[mrodock]

well i feel as if it is my job to help motivate these guys being the captin. They could be decent if they just tried.

I feel your pain grapegoat. Only in the last year was I able to help my dad turn into a low 80's player from a mid 90's player because he finally listened! I had been trying for 5 years. I am extremely glad I didn't give up, he shot his first 70's round about a month ago! Anyhow, the first things that come to mind is Fred Funk's scoring average on 7300 yard courses and Pelz's statistic that pro golfers fall in the 5% - 9% error ratio on long game shots. Pelz isn't talking about how you have to hit it 320 yards in order to be a great golfer, accuracy is most important. Driving in play and solid iron play solves about 65% of the game I figure. Most of the great iron players will much sooner hit an easy 6 iron than a 7 iron, or in the case of your golf team members smash a 9iron. On the golf channel the other night they showed that one guy got a hole in one from 183 yards with a driver, and another guy a hole in one with a PW from 178 yards, SAME SCORE!!!!!!!!!!

I think your coach has to help you out on this one. If they go out and play 9 holes, on one ball they dictate the strategy, on the other ball the coach dictates the strategy that might wake them up. Unfortunately some people have so much ego they cannot help trying to smash that ball, even with a short iron. Tiger Woods, perhaps the greatest golfer of all time, still is unable to swing within himself all the time with a driver. I don't anticipate he will ever learn that the extra 20 yards in the trees doesn't help and will probably cost him 35 tournaments over his career.

My advice, for what it is worth, try your best to be a good captain, and accept whatever results that yields. Try to work with your coach as much as possible to get through to your teammates, but realize it may not work and that is okay. At the end of the day, take pride in playing the best you can. I've been on bad golf teams before, I know how it feels. It just stinks all the more when you see the potential.

Matt