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Comment by bkbleikamp | Hacker News Reader

I golf a lot, and this seems like A "No kidding..." type of statement to me.

Birdie putts are less common, even for great golfers, and so when it comes up everyone tends to put a little bit more pressure on themselves, consciously or unconsciously, to capitalize on the birdie putt.

Even when you have a short one (less than 5 feet) you friends will say "Oh, don't miss..." etc.

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The point of the article is that great golfers are OK with not capitalizing on the birdie putt, but a bogey is to be avoided.

Edit: Apparently I should clarify. The golfers are putting more pressure on themselves to make par and avoid a bogey score. On the putt for birdie, they are not putting too much pressure on themselves; instead they are OK with settling for a par score so they take shots that aren't as risky. In other words, it's more important to them to avoid a bogey score than it is to capitalize on the birdie putt.

you want to avoid a bogey because it starts a vicious cycle. assuming you are at par, a bogey requires a birdie just to get back to par. going for that birdie risks another bogie that would require another birdie to balance, and so on. playing in this highly volatile manner you run a higher risk of having to make great shots in order to end up with an average score. it's more in your favor to wait until you make a great shot (say a great second shot on a par 4 that leaves you two feet from the hole) and then capitalize on the "free" consequence (the two foot birdie putt) that actually takes you above average than to be forced to sink a 50 foot birdie just to stay at average (because you missed par on the previous hole).

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