Another example of sandbagging is the Ozark Amateur tournament held every year here in Joplin. It's a two-day tournament, the first day you play with your buddies if you want and get a score. Say you (each player has their own score) shoot an 82. They will put you in a flight of 12 guys who shoot about 81-83 that day. So the next day you play with people in your flight. You are not allowed to shoot more than 10 strokes better than you shot on day one.
So I did this tournament three times. Each time it played out like this: I shoot an 82, which is about what I'm capable of on an average day. I mean, my best score ever (done once) at this course is a one-over-par 72. And that was after three birdies on the last four holes. On the next day, Sunday, I'm with a group of guys who I've never met. They all shot about the same as I did on Saturday. They - every one of them - shot exactly 10 strokes better than they did Saturday. With ease. I shot an 80 I think. Didn't matter, I was again dead last in my flight.
It's just a stupid tournament and it's pretty crappy to sandbag like that, yet if you want to do well you need to. I mean, I could goof around on Saturday and shoot a 91, and then shoot an 81 (maybe) but even then I would be just *barely* able to do that with reliability. It's like these other guys are shooting a 120 and then all they have to do is shoot a 110, that's how easy it is for them to go down 10 strokes. I'm pretty sure that every other guy in my flight could have shot under par if they were allowed to, that's how sandbaggy it is.
But the championship flight, and probably the A flight are fair because you pretty much have to play your very best just to get in those flights. And really that's all the tournament organizers care about, the other flights are just a joke.
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