives left and right. Every last approach is finding the sand, and when you finally did hit a green in regulation, you promptly three-putted. Suddenly your relaxing golf trip is turning into an 18-hole marathon of living hell. The only thing keeping you sane is the thought of an ice-cold beer at the end of the round.
Suddenly, you look up, and you’ve found an oasis in this brutal green desert of frustration and misery. You have just reached … the halfway house. You decide to make your most significant strategic decision of the day. You say to yourself, “Ah screw it, I’m not driving, and I’m not breaking any records today”. You enter the hut and place an order, you quickly knock back a can of beer and get another for the road, “Hmm, well this isn’t so bad after all is it?”.
Suddenly, you’re in luck! No, of course you didn’t get ace on the par-three tenth hole, but you do hear the whirling wheels of the drinks buggy! It’s time for a refill! Grabbing your wallet, “another can of beer please … actually better make it two”.
Now you are buzzing – congratulations you’ve found that magic spot where you’re just drunk enough to be loose and relaxed on the tee but at the same time you’re not so drunk that your short game and coordination has wholly deserted you. You smoke your drive on the next hole, hit the green, drain the birdie putt. The next few holes are daze – par, birdie, par, eagle?! What is this magic liquid?
The drinks buggy arrives again, you quickly down the half can of beer you had left, and you’re now thinking “one more beer, and I’ll shoot the course record for the back nine”. As you place the order, you have no idea that you’ve summoned the wrath of the golf gods.
That final drink has tipped the balance against you. You reach the 16th tee and promptly slice it out of bounds. You try to regain your focus, but it’s no damn good. Your coordination is gone, and you’re lucky only to lose four balls in the last three holes. You seem to have misplaced your gap wedge too. But don’t worry. The most important wedge to you right now is the club sandwich you’re about to devour in 28 seconds on the 19th hole.
Yes, it seems that when drinking on the golf course, there is a magic number of alcoholic drinks that helps you to summon your inner John Daly and play your best. However, there also appears to be cliff edge that once passed turns a respectable single figure handicapper into an uncoordinated hacker. Using my super scientific approach of anecdotal experience, let’s find out the perfect number of drinks.
1 Alcoholic Beverage
A drink potentially consumed before the round even starts. In all honesty, this doesn’t have a noticeable impact on your game. You’re a little bit looser and a tad more confident. You’ll only really notice a difference if you were already playing and the drink calmed you down. You stop overthinking and focus on swinging with rhythm.
Your stats (maximum of 5):
Long-game: +1 / Short-game: No change / Mental-game: 1 / Other side effects: An appreciation for the beauty of life.
2 Alcoholic Beverages
You start seeing a noticeable impact. But it’s all positive. You swing freely and without a care in the world. “What’s that? A 220-yard carry to the green over water? Lay-up? I wouldn’t dream of it, hand me my hybrid please.” Fortunately for you, you still have enough coordination to pull it off, and your ball is flying straight and true.
Your stats:
Long-game: +3 / Short-game: -1 / Mental game: +2 / Other side effects: A god-like confidence but not quite recklessness.
3 Alcoholic Beverages
You’re in the orange zone. You’re probably still playing well, but the first signs of detrimental performance are creeping in. You start knocking your putts six feet past the hole, and the chances of thinning a wedge through the green have gone up dramatically. When it inevitably happens, you’ll decide it’s probably because you need a refill.
Your stats:
Long-game: +1 / Short-game: -3 / Mental game: +2 / Other side effects: Adding about 15% too much to every shot.
4 Alcoholic Beverages
You’ve reached the cliff edge, and things are about to start going downhill quickly. Boldness in the face of a 220 yard carry over water has become 260 yards into the wind. As three-putting starts to become the norm, you also notice your smooth and relaxed drives are becoming increasingly erratic. After taking a nine on the last hole, you throw caution to the wind and the drinks start to flow.
Your stats:
Long-game: -3 / Short-game: -4 / Mental game: –3 / Other side effects: Your desire to find the fairway is replaced by a desire to find a bathroom or at least a secluded tree.
5 – 7 Alcoholic Beverages
You’re not playing well anymore, but fortunately, you don’t care. Your tee shots are wild, your touch around the green is non-existent, and you start to question whether you should really be driving a golf buggy. Your coordination is spiralling out of control, and you can no longer even get the ball airborne with any consistency. On the plus side, you decided not to keep score anymore, so you’ve got that going for you … which is nice.
Your stats:
Long-game: 4 / Short-game: 5 / Mental game: 5 / Other side effects: The definition of the day has changed from a golf day to a piss up.
8+ Alcoholic Beverages
The wheels are well and truly off. You’re no longer playing golf because you decided to skip a few holes, or maybe you’ve already finished the round… the point is you’re not sure. You’ve just challenged your golfing buddies to a jousting competition using your golf buggies as horses and your driver as a lance. Chances are you’ll be getting kicked off the course pretty soon. Good thing you’re on a golf holiday, and you will not need to be coming back to this club anytime soon.
Your stats:
NR
Please note – this article is for entertainment only, please drink responsibly.