Category: Philosophy

Dr. Frank Stableford’s scoring format is a great one to travel with. Yes at our home club we’re accustomed to the usual haunts—”the snuffbox” off of the 13th green, the trap short of number one, the false front on 18—and the friendly ghosts too and maybe even the one or two cups that feel cribbed…

Gimmes might be your thing or might not be. To my way of thinking they’re occasionally a true relief from the legendary knee-knocker, but more often, way more often really, they’re regretfully accepted, ignored, half-heard, offered too early, offered too late, taken as an insult, and on and on. The finer points of the etiquette…

Yes, some of us play “strict rules” baseball as adults. And naturally we keep score. More of us are playing softball, or even kickball. The fun factor is still there, but the tedium and test reduced. Reduced primarily because we are adults, definitionally busy and old. If we’re at play, it’s going to be more…

To have the option, but not the obligation. It feels good. It’s a subtle distinction, but key to understanding the Stableford mindset. Part of the chore of medal golf is the continuous obligation to hole out. It’s right there in the rules for stroke golf: A player must hole out at each hole in a round. If the…

“From a competitive standpoint, to me, it is the hardest game to play. I can always respond to an opponent, a defensive guy, an offensive guy, whatever, but in golf, it’s like playing in a mirror.” – Michael Jordan Stableford is a chambered nautilus. There are games within games. Where do you want to press? Where…

When you play Stableford, you never hit a shot that can’t score. You never hit a shot that can’t win. Every shot has meaning. Every shot is engaging. Every shot finds you recruited. There’s never any of that resignation that we must endlessly soldier under the lidless eye of the accounting of the medal format.…

Stableford is a golf format of possessions. Football is a game of possessions. A team can expect a certain number of opportunities to possess the ball and execute a given strategy. They might wish to use a possession to score quickly. Or use a possession to score while consuming clock. When a team fails to…