A Look Back
Avoiding Stupidity, 8-foot Putts, Good Strategy ≠ Good Results, The 80/20 Rule and The Realistic Optimist
A Look Back
We are almost 2 months in since the very first edition of The 2nd Cut and 1-month since we shifted from the daily quotes to the current schedule. Many of the newer subscribers came after the Daily Divot’s ended so I thought I’d put together a compilation of my favorite quotes.
For those of you that have already read them, feel free to skip this post or skim through for some good reminders.
Avoiding Stupidity
“It’s remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”
– Charlie Munger
Billionaire investor, Charlie Munger, is Warren Buffett’s right-hand man at Berkshire Hathaway. He is well known for his multidisciplinary wisdom in physics, economics, biology, engineering, and history.
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Munger has a quick and blunt wit that gets right to the point. One of his wise tenants is a straightforward concept that has helped him in life and investing:
“Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.”
As in investing, golf doesn’t need to be overly complex. If you can avoid the pitfalls of others you can excel.
8-foot Putts
“Knowing the best players in the world hole only 1/2 of their 8 foot putts is pretty comforting. Anything outside that you’re more likely to miss…If you’re a tour player! Practice well and stick to things under your control. You can’t force it. Some days putts drop some they don’t.”
-Ross MacLeod (@rossmacleodputt)
I responded to Ross, “Knowing the odds of holing out from various distances helped me quite a bit. I don’t get angry at missed 12-footers, as long as I give it a good roll I’m content.”
Make Rates from 8 feet:*
Tiger Woods: 52%
A Scratch Golfer: 41%
90’s Golfer: 27%
I will be digging deeper into this subject in a future edition of the newsletter but for now, I’ll leave you with this:
Tiger misses almost half of his putts from 8 feet! So give yourself some slack. Put a good stroke on the ball and don’t let the results dictate your mood or analysis.
Good Strategy ≠ Good Results
“The correctness of a decision can’t be judged from the outcome.”
- Howard Marks
I led yesterday’s newsletter (check it out if you haven’t yet!) with the quote above from Howard Marks. Marks is a successful distressed debt investor known for his “memos” detailing risk management in an extremely clear and concise manner.
It’s a great quote that applies to almost anything, but it especially fits golf.
Marks is basically describing resulting.
Resulting is the tendency to judge a decision based on its outcome rather than its quality.
According to the pro poker player and decision expert, Annie Duke, we can overcome resulting by:
Accepting there will be uncertainty
Thinking in probabilities
Separating decision quality from outcome quality
The 80/20 Rule
“Roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than as it pertains to scoring in golf.”
-Shane Jones of Breaking 80
The 80/20 Rule (or Pareto principle) was named after economist Vilfredo Pareto who observed 80% of Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Often you’ll see the 80/20 rule cited by a company making 80% of its profits from 20% of its customers.
In golf, this rule could be applied in many ways, but I think one of the best applications is practice. When it comes to practice, most of us have the 80/20 flipped around. Were simply not getting the bang for our buck during a range session.
TLDR: We spend too much time on things that don’t really impact our score and too little on the things that do.
How many people do you see wailing away for an hour straight with nothing but a driver, 3-wood, and 4-iron? No putting, chipping, or 50-yard half shots.
Invert this! Find more time to putt, chip, and hit shots inside 100 yards. Your game will thank you for it.
The Realistic Optimist
“Goals should be difficult to achieve because those achieved with little effort are seldom appreciated, give little personal satisfaction, and are often not very worthwhile. However, if you set goals that are so idealistic there’s no possibility of reaching them, you will eventually become discouraged and quit. They become counterproductive. Be a realistic optimist.”
-John Wooden, Hall of Fame Basketball Coach
I think most golfers fall into the second category, sometimes biting off more than they can chew. So if you are shooting a 95 on average, it’s probably not a good idea to make your goal to become a scratch golfer. Let’s break 90 first. And focus on how we’re going to get there.
My advice is to pick one overall main goal for the season, whether it’s a handicap or breaking a certain score. Make it challenging, but attainable.
Now set up some smaller micro-goals that can help you hit your main goal. It could be, going to the range twice a week, increasing GIRs per round, 20 minutes of putting practice, practicing 50% and 75% wedge shots, 36 or fewer putts, etc.
Once you break through your goal, reassess and make a new one.
That’s all I got for today. If you have any questions or comments send me an email at the2ndcut@substack.com or comment below.
Enjoy the weekend. Til next time.
Nothing worse for my head (golf) game than missing a 4 footer for birdie on the 1st or 2nd hole.