Tales from the first tee
Stories about my life experiences and others as I work at one of the premier golf clubs in Charleston, SC. Interviews with golfers around the world that have one thing in common...the pursuit of excellence on a golf course and everything else that happens along the way.
Tales from the first tee
The Fleecer: Spotting Advantage-Seeking Golfers
Rich Easton examines the behaviors and mindsets that define the golf experience, from exploitative betting schemes to self-deceptive thinking patterns. He identifies common characters and psychological traps that can impact both your scorecard and your wallet.
• "The Fleecer" – the skilled player who suggests complex betting games designed to empty other players' pockets
• Vegas betting game explained – how seemingly small dollar-per-point wagers can quickly escalate into substantial losses
• Spurious assumptions in golf – why "if I hadn't missed those putts" thinking ignores the butterfly effect of each shot
• Regional expressions for calling out faulty assumptions, from "if my aunt had balls" to "if a frog had wings"
• The handicap system explained – demonstrated ability versus wishful thinking
• The two competing golfers in every player's head – the rational strategist versus the glory-seeking risk-taker
• How playing conditions, physical state, and recent performance should influence club selection and strategy
Bring your good caddy with you and help that good caddy make decisions for you. Are you going to be a 10 cup or a David Sims? Make that decision before every shot.
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You're listening to another episode from Tales from the First Tee. I'm your host, rich Easton, telling tales from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina, this week, in episode four of season four. Or, as a buddy of mine says hey, rich, isn't this your 91st episode? Yeah, however you want to put it, anyway I'll talk about the Fleecer. That's the best golfer in the group who sets up betting games to his or her advantage. Spurious assumptions. If I didn't four putt those five holes, I would have broken 90. What's a handicap? Yeah, I shot a hundred the other day, so put me down as a 30. I shot 100 the other day, so put me down as a 30. The tale of two golfers in one body.
Speaker 1:But first another diatribe in a segment that I call what Annoys Me this Week. For the past several weeks my personal annoyances have been golf related Hitting Alice like putt short, no shows for a reserve tee time. I mean, those were kind of things that were annoying me and they still do. But this week I depart from golf annoyances to rant about something that just caught my eye in the news this week Alex Jones filing for bankruptcy to protect himself and his three companies from paying out millions of dollars to families of the Sandy Hook shootings. Alex was found guilty in multiple defamation lawsuits for negligence in his conspiracy theory that the news of the shootings were all contrived. And my annoyances this week actually have two parts. Number one is Alex Jones. Number two is the bankruptcy protection for assholes.
Speaker 1:First, alex Jones, born in Austin, texas, and educated all the way up through community college in Austin. Now, I'm not knocking. Community college Institutions for higher learning come in all different sizes and packages. Maybe Alex's parents couldn't afford the University of Texas or Stanford, or maybe he couldn't get in. I'm guessing it's the latter and not the former. But look, I'm not an education snob. Need I remind all my listeners of all of the geniuses that dropped out of school who had added value to the world Steve Jobs, michael Dell, mark Zuckerberg, paul Allen, bill Gates. These are just a few of the people that got into technology Alicia Keys, tiger Woods and that's right, kim Kardashian. Yeah, so I believe you can have a voice in the world and a positive voice without a four-year degree, and I would think that thousands of parents who are up to their asses in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for student loans, as well as students that are taking student loans that are now professionals and have to work the next 25 to 30 years just to pay back their loans, would agree with me as well. Alex decided early in his life that conspiracy theorism is where he could make his impact. Hey, some conspiracy theorists can be deep thinkers.
Speaker 1:Here are nine of the top conspiracy theories in modern history. Number one the Holocaust was a myth. Number two the CIA had a hand in the JFK assassination. Number three the moon landing was faked. Number four Princess Diana's death was not an accident. Number five 9-11 was an inside job. Number six Democrats are behind a sex ring. Number seven the earth is flat. Number eight COVID is a population controller to vet the weak. And number nine the mass shootings at Sandy Hook were completely false. This is what Alex and his deep state false flag theory made ripples of.
Speaker 1:And before I go into my disdain of individuals like Alex and his ability to hide assets through bankruptcy protection, I just have one observation, and for all of you conspiracy theorists listening to this, I'm sure you could figure out a way to debunk my theory. Most every loud voice touting conspiracy were most likely, and I'd say most definitely not our honor students that continue to challenge themselves to obtain graduate or doctorate degrees in law, medicine or education. They've not been leaders in the medical field, ceos of our most successful companies or risen to the highest level of office. All right, maybe there's one guy, but I think you get my point. People that strive to improve themselves and the world around us not only are not subscribers to conspiracy theories, they're likely the target of conspiracy theories. They're likely the target of conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1:Alex Jones is big, with a loud voice and a following of supporters that, somewhere along the line, lost confidence in the system and Alex's words ring true to them. Look, I'm not saying that he or his followers are stupid. Alex can spin a story that to some seem plausible. He can talk loud enough to overpower rational thinkers and he could talk over rational thinkers. I'm just saying that he's full of shit. He knows he's full of shit and he laughs all the way to the bank with the money his followers donate to his theories against humanity.
Speaker 1:It's one thing to suggest that the first moon landing was a hoax. I mean, very few people get hurt with that theory. Well, I could think of at least one. In 2002, buzz Aldrin was doing an interview and he gets confronted by this conspiracy theorist, bart Seabrool, who wouldn't stop badgering Buzz about the fake lunar landing. It's fake, isn't it? It's fake. He kept the gut in his face. So what did Buzz do? He punched Bart right in the nose. I believe, more likely than not, it was real and after watching the Elon Musk documentary Return to Space it's on Netflix now it becomes abundantly clear how dangerous spaceflight is. Imagine how it might have felt in July of 1969, eight days and three hours of terror for three astronauts. And then, years later, some conspiracy theorist thinks that by badgering Buzz Aldrin, he's just going to lose it and fess up and say okay, okay, you're right, I didn't stand on the moon, we just had to beat the Russians and show them that we're first at something Other than the theory of a fake moon landing.
Speaker 1:Some of the other theories have tremendous pull on the emotions, on our survivors, our survivors' friends and their family the Holocaust, sandy Hook, 9-11. Covid deaths. When Alex Jones knowingly challenged the families of murdered children, he did it for two reasons Popularity and bank account. I mean, couldn't Alex just challenge the fact that the earth wasn't round? Maybe that wasn't a big enough topic, maybe that's just not an emotional topic and other than a few astronomers falling out of their chairs. Not much harm is done when you focus on that, but what kind of human being broadcasts an untruth that opens horrible emotional wounds in a community of Sandy Hook and gets away with it?
Speaker 1:Alex doesn't show up in court. He doesn't produce the documents that the court asked for. Up in court, he doesn't produce the documents that the court asked for, and now he takes his companies into bankruptcy to shelter millions of dollars. What kind of human being does that? Yeah, so my second annoyance is the bankruptcy courts. Bankruptcy protects individuals from having their corporate liabilities infringe on their personal finances. Example you develop an idea, you execute a strategy. The market doesn't support your plan, you abandon plans and start again. That's what bankruptcy court allows you to do. All that being said, I subscribe to the laws of karma and for that I give Alex and his schemes no more breath. Thank you.
Speaker 1:The Fleecer, yeah. So what's a fleecer and how can you spot them? First of all, a fleecer is a golfer that takes advantage of their buddies to line their own pockets with their buddies' cash. Now how do you spot them? It's always the golfer that knows they're the best in the group and suggests a game to play. That always benefits them. Here's an example.
Speaker 1:I'm at the first tee the other day and this guy comes up. He's talking to all his buddies and he's suggesting the game. And as soon as I see one guy louder than the rest suggesting a game, my ears just kind of perk up. I'm interested. I find it to be funny. This guy has all new drivers in Fairway Woods. He has a $500 Scotty putter and he has these players' tour blades. Now these are all advanced clubs. These are all expensive and advanced clubs that suggest either this guy just has bucks and wants to show people you know, he might be a shower instead of a grower or this guy plays. So I'm watching this guy and he suggests the game of Vegas for a dollar a point. Now I have played Vegas. I played it in Las Vegas, that's where I learned it and I know it can get really expensive. So he suggests this game and his partner is like okay, like hey, how do you play it? And he goes well. First of all we break into pairs. Now this guy partners up with a guy that he knows could play as well, and this is how it's done. It's played with partners and all scores count, and so you have two scores against two other scores.
Speaker 1:But it's not simple math. So if one team gets a four and a five on a hole and the other team gets a five and a six, normally four and five is nine, five and six is 11. That's two point difference. So that hole, at a dollar a point, would be worth $2. I mean so a guy so he might even explain that you add them together and that it's the difference in points. And so guys are like, oh, what could it cost me? Two bucks a hole. Let's say I don't lose every hole 20 to 30 bucks. But here's the real math the two scores for each team go side by side, with the lowest of the two in the tens digit and the highest in the singles digit. So a four or five would be a 45 and the five six would be a 56. The difference there is 11 points. So now that hole that you might've thought could have been $2 is $11. Okay, now that's.
Speaker 1:Here comes the fun part. Anytime anyone on a team birdies, you flip the other team score. So same example. Let's say it's a par five. You get a, one team gets a four or five, the other one gets a five six. So the first team with the four or five got the birdie. The other team didn't. So their five six now goes to a 65 instead of a 56. So now, instead of it being an $11 hole, it's now you have four or five against 65. It's now a $20 hole. Wow, that was fast, right.
Speaker 1:But there's another kicker. What if you get an eagle? Same scenario If you get an eagle, instead of a 4-5, you get a 3-5, and the other team gets a 5-6, you flip it. You take the difference, which is 20, and now you double it. So now it's a $40 hole. And now imagine if the person on the other team doesn't get a 6, he gets a higher number. Well, just do the math. It adds up and you could have an 80, 90, heads up and you could have an 80, 90, $100 hole.
Speaker 1:And here's the thing the fleecer always know that they have a birdie or two in the future. They play a lot, they know they're capable of it. They also know they're more capable of getting an eagle than anybody else there. So what made matters worse at least that day is now the fleecer is explaining the rules, but he's saying it quick enough for the other guys, you know, basically to get brain cramps and not want to hear anymore, and then he just goes. Okay, everybody in there, he goes, hey, let's go to the back tees. And at Charleston National it's the green tees. Look the days I work as a starter and I witness the ego-driven fleecer at work, you know. As they're going to the first tee, I ask the guys hey, are you all low single-digit handicappers? And unless all the guys say yes, I suggest they move up to the white tees.
Speaker 1:Another thing I do to try and help the unsuspecting golf buddy is to ask the guys hey, how far do you consistently hit your five iron? I actually had a guy the other day, not in this group, but another one, said I don't know, I lost my five iron. I'm like that's not the point. What's the number that you normally hit? Most scoffers will say 175 yards and then what I do is I take 175, I multiply it by 36, and I get 6,300. That's the yardage you should play from. That's a reasonable distance to play the course in four and a half hours and score something close to what you normally score. The green tees at Charleston National are 6,700 yards with, I think, a 142 slope, which means they're longer and harder for most 18 handicaps to play and it'll certainly take well over five hours. So I actually said this to the guys and when they figured it it out they're like hey look, we're going to play from the whites. So the only thing I could do to help these guys was get them on the right tee box. But the Fleece man he knew what he was doing. I'm sure he had enough money after that round to buy another set of clubs.
Speaker 1:Spurious assumptions they're worth shit. So I'm talking to some of my golf friends about this Tuesday night league that they always play in. It's a two-man scramble and, quite frankly, you have to be really good to win it. Five, six under par, it's only nine holes. So these are really good golfers. And so I heard this one guy, overheard him say you know what, if I wouldn't have missed those two putts, we could have been in the money.
Speaker 1:That, my friends, is a spurious assumption. It's an assumption that has no basis in fact, that, quite frankly, the reality would have been what you said it would have been, and a lot of that has to do with the butterfly effect. But what I find with spurious assumptions is that, depending on where you live in the United States, you're going to hear somebody's expression explain it differently. An example I'm from New York and when I used to make an assumption somebody would say hey, if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. Hey, when I lived in Chicago and somebody made an assumption, then somebody would say something like if it's in butts, where candy and nuts Christmas would be every day. A friend of mine from Italy used to say, hey, if my granny had wheels, she'd be a bicycle. And of course you can't talk about expressions without bringing in Cloudy Graves, who said to me the other day hey, richie, if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass when he hopped. Look, the truth of the matter is this we can't assume that if certain conditions change to our favor, all other conditions after that would be true, other conditions after that would be true.
Speaker 1:So a guy that misses a birdie putt then goes on to hole number five and pars it, and then six, seven, eight, pars it and goes to nine and birdies it. If they make the assumption, if I just would have made that first birdie putt, I'd be two under. But first of all, history is what it is, you can't change it. And second, have you ever heard of the birdie curse?
Speaker 1:Often when average golfers make a birdie, the next hole is disastrous because the golf gods punish them. Everything and every action informs you of the next action. Another example if you see a guy blast his putt by the hole and your ball is in a similar position, maybe a little closer, you're likely to baby it. So you don't blast it, you're not going to make, you're not going to get the ball to the hole. So if he or she didn't blast it, perhaps your putt would have been hit stronger and would have gone in the hole. But we'll never know, because it didn't happen. Whenever you mess up on the golf course, it informs you of the next shot. That's why, when we hit a second ball after hitting a shitty shot, that second ball, which I call the B player, is more likely to produce a better outcome. If we could only count our second shot, if we could only play our B player's score. But again, spurious assumption You'll never know.
Speaker 1:The Golf Handicap System hey, what's your handicap? Well, I shot a hundred the other day, so put me down for a thirty, yeah, so what's your handicap? Look, I'm not going to bore you with the formulaic approach to level the playing field in the sport of golf. I'll just comment that it's an attempt to level the playing field for golfers with different demonstrated ability. The operative phrase is demonstrated ability. The operative phrase is demonstrated ability.
Speaker 1:The handicap equation takes your best scores in recent history and calculates a number that should indicate how you perform against par for that course. Now, of course, it's more complicated that, but the key is that it represents your potential as demonstrated by your recent play. What it's not is the difference between the number 72 and your worst round in the history of golf. It's not that. What it's not is the number 72 minus your posted score that has a mulligan every hole. What it's not is an adjusted number that allows you to game the system and win money against more honest people, although some would say that's exactly what it is. It's what you've demonstrated. Your capabilities are over the course of time, and recent time holds more value.
Speaker 1:If you don't play often, you might not have a handicap. You might not be able to compete in sanctioned events or local money games. Look, if that's important to you and having a handicap is important and you want to do those things, I suggest you join the GHIN, the GIN Golf Handicap Information Network, and if it's not important to you, I just say tell your buddies I shoot between X and Y and let your buddies decide your fate, although I highly suggest against that. Did you know that everybody has two golfers in their head? Well, now you do.
Speaker 1:Have you ever hit a shot that you know is low percentage? But there's this voice in your head that directs you to pull the club that can get you home Either hit the most incredible drive when it should have been a three wood, or put you on the green when the likelihood is that you're going to scream Because nine out of 10 times you're going to hit that shot fat, thin bladed, faded into the marsh, into the bunker, into the water, or the dreaded Obi-Wan Kenobi, all because part of you thought maybe you should lay it back and take it easy or hit the smart shot. But this other side of you, the side that looks for glory, the side that knows what you're possibly capable of, is the one sometimes that directs you to make that decision. My buddy, the sconce and slammer, calls that his bad caddy. We all have a bad caddy. We all have that voice in our heads that just directs us to make a move.
Speaker 1:That's low percentage. Why? Well, maybe because you just witnessed your playing competitor hit the most miraculous shot. You know, if you don't go for it you're going to lose the hole. I get it. Or maybe on the last hole you hit a good shot and you believe in your heart of hearts that you could keep doing it. And you have to believe that that's what golf's about, that you could keep doing it. And you have to believe that that's what golf's about. It's the golfer who has a horrible day but then, on the 18th hole, hits a miraculous shot, or it makes a 30-foot putt that brings them back. You always want to believe that your next shot is your greatest shot.
Speaker 1:But why do we do this to ourselves? You know, it's like the story that I've told before about these guys I played with in San Clemente. These guys were so competitive, razzing each other, and then they get to this one hole and this one competitor was telling the other one look, hit an eight iron. It's 150 yards, it's downhill. I know you have to go over the bracket. Hit an eight iron, you can, and the guy goes. I know I can, but I never have.
Speaker 1:And that's the key thing here is not only do you have to know what you're capable of, but you got to know what you've been doing recently. Look, if you go and practice often and I've got a few buddies that are range rats and they're practicing in the practice They've probably seen themselves hit some pretty good shots with some clubs, and so now they have the belief that they can do it, and so that's sometimes what compels us to go on and pull that club that could get us home. But here's the thing You've got to know a bunch of things about the now, and I talk about this also. You got to stay in the present. You've got to know how your body's feeling, how you've been playing today up to this time. Is it the first hole or is it the 18th hole? Are you tight or are you loosened up? Is it windy, is it cold? Is it raining? All of these factors.
Speaker 1:You have to just kind of get a sense of what conditions are going to allow me to hit this perfect shot. And if those conditions don't exist, you've got to take the part of you, the rational thinking part of you, and it has to dominate the cavalier, sword-wielding musketeer, cavalier, sword wielding musketeer. And you just got to lay back and say, okay, let's just hit this one shot here, let's get it on the green, let's make the one or the two putt, let's make it to the next hole. You've got to think to yourself that I can't win the tournament here unless it's the 18th, but I could lose it. That doesn't mean you're playing defense, it just means you're playing to live and fight another day. And look, I have played against Cavalier sword wielding players that have gone for it and made it and that have won. But I've also witnessed those guys crash and burn because they couldn't control themselves. And I've gone for it and I've won. And I've gone for it and I've lost.
Speaker 1:And I would tell you this the times that I've won, things were going right. My body was feeling good, my head was on straight and whatever I had done that week to practice, it translated on the course and the days I played horrible. All those things, or some of those things, didn't exist. So you got to bring your good caddy with you and help that good caddy make those decisions for you. Are you going to be a 10 cup or are you going to be a David Sims? And I say you, make that decision before every shot. You know why I'd still hit that shot. Yeah, because it's the only way you could beat Dave Sims. No, because you get that look in your face. I'd hit it again because that shot was a defining moment. And when a defining moment comes along, I was playing to win and, as always, I'm your host, rich Easton, telling tales from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. Talk to you soon.