Cheaters & Sandbaggers

Who else gets annoyed by those that don't count their drops, water, O.B., trees, all that stuff? Played with a guy recently who was obviously cheating; including throwing extra discs so you don't know which one he's supposed to be playing; then bragging at the end about how he couldn't believe he "beat me". It was news to me that there was even a competition going on! I asked him if he ended up at his score before or after all the fouls.... Cleared that one up real fast.

[JC]

John said:

and for sandbaggers Lot's of people have a weird view on this ,my last tournament I was called a sandbagger by someone with almost the same rating and the other 2 in our group agreed with him well I'm a 923 rated player so I'm am2 the one guy was a 920 player and the other 2 were dreambaggers only rated 890 I find a lot of player play the sandbagging card when the lose to justify their lost not saying it doesn't happen but not as much as people say

Bingo. Most of the time if someone is playing the sandbagger card, it is a player that the accused beat and they have to rationalize their loss or it is someone in a higher division (typically one who ought to not be up there anyway) who is upset that someone with a better score than theirs is going home with more than they are, even if it's just a trophy. Some people just have a hard time grasping the idea of working to improve themselves to beat the "bagger" and would rather shame, ridicule, or even force the competition up and out of the way instead.

I've also always felt that the reason sandbagging is considered such a "huge" problem is because we generally have multiple divisions competing on the same course at the same time. Because of this, we have this illusion that the everyone is competing with one another, which is never really the case. You're competing against your own division and that's it. I've seen a few cases this year in which the Advanced winner had a score that was close to or better than the Open winner. "BAGGER!" right? Hell no. Not once was that Advanced winner a "sandbagger" in the truest sense...he was doing what he had to to win his division, and they were always relatively close battles, not run away blow-outs where no one stood a chance. And usually the Pro was doing his thing to win his division, which was also usually a close battle). I'll always argue that if you would have put the two winners head to head, everything would change. Maybe the pro plays differently or more aggressively to maintain a lead...maybe the am wilts under the pressures of competing against the "best" on the course vs the "best" in his division. You never know.

Not to say that true cases of sandbagging don't occur, but not nearly to the extent you could be led to believe...if there's even one true case in the 30-40+ tournaments a year I play, that's a hell of a lot. If one believed every accusation at every tournament, at least in my 10+ years of experience, everyone's a freakin' sandbagger (so maybe we should get over it and move on). More often when a player wins his division (and is accused of "bagging") it's just a case of a player having a really good day or, more often, a bunch of players playing out of their element in a higher division than they should. I've encountered very very few players competing in a lower division than they're qualified to play in. It's just that most of their skill-peers have moved up to get their butts kicked in a higher division because apparently winning at any level but the highest is just wrong somehow.

[matt51776]

I agree with the last post. I do have one caveat though and that is that ratings are not exactly real time and sometimes the borderline guys make it over the hump and play at a consistent enough level to be in that next division but the ratings don't reflect it yet. Nothing wrong with that either.

Recently there was a guy in a two day tourney I played in and helped the second day: advanced/open saturday, Int Am sunday. The guy cashed on saturday 3rd I f I remeber correctly then tied for first on Sunday in Int am, lost in the playoffs and called the dude he lost to a bagger made a huge scene, slammed his putter into a tree, complained that the holes selected for a playoff were lefty holes (his opponent was a lefty) besides not being true it was pretty lame all the way around. The dude he beat didn't have a rating yet and was in fact probably better than int am but still.

The guys ratings put him at just over the top of Int am division but clearly he could play advanced. Playing Int after playing the previous day in advanced and cashing just shouldn't happen, nevemind the behavior.

[John]

Well there's always a few bad apples that will do anything to win such as this guy and have a bad additue when they lose
but i found for me I'm always nice never nice y and how i present myself on the course helps me win as most people underestimate me but i'm confinde enough to keep it together .
When I won my lost tournament I deservsrd it I put in a lot of work before a tourny and if that makes me a bagger i guess i'am one .
really just go play and have fun
also when I won in am 2 the am3 guy would of beat me by 2 strokes and beat everyone else in am3 by 6 strokes but he talked to me and said he never does this well and he had one heck of a day it happens sometimes

matt51776 said:

I agree with the last post. I do have one caveat though and that is that ratings are not exactly real time and sometimes the borderline guys make it over the hump and play at a consistent enough level to be in that next division but the ratings don't reflect it yet. Nothing wrong with that either.

Recently there was a guy in a two day tourney I played in and helped the second day: advanced/open saturday, Int Am sunday. The guy cashed on saturday 3rd I f I remeber correctly then tied for first on Sunday in Int am, lost in the playoffs and called the dude he lost to a bagger made a huge scene, slammed his putter into a tree, complained that the holes selected for a playoff were lefty holes (his opponent was a lefty) besides not being true it was pretty lame all the way around. The dude he beat didn't have a rating yet and was in fact probably better than int am but still.

The guys ratings put him at just over the top of Int am division but clearly he could play advanced. Playing Int after playing the previous day in advanced and cashing just shouldn't happen, nevemind the behavior.

[CBass]

My mental / putting game could use the most work, if could improve upon that then these chumps wouldn't bother me so much I suppose.