Originally Posted July 30, 2007

Playing from the Back Tees

I'm a mediocre golfer. Okay, that's an exaggeration. I'm a lousy golfer.

I've been playing the game since I was 12 years old, but no matter, I suck at it. Notwithstanding that, I still enjoy it. I play as often as I can, whenever I can.

In all the years I've been playing, I've noticed this macho thing that goes on. When you get a group of guys together to play golf, someone always wants to play from the "pro" tees, the furthest back, the ones that make the game most difficult to play. I on the other hand, because I suck big time, would rather play from the "white" tees, which were designed for the average player. But, it's not macho or manly to suggest, WTF we all suck, let's just play from the front. To be direct here, no matter what tees my opponents play from, I always play from the front. I find it makes the game more enjoyable to not make it impossible.

So, why this observation now?

Today I went to the gun range. I was trying to work on my proficiency with my soon-to-be acquired weapon of choice, a Glock 26 9mm. If you've never been to an indoor gun range or fired a handgun, then you wouldn't know that the standard distance for target shooting indoors is 50 feet.

I suck. I can barely see the target "bulls eye" from 50 feet away, much less hit it. I know from prior experience that to keep my aim true, I need to fire at the target from 25 feet.
When I entered the range, there were 3 other shooters going through their paces. I noticed that all the targets were back in the range, at the 50 foot distance. After I loaded the weapon and got set to fire, I set my target at my basic competency distance of 25 feet. The more I fired, the better my success, but I noted something else on the range.....

....by the time I had been shooting for 15 minutes or so, everyone else on the range had shortened their distance to the same 25 feet that I was shooting at.

The back tees. A macho thing. All these guys were shooting to 50 feet because *everyone else* was. Notwithstanding that they couldn't hit their targets. It wasn't "manly" to shoot at 25 feet. Until I came along with my Glock 26. Even the guy shooting the fully-automatic Uzi moved his Osama Bin Laden target to 25 feet, before he blew the living shit out of it.

With women, it's shoes. With men, it's playing from the back tees. Go figure.

My guess is that if I ever (god-forbid) have to fire my weapon at a person to defend myself, my family or my property, it will be from within 10 feet. Proficiency at 25 feet is more than necessary. You guys playing from the back tees lose too many balls, and waste way too much ammunition. I'll keep playing from the whites.