Scoring Apps and Your Golf Game - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

If you use the golf genius app in tournaments, you want to listen to this podcast.

I discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of using this app during competition.
I bring up a few different ways to look at the app for scoring and decide if it is useful for you to use during the round.

I talk about creating boundaries for you phone, claiming your own agency on making decisions relative to the app, and how to decide ahead of time whether to look at Live Scoring.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Above Par. I'm your host, Kathy Hartwood. I show you how to take more of your talent to the golf course without practicing harder, taking more lessons, or buying new equipment. I show you how to end the frustration of underperforming so you can start playing to your potential. This is where you are gonna learn how to think above par so you can play below par. Let's get to it. Hello, my golf friend. Welcome back. I'm glad you're here and listening. I hope you're having a beautiful week. I wanted to give a shout out before we got started today to a actually it was from high school, a friend that I reconnected with on Instagram. Her name's Hilary, and she won the most improved golfer this season thanks to all your help in your podcast. So thank you for giving me a little notice there in Instagram. I appreciate that. She said that last year was the worst year of golf for me. I was actually thinking of quitting. So my handicap went up to a 31 and now is back down to a 25. And listening to your podcast really helped. I am more relaxed playing golf, and it's just for fun. So, way to go, Hilary. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it. And uh congratulations on getting most improved golfer. And I'm so glad you didn't quit. I've had a couple of those conversations this year with people who have considered quitting just because the game is not so fun anymore. And I get it, I quit actually for like 10 years playing this game because I didn't enjoy it. I wasn't fun anymore. I couldn't get my head around it where I got to a place where I could like the game again, and that's part of why I do this podcast too. So please don't quit. If you're considering quitting, please reach out to me first. I want to just help you get your head around it. I say if you're gonna quit, like your reasons for quitting, right? And if your reasons for quitting is because you can't manage your mind and you can't get to a place where you feel good on the golf course. First manage your mind and get to a place that you can feel good on the golf course. And then if you want to quit, quit. But don't let that be your reason. Well, if it is, just like it that it is your reason, right? That we can't manage our head around it because I promise you're gonna go to the next thing that you're not so successful at or doesn't make you feel so good, and you're gonna feel like quitting again.

unknown 2:10

Right?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

You're gonna take that same brain with you. So if you get that urge to quit or that thought that you want to quit and not play the game anymore because you feel bad, you're not enjoying it and you're miserable, I just want you to understand it's all it is is a thought that you have to shift, and you can shift the way that you think about the game, and then from there decide if you want to quit and like your reasons for doing it. So anyway, Hilary, I'm glad you didn't quit, and congratulations on most improved player this year. So today I want to talk about golf genius. It's just come up a lot in a bunch of different scenarios and competitions. Actually, I've had this conversation with a lot of clients all year. We had a great conversation about this in my Above Par Club, and I wanted to talk to you about it here, and I'm gonna give you my opinion, which normally I don't, you know, like you get to decide and have your own thoughts. I'm gonna give you my opinion on different ways maybe that you can handle Golf Genius and whether you like it or you don't like it. But I think it's really important to make sure that you decide ahead of time how you're going to treat that app, right? So if anybody's listening to this and going, what the heck is she talking about? It's a scoring app that is on your phone called Golf Genius, that a lot of times the committees, the tournament committees or people at the club or the pros, whoever's involved in the tournament that you're playing in, want you to put your score in, live scoring as you play into the app. And there's been a lot of resistance to this app, especially with people that I talk to. And I want to give you my spin on it kind of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the app. Okay, so the good part of the app is that it definitely helps whoever's doing the scoring, right? It helps the tournament committee, whoever's doing the scoring, and it helps maybe fans and family who want to watch how you're playing in an event or members of the club live, right? Hole by hole. Great. Okay, nowhere in there is the good is for you. I'm not really sure how it serves you to be asked to put in these scores into the golf genius app, but hang in there with me. I'm gonna give you all the different scenarios that I perceive in my head about it. The bad is that someone in the group has to volunteer to be the score, which I think is a burden on one person. When we have paper scorecards, everybody's keeping somebody's score, right? If you have three people in the group, you just change scorecards around. You're keeping your own score, you're keeping somebody else's score. So everybody has an equal weight of distraction because the phone is a distraction. It is designed to create an addiction for us. All the little dings and the pings and the little red circles with the numbers in it to tell us how many messages that we have or emails that we have is to train our brain to become addicted to this device. We can create a little bit of a dopamine hit for us. That's the way it's designed. We get a ding, right? We get a little Pavlov dog in our brain. Let's go look at our phone and check out who wants to see me or who wants to talk to me. So when you're on the golf course and you have to pick up this device that we have a tendency to get addicted to that is full of distraction, it takes you away from your game. Now, yes, you can turn the notifications off. I don't know if you can turn the circles off on the bottom of the screen for your messages or your uh emails. But yeah, you can turn notifications off. But there's also, depending on how much you use your phone, there's this underlying urge, just when you pick it up, to go look at it. It's gonna take this extra level of discipline and thought for you not to go in and start looking at your messages or looking at your emails or looking at social media while you're out there playing. And that burden ends up being on one person. I can promise you, if I was in a group and they're like, who wants to put in the golf uh genius app, who wants to do the scoring, I would pull a hamstring. I was like, I was like, oops, my phone broke. I would not do it. I would not volunteer. I just wouldn't. It's just to me, it's too big of a distraction. So some people like it. They like to be in charge, they like to be in control, they want to put in all the scores. Maybe that to them, that is actually that in itself is a dopamine hit for them and helps them. I, from the way that I coach and the way that I know the brain works, think it's a distraction to the player. The more times that you're distracted throughout around, the more energy you have to take to go back and get focused and present over the shot. The other thing about the phone is, you know, I've talked to some people who get a lot of important texts and emails throughout the day. People who are in the medical field, lawyers who tell me that all they want to do when they go out and play is take the phone and put it in their bag and not look at it again until they get done playing. So if they're forced to pick up their phone, there's a lot of resistance in that. If they're forced to pick up the phone so that they have to put in golf genius, that phone is a source of maybe a little bit of stress, anticipation, work, right? The thoughts about work come rushing back. I don't think that's fair, in my opinion, to those people who don't want to use the app when they're forced, quote unquote, to use it. So I had this conversation with one of my clients and I said, Do you have to do it? I mean, I don't really know. Someone, you can email me because I'm not really sure on how this all boils down relative to the USGA. I had someone else email me that during COVID, there were things that they had in the USGA about using Golf Genius. I cannot believe that you could be penalized for not using this app. So I told her I just wouldn't do it. If it's especially if it's a distraction to you relative to you worrying about getting texts from work and then you have to go look at the phone and it becomes a disadvantage for you, I just wouldn't do it. So I had this other group, Meryl, told me that her group chose not to fill in the app and put in the scores. And at nine, the committee stopped them and said, you can't go tee off until you fill in your front nine scores. And so they sat there and did that, and then they got a slow play warning on the 10th T. This stuff is crazy to me. I just, I know I have a lot of opinions about you get to think about it whatever you want. I'm gonna give you mine. So I'm always encouraging my clients to put your phone away when you're playing because it's one extra distraction to keep you from focusing on your game. Then we're asked to pick up our phone and plug in scores while we're playing. It is actually a distraction. I think it's a burden on one person if only one person has to do it unless they love doing it. And I think the pressure to use it is we worry about what the committee is gonna think or what other people are gonna think if we decide, I just don't want to use the app. I'll turn in my scorecard, I'll fill it all in on 18, and we worry about what other people are gonna think. So the only caveat in there is I cannot believe that you would be penalized if you didn't do that. And if you weren't going to be penalized, people who are listening to this who are on tournament committees are gonna be mad at me. You make the decision on what's best for you and your game. Because of the good in here, nowhere in there is it that it helps your game. I have no idea how it helps you. I can only see how it hurts you. So, from my perspective on how I like for people to manage their mind around the game of golf and their emotions so that you can focus better and play to your potential. I don't see the upside in using an app to keep your score. But if you choose to do it and you don't see the downside in it, great, no problem. But if you at all think that it's gonna be a distraction for you, or you have that resistance that I just don't want to do it and I'm forced to do it, that's not gonna serve you while you're out there trying to play your best golf. So the third part about it, the ugly part about the Golf Genius app is live scoring. So, as I mentioned before, phones are designed to create this addiction and this urge to click buttons, right? It's clickbait basically on your phone, the little dings, all the little red circles. So when you're out there playing and you see the link for live scoring, you're gonna have this urge to click that button and see where you stand. I wanna tell you that once you click that button, you can't unsee, right? You can't erase it from your mind. So you wanna like your reason for clicking the button. So let's go through a couple different scenarios. Let's say you're going into the last couple holes. Most people are gonna click this button or look at live scoring going into the last few holes to see where you stand. So let's say you think you might be ahead and you wanna see. And let's say you're on 16 and you look and you notice you're two shots ahead. And I you answer these questions for yourself. I went through this with a client, a couple clients actually. You're on 16, you look and you see you're two shots ahead. How can you anticipate that you're gonna play those last two or three holes? Are you gonna guard yourself from making a mistake? Are you gonna play conservative? You start steering it around the golf course, protecting your lead, or is nothing gonna change? We would like to say nothing's gonna change, but I'm just gonna say I want you to put yourself in that scenario after you see it. Most of the time, people are gonna guard that lead and play safe. And when we play safe and we start steering, we actually end up making bigger numbers. Second scenario, you're a couple shots back, you're like, well, if I make a couple birdies coming in, maybe I can catch this person. That's the rationale. Like, let me see where I stand, and if I'm behind, then I'll go and I'll try and make a couple birdies. Why the heck haven't you been trying to make birdies for the first 15 holes?

unknown 11:27

Right?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

If we could turn on the birdie machine that quickly and easily, we should have been doing it the whole time. What happens is the minute you say, I need to hit it close and I need to make this putt, I need to make a birdie so that I can catch that person, as long as that thought and that process works for you, as long as it helps you focus and you become more present and engaged and motivated with what you're doing, great. Most people feel pressure. And under pressure, we get tighter and we don't focus and we end up making mistakes. So you want to paint through the different scenarios before you decide to click the button to look at live scoring. Make it a decision and not an urge. Now, the one scenario that I could come up with where it would be useful, especially for me and for a lot of people, I think, would be if I was really felt like I was struggling and I kind of had a case that I don't give a shits, right? Where we're kind of like, forget it, I'm out of it. And we looked and then we realized, oh, maybe I'm not out of it. I'm actually still in it. Everybody else is struggling too. And then we re-engage. That would be the only time I could see where that would be useful for me when I'm out there playing in a competition. So my point about the golf genius app, and especially this part particular to the live scoring, is just know that you're gonna have an urge to want to click that button because the phone in general has created that for us. So our brain just instantly is gonna go and want to talk us into clicking it, right? We want to see what's behind there. Be on to yourself for that, and then make sure you decide ahead of time under which situations am I gonna go ahead and look at that live scoring. And just like your reasons. Because whatever you see, you can't unsee and anticipate how that's going to affect your performance going in. So, in a nutshell, while I think golf genius is a fun thing for, especially for spectators who want to see live scoring like me, I love to see what all my clients are doing live time. I'm not so sure it's great for the player. I think it's more to benefit people like me and the scoring committee. And I want you to just be cognizant of the fact that are you going along with that and it is a distraction, it's preventing you from playing your best golf because you're focused on this device that is a distraction to you and keeping you away from your game, or is it not a problem? It might not be a problem for you. But I also think you have some agency over this. You get to decide. I think you could set some boundaries around putting in your scores into your phone when you don't want to look at your phone, when you're trying not to look at your phone, where it's a source of stress for you. I think you get to decide or come up with a strategy where you don't have to plug in your scores. I would leave my phone in the car or I would I'd step on it before I had to put my I don't know that I would do that before I'd have to put in my score. But this is probably about the most opinionated I will be about anything. I just see from my perspective that it's a distraction. And I just can't see the upside for the player. But I think there's the good, the bad, and the ugly of the app, and then you decide how it plays a role in you and your golf game. All right, my friends. I hope you have a beautiful week. And if I can help you in any way, make sure you check out kathyheartwood.com. All right, talk to you next week. Bye.