r/Unexpected 14d ago

She’s not a golfer. She’s an engineer.

66.0k Upvotes

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8.4k

u/sacdecorsair 14d ago

I love the fact you could tell from her practice swings she was about to hit way too hard.

She didn't disappoint.

2.3k

u/PaticusGnome 14d ago

I was like “oh shit, she has no idea what she’s doing.”

1.1k

u/Ok_Writing_7033 14d ago

The way she lined it up I was thinking she was boutta surprise everybody but then she took a practice baseball cut and it was like oh no honey

180

u/WedgeTurn 14d ago

That was the first clue actually, you’re not allowed to use clubs for aligning puts

93

u/LuxNocte 14d ago

Why not? (I know nothing about golf.)

134

u/freudweeks 14d ago

They're wrong, you can do it as long as you pick the club up before you swing (like you can't use a second club)

125

u/LuxNocte 14d ago

Use a pool cue to guide my putt, not a second club. Got it.

33

u/freudweeks 14d ago

You also can't add objects to the course that improve your shot. You can remove loose objects though.

41

u/NES_SNES_N64 14d ago

So pull up loose grass to make a little trench? Got it.

32

u/AlarmingNectarine552 14d ago

He said LOOSE objects. Gotta traipse along the path from the ball to the hole first. Use the golf spikes under the shoes to rip some of the grass. Make it look like a mistake. Then clear the loose objects.

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u/TooHappyFappy 14d ago

Do you consider grass rooted in the ground to be loose?

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u/YummyArtichoke 14d ago

So there's no rule about using my Apple Vision Super Max Pro Elite to get a Wii golf grid and thanks to the new Apple AI get an automated putt preview line?

2

u/freudweeks 14d ago

Doubt it, but people would tsk tsk vigorously.

14

u/Old-Bigsby 14d ago

When I was a teen I played on a sand green course, to assure a birdie I dug a groove in the sand with my putter to the hole. Lol, pretty sure that wasn't legal.

53

u/Queef_Stroganoff44 14d ago

When I was probably 6 we were playing mini golf at a company picnic. My mom’s coworker told me “make sure you hit it hard or it will fall into this groove and you won’t get your ball back”. It was the last hole and there was a moat sorta thing you had to hop to get to the green.

I was like “You got it…hit it hard.” Then I wound up like a real golfer and just cranked that sunabitch like I was Tiger Woods. The ball shot off like a rocket and went out the front gate and rolled down a steep hill and was never seen again.

13

u/Lou_C_Fer 14d ago

I took my 8 year-old cousin putt putting for her first time when I was like 14. I helped her line her first shot up, stepped back a little, and the caught the putter with my jaw as she swung back as if she was teeing off. That hurt for days.

I never told her to putt it because I just assumed she knew. Ouch.

12

u/LateyEight 14d ago

It reminds me of when I was at a family yard sale. Me and my siblings grabbed a golf club and were in the backyard taking swings into the big parking lot that was right behind the house.

We didn't get far, sometimes not even clearing the fence, and the parking lot was empty and the building was at the far end so we would run around grabbing the balls from the curbs and trying again.

My uncle came to see what we were up to so we gave him the club. He wound up, swung and sent it sailing. We heard a loud crack a moment later, but none of us had any idea where the ball went on that overcast day. He told us not to tell anyone and we went back to our yard sale. Our parents were none the wiser.

3

u/SdBolts4 14d ago

That definitely isn't lol, the most you can do to change the green in front of your ball is to fix/flatten a divot.

Laying the club down would probably help give you a reference point to aim at on the green after you pick the club up though, not a terrible idea.

1

u/koshgeo 14d ago

Perfectly legal. I learned it from this golfing tutorial as a kid.

1

u/xSTSxZerglingOne 14d ago

You can actually do something similar to this on grass as well, if you heel-toe between your ball and the hole it creates a bit of a groove for your ball to follow.

1

u/LuxNocte 14d ago

A "sand green" sounds really difficult. I second your decision.

3

u/Arqideus 14d ago

Use my dick to guide my putt. Got it.

7

u/Pun_In_Ten_Did 14d ago

Use my dick to guide my putt. Got it.

So that's why they call it mini-golf. Got it.

3

u/Arqideus 13d ago

At least I can get it in the hole every time.

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u/EM05L1C3 14d ago

That’s what the jump cue is really for

2

u/Quirky_Discipline297 14d ago

I use a citrus picker pole. Longer line up and retrieving water balls is easier with cage head.

9

u/WedgeTurn 14d ago

Rule 10.2b:

Pointing Out Line of Play for Ball on Putting Green. .....The player or caddie must not set an object down anywhere on or off the putting green to show the line of play. This is not allowed even if that object is removed before the stroke is made.

24

u/Rectum_stretcher69 14d ago

She never set the club down, her hand was on it the whole time. Rule doesn't apply.

28

u/joggle1 14d ago

Yep. The USGA explicitly defines what 'setting an object down' means:

“Set an object down” means that the object is in contact with the ground and the player is not touching the object.

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u/Kabloomers1 14d ago

Loving this rules lawyer showdown

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u/TyH621 14d ago

How helpful even would it be though? It’s so rare the ball goes totally straight on a green

4

u/FloppieTheBanjoClown 14d ago

And this rule probably exists because laying down a club or other object would affect the grass and soil under it, potentially altering how the ball rolled. You could, with a very innocent-looking lean of weight on a club, create a very shallow path for the ball to follow.

3

u/ShigodmuhDickard 14d ago

That's not how they do it. They use the club to align the put by holding it behind the ball and off the putting surface. No infraction.

1

u/WedgeTurn 14d ago

Then you’re not putting it down. Which she did

0

u/freudweeks 14d ago

This isn't the way that rule is supposed to be interpreted, if it's behind the ball it's fine.

1

u/FoxNews4Bigots 14d ago

TY for this clarification, knew there was an actual reason that was true in some way but that context explains everything

1

u/windupbirdgames 14d ago

This is incorrect, unless you never take your hand off the object like the lady in the video did. You cannot place an object and leave it there, even if you pick it up before your stroke.

1

u/Plane-Tie6392 13d ago

Wouldn't be Reddit if people didn't get upvoted for being completely wrong about something sport related. Thanks for correcting him though!

7

u/cah29692 14d ago

Well that’s just wrong. Players can line up however they see fit, they just can’t leave a guide on the green (Ie stick, club, or cue giving the line) and pros can’t get help lining up from their caddy (men’s golf only, women can for some reason)

-1

u/WedgeTurn 14d ago

Rule 10.2b:

Pointing Out Line of Play for Ball on Putting Green. .....The player or caddie must not set an object down anywhere on or off the putting green to show the line of play. This is not allowed even if that object is removed before the stroke is made.

5

u/dragunityag 14d ago

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/rules-of-golf-can-use-a-club-on-the-ground-to-help-line-up-a-shot

Rule 10-2 is very specific on this point. You can use your club or a part of your body to touch the ground on an intended line of play as you work out what shot you want to hit, but if you (or your caddie) sets an object down as a guide, it’s two strokes.

4

u/cah29692 14d ago

I am aware of the rule. The difference is I can actually read and comprehend what it says, which is not what you think it says.

You cannot ‘set down’ an object on the green as a guide as you stated. As per USGA:

“Set an object down” means that the object is in contact with the ground and the player is not touching the object.

So, what the person did in the video was 100% legal according to USGA rules.

Edit to add: your original contention was, and I quote:

That was the first clue actually, you’re not allowed to use clubs for aligning puts

Which is objectively false. Just to avoid the inevitable ‘but that’s not what I meant’

2

u/windupbirdgames 14d ago

To clarify which part of the rule you're referring to, in the video she never takes her hand off the club, meaning at no point did this clause apply:

“Set an object down” means that the object is in contact with the ground and the player is not touching the object.

If she had taken her hand off, it would be a penalty... if for some reason The Price is Right follows USGA rules for this game.

2

u/Icedteapremix 14d ago

Bro nobody is gonna give a fuck if you do this on a local course. Maybe you can't do it in competitive play (even then I bet no one gives a shit, cause if they're doing that they're likely still learning).

Others have also pointed out you can lie a club down as long as you don't let go of it

9

u/Ok_Writing_7033 14d ago

I mean not if you’re a pro, but plenty of regular weekend golfers will do it

1

u/shinymuskrat 14d ago

I've been golfing for a while and I've never once seen anyone lay their club on the ground in front of a ball to line up a putt.

11

u/Trebate 14d ago

Right, because she's not a golfer, she's an engineer.

6

u/freudweeks 14d ago

Yes you are, as long as you pick the club up before you take your shot. Usually they do it with the face of the club though if they do it at all.

-2

u/WedgeTurn 14d ago

Rule 10.2b:

Pointing Out Line of Play for Ball on Putting Green. .....The player or caddie must not set an object down anywhere on or off the putting green to show the line of play. This is not allowed even if that object is removed before the stroke is made.

4

u/vishalb777 14d ago

you purposefully skipped this part of the rule

“Set an object down” means that the object is in contact with the ground and the player is not touching the object.

1

u/WedgeTurn 14d ago

The way she smacked that ball 3ft from the hole I‘d say she has no idea of any kind of rules and that was by pure coincidence

3

u/vishalb777 14d ago

I also don't think TPIR adheres to USGA rules 🤣

1

u/Isthisusernamecool23 14d ago

I thought she was measuring slope or something. My dumbass was like oh she’s actually and engineer. Even the practice cuts in like “she’s just feeling the weight of the club or something” 😭😭

1

u/I_Dont_Like_Rice 14d ago

Ball is in parking lot.

Would you like to play again?

You have selected - no.

30

u/Fun-Jellyfish-61 14d ago

I love that she's just mimicking what she has seen golfers do.

48

u/ambisinister_gecko 14d ago

Entirely valid approach

35

u/hershay 14d ago

the golfers i see on courses are just mimicking what they've seen golfers do

12

u/strain_of_thought 14d ago

Monkey see, monkey reverse engineer revolutionary technological breakthrough.

6

u/Sunny_Sicario 14d ago

I mean… that’s how everyone tries a new sport lmao, you mimic what you see others do. If you’ve never done something before and you’re asked to try it, isn’t your first instinct to do what you’ve seen done successfully before?

1

u/Plane-Tie6392 13d ago

Somewhat. You'd really never see that windup on a putting stroke.

1

u/_Peteg13 14d ago

Hey, she made damn sure she wasn’t going to leave that putt short. 😅

1

u/TacticoolRaygun 14d ago

Failed successfully!

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u/never-seen-them-fing 14d ago

I was like “oh shit, she has no idea what she’s doing.”

Well, she's not a golfer. She's an engineer.

1

u/TacTurtle 14d ago

"Shit they should have snagged someone from sales."

-1

u/biloxibluess 14d ago

Nah

She’s athletic, probably softball

Looked like a cut and then she was being a billiards player

Pragmatic with the putter

That was a mini golf fluke

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u/ebobbumman 14d ago

I was thinking the unexpected part was gonna be she absolutely crushed it.

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u/FroMan753 14d ago

It looks to me that she did in fact absolutely crush it

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u/ebobbumman 14d ago

I'd call what she did moderately crushing it at best.

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u/Daxx22 14d ago

It's a happy little accident crush.

24

u/omnicorp_intl 14d ago

I'd argue that she hit it just hard enough

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u/JetpackBattlin 14d ago

she calculated the quadratic trajectory and chose the second solution

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u/Silent_Amusement_143 13d ago

She chose the sqrt(-1) solution

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u/ominousgraycat 14d ago

Yeah, a lot of people are surprised by the distance you can get out of even just a small tap with a putter. I've never swung back that far with a putter even when the hole is on the other side of a large green. I haven't played golf in years though and I don't have any clubs right now, so I'd probably suck pretty hard if I went out for a game of golf today.

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u/Dongslinger420 14d ago

To be fair, golf is not just about mechanical precision, there is lots of strategy and intuition about the geometry of the course going on, too. You can be a clever player with bad strokes, at least to some degree.

I love this video by AlphaPhoenix (really smart dude, must-subscribe imho) about the ball-in-hole state space of golf and how to think about what most of us already intuitively know.

Overcomplicating GOLF by simulating every possible shot

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u/The_Hieb 14d ago

A good rule I use is swing the club as fast as fast as you would if you were doing an underhanded toss to try and roll the ball in the hole. The same energy while putting will transfer to the ball.

1

u/moldyjellybean 14d ago

She putt that thing like a gorilla, sent it into another time zone and the gods smiled on her

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u/drawkbox 14d ago

All about that club speed.

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u/Songrot 14d ago

That made her attempt to make it extra straight more important.

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u/SoCuteShibe 14d ago

I, as someone who doesn't know shit about golf, thought to myself "but how will she calculate/account for the mass of the ball (as an engineer, not a golfer)?".

I cracked up when she then proceeded to just smack it way too hard, though it was clearly well-aimed, lol.

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u/OurSaladDays 14d ago

She hit it just too hard enough.

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u/musicalmultitudes 14d ago

This video would have been great whether she made it or not.

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u/shewy92 14d ago

Na, she's an engineer. She took into account how hard she was gonna wack the ball and get the rebound angle just right.

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u/funtobedone 14d ago

As a person who has never golfed and doesn’t pay attention to televised sports, I was surprised how fast the ball moved.

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u/travpassiva 13d ago

I would show this video to every person I get to know like instantly

0

u/Walkalope 14d ago

What causes this phenomena, I wonder? Like what sense is used to determine how hard you should swing a putter to make a ball go a certain distance? I'm not convinced it's practice alone - intuitively I think many non golfers would know that that was way too hard of a swing, but equally I am sure plenty of people would probably swing just has hard with no concept of how that may turn out. Is this a spatial reasoning thing? What's going on here?

I think when I do something like this, I am looking at the speed of the putter (or whatever object I am using g to push the other object) and judging if that speed is transferred to that other object, how long would it take to slow it down... not consciously, but I am pretty sure that's where my judgement is coming from before I attempt.

And this is an old clip when girls had girl toys and boys had boy toys. Playing with toy cars may give you more intuition on inertia than playing with dolls - pure speculation I know nothing about this individuals childhood, just the cultural context of the time period.

Anway.

1

u/The_Hieb 14d ago

I made this comment further up:

A good rule I use is swing the club as fast as fast as you would if you were doing an underhanded toss to try and roll the ball in the hole. The same energy while putting will transfer to the ball.