Greg Norman...Jean Van de Velde...Wippy1313

I have a love/hate relationship with Golden Tee.

I love Golden Tee, the machine. I love that I can now use my credit card instead of interminably feeding $1 bills into a finicky machine when I could be saving them for Destiny or Sugar or Victoria. I love that I can waste money on different clubs and different balls that have no impact whatsoever on my game. It's so true to life.

I love Golden Tee, the machine. I hate Golden Tee the game. I'm not too bad at the game. Decent "handicap" ... can hook and shape the ball with the best of them. The calluses on my swing hand are strong enough from a variety of activities that I don't get many of the dreaded GT injuries. My problem? I am ALWAYS good for one disasterous hole. If there is a hole where you can be completely in jail and mark up the 10, I'll do it. It doesn't matter how hard I try to play smart golf, fairways and greens, I will end up in some crevace that will cost me $5 or $10 to the lucky stiff playing me heads-up.

And to make matters worse, I KNOW this about myself and I am constantly WAITING for this hole. It's in my head on every tee. "Is this the hole?" I am never as aggressive as I should be because I'm afraid of that hole. And yet invariably, I'll be on hole 13 or 14, playing well, usually leading and I will start to get a little cocky. I start to try to clear some trees I know full well I can't clear with a 3-wood. And I end up picking pine needles out of my teeth, marking double-digits on the scorecard.

What's the point in relating this short-coming of mine? It extends to my poker game as well. Last night I was in a 30-person MTT. A WIDE range of skill levels. For example, one guy has played in a few WSOP events and one guy flipped three diamonds and two hearts and declared he had a flush because they were all red. ALL skill levels. It makes for interesting table changes. That's for sure.

This is usually a re-buy tournament, but last night we bumped the buy-in and the freeze out was on. With a flat blind structure, I appropriately played tight early and hit the first break about average in chips. Following hitting a few flops pretty hard, I almost doubled-up and I began thinking about the final table. There were two short stacks at my table that had been nursing them rather tightly and we were all looking for opportunities to take advantage.

One of them was directly to my left and in this particular hand, he was in the BB. He had about T5,000 with blinds at 300/600. The action was folded around to me and I looked at 4c5c. I raised to T1,500 figuring was was all-in or folding. He called. Ummm...okay. Flop came A-J-3 rainbow. I checked. Mistake #1. Well, mistake number one was probably being in the hand at all for a "min" raise...but let's just say this is mistake #1 to make me feel better. He checks behind. The turn is a 4. I pair-up, but not exactly a powerhouse. I check again. He splashes $1,200 in the pot. Being a somewhat inexperienced and weak player, I thought he was just trying to take it down. How could a 4 have helped him and if it did, why that bet? So I called.

River was a 9. No help. But if he did have a four, this was an over. I ask for a chip count and put him all-in for his last $2,300. As tight and weak as he had been playing, I expected it to be an easy fold. But without much hesitation, he calls. And flips A-2. His betting patterns make ZERO sense, but what POSSIBLE reason did I have to play this and the way I did? Just like Golden Tee, I was sailing along, doing relatively well, thought I could just get this guy to bend to my will and next thing I know, my tournament chances were dashed.

Made the final table, but finished eighth. If I routinely donked off my chips or one bad beat after another or whatever, that's one thing. But to play good poker for 2.5-3 hours and routinely waste it all with one bad hand. Is this just a lack of concentration? Is it a psychological flaw? Does anyone else experience this? Have any thoughts? More importantly...anyone have any singles? I have a date with Destiny.