Hack: To cut or shape with unskillful, crude or ruthless strokes.
Golf Hack Explained
In golfing terms, “hack” is that guy who strolls onto the golf course and is sure to be presented with the eye rolling of the more talented golfers.
He’s that guy talented golfers dread playing behind. That guy who’s deciding on what cold beverage he needs next as opposed to realizing he needs a pitching wedge instead of his three-wood for the 10 yard chip shot.
Good golfers can sniff hacks out a mile away. They don’t need the nose of a basset hound to pick up on the stench of a hack trickling his tee shot 20 yards off the tee-box or the rotten odor of grass and soil chunks traveling further than the ball.
Simply put, a hack is a poor golfer. Just as there are houses considered to be the “Eyesore of the Neighborhood”, a hack is considered the “Eyesore on the Golf Course”.
A hack’s golf game could easily be compared to the mentality of most members in Congress:
“I’d like to come back and do this a few more times because I’m not worried about excelling, just trying to have some fun.”
However, through all the hacking melee, this guy who hacks has fun. He enjoys the round in spite of his groundbreaking awfulness. And he enjoys it regardless of the fact he’s charted a birdie as many times as men have charted a catheter being an enjoyable experience.
Without further elaboration on what the golf world describes as a “hack”, here are they are:
Top 5 Reasons It’s More Fun to be a Hack
1. Every Outing is a Good Outing
Good Day For a Good Golfer=Low Scorecard + Good Shots
Good Day For a Hack= Not listening to the wife talk about Feelings + Not cleaning the house + Enjoying cold beverages with friends.
2. Issues like rough terrain, pin placement or doglegged fairways never matter
As a hack you’re just trying to get it near the green or in the vicinity of the fairway. As for hitting off rough terrain, see reason number 3. A hack worrying about these issues is like Lindsey Lohan worrying about her 12 step packet not having paper clips.
3. Throw Offs don’t exist. Throw Ons do.
Drizzle? Beers 9 and 10 starting to catch up with you? As a hack, you never have to worry about these minor blips throwing your game off. If anything, one of these inconveniences may actually throw your game on.
For good golfers, these road bumps may cause some unwanted chinks in their titanium armor. For a hack, your armor is an ugly Christmas sweater to begin with and these chinks may end up being bulletproof. Just aimed too far left? Well toast one to your blurry vision from Miller Light number 9 because it just played into the hands of your breathtakingly horrendous slice.
4. Acting Like Your Good is Just as Fun as Being Good
Ever witnessed that guy who hits a bad shot, drops his club and shakes his head in frustration because he knows he should have done better?
As a hack, that will never be you. But you get to act like it.
Hit a bad shot, step back, blurt a couple choice words, shake your head in fake frustration and act like your ball was supposed to land 4 feet from the cup.
A hack knows the odds of his ball actually landing that close to the pin is equivalent to the odds of Tiger Woods guest speaking at a “Proper Civility Towards Your Wife” conference. It’s not a disappointment when a shot goes awry because a hack knows his ball is probably going in the sand, water or resting with the ants in the dirt piles of the lost forest.
5. Camaraderie Effect
It’s an unusual rite of passage that can bring a group of guys together. All the hacks can toast their cold ones to a once considered dark, unskillful tunnel that now sheds a new light on golf enjoyment.
Crowning achievements get in the back seat. Shotgun is being given to all the hacks who swing a golf club as well as Paris Hilton teaches chemistry. To all the guys who probably won’t ever chart a birdie but will devour every ounce of fun to be found on the course; whether in the sand, fairway, woods or water.