Poker Vs. Golf -- Which Is Harder To Play To Your Potential?

[burgerman 0]

With DN diligently preparing for the FCP golf weekend, I pose two questions to the forum:1) Which game is harder to play up to your potential -- golf or poker?2) In which game can you improve the easiest -- golf or poker?For me, poker is harder to play to my potential and and golf is the easier of the two games to improve my skills. I have a six handicap and I play $10-$20 NL Hold'Em.Best --Burgerman

[HubDub04 0]

Golf is harder to play to your full potential for two reasons:1) Golf is a more physical sport, therefore age is a factor in how well you can strike the ball and how easily you fatigue.2) There are so many different types of factors that go into playing a round of golf, you can be at a different course every day and have to completely re-evaluate your strategies and conditions to succeed. A poker tournament or cash game can become repetitive after any certain amount of time, but in golf, the scenery is always changing. Poker is an unbelivably hard game to become consistently good at but golf takes more more dedication.I do think poker is a harder game to develop discipline in, I can easily take 1 extra club on a hole and have no regrets if I think I can get there easier with that 1 extra club, but in poker, its really hard to lay down a hand that you think is the winner but your just not sure. Or laying down a nut flush draw to an all in. Now that takes a crazy amount of discipline.Golf is a lot like poker, I play both, I do both reasonably well. I think if you can do well at one, you can do well at the other, but golf is by far the harder game.

[nutzbuster 7]

So David Dubya whips around in a Bentley, eh? Man, even if I had that kinda scratch I'd be freaking out everytime I drove it. An errant valet driver here, a flying rock there, jealous key etching morons, etc. Think I'd rather have the Lexus bro., just as sweet at 1/5 th the cost.and...., Golf overall is FAR more difficult IMO. hands down. Some folks just never get it, while in poker most folks will eventually get pretty decent with the right amount of study and dedication.The question really is...which is more fun???? I think I posed that here once before...if you had to pick only one game for the rest of your life, would it be poker or golf? (much as I love golf...poker for me)Hope everyone has a blast on the links this weekend Daniel. STRETCH!

[Oziumrules 0]

Not even close....golf is much tougher. Golf requires some athletic ability, flexibility & talent...poker does not. I would say Golf & Poker are equal when it comes to mental ability & focus though.

[showstopper24 0]

golf is easier to improve.you can go out to the driving range for an hour and hit the balls better. on the reverse side, you can play poker for an hour and get frustrated enough that you might actually become worse

[Balloon guy 158]

golf is easier to improve.you can go out to the driving range for an hour and hit the balls better. on the reverse side, you can play poker for an hour and get frustrated enough that you might actually become worse

when does that part kick in?

[Dratj 0]

golf is way harder.

[showstopper24 0]

when does that part kick in?

when you keep goining to the range you will get better

[try__an__hit 0]

Golf is 1000x harder then poker.Enough said.

[DaBruins 0]

The answer is poker. I have no golf potential.

[showstopper24 0]

Golf is 1000x harder then poker.Enough said.

i just can't agree with this. i played varsity high school golf. the thing is i went to a very small high school so only like 20 people tried out and i got on varsity. the point i am making is at the beginning of the summer i would suck. maybe shoot in the low 50s. then after going to the driving range everday i was getting in the mid 40s.i can see why daniel thinks golf is harder-because he is great poker player. but i think for the average person, who is equally bad at poker and golf, golf is a lot easier to improve

[try__an__hit 0]

i just can't agree with this. i played varsity high school golf. the thing is i went to a very small high school so only like 20 people tried out and i got on varsity. the point i am making is at the beginning of the summer i would suck. maybe shoot in the low 50s. then after going to the driving range everday i was getting in the mid 40s.i can see why daniel thinks golf is harder-because he is great poker player. but i think for the average person, who is equally bad at poker and golf, golf is a lot easier to improve

Just after i turned 16 i was playing off a 5 handicap, and now im 17 1/2 and still off 5, mainly not due to practising as year 11 and 12. But golf is much easier when you are trying to drop down from a say 20+ handicap to 10+ but once you get bleow 7 it is alot tougher then poker to be good. It requires hours of hours at the range / practice green.

[showstopper24 0]

. But golf is much easier

this is true

[try__an__hit 0]

this is true

Quote my whole thing

[showstopper24 0]

Just after i turned 16 i was playing off a 5 handicap, and now im 17 1/2 and still off 5, mainly not due to practising as year 11 and 12. But golf is much easier when you are trying to drop down from a say 20+ handicap to 10+ but once you get bleow 7 it is alot tougher then poker to be good. It requires hours of hours at the range / practice green.

this is true-happy?

[aaronj 0]

golf is by far harder then poker...poker you can rely on luck sometimes and other times the people you are playing against arent that good...in the case of golf it is you vs yourself/the golf coursei look at it this way..poker has quite a few books out on how do play this and that..golf has 1000+ books/magazines on how to hit out of sand, drive the ball,lag putt...golf isnt just 1 thing it is an accumilation of various skills one must pocess in order to succede..i am a scratch golfer and moving from 0 to + is proving to be very very hard...golfing has its conditions as well..wind, rain, cold, heati dont see how poker can even be considered on the same level as golfpay my entry into any poker tourney where 90% of the field are pro's i have the chance to play well and do something nice..put me in the field at the masters or any other pga tourney i will come is last place

[showstopper24 0]

golf is by far harder then poker...poker you can rely on luck sometimes and other times the people you are playing against arent that good...in the case of golf it is you vs yourself/the golf coursei look at it this way..poker has quite a few books out on how do play this and that..golf has 1000+ books/magazines on how to hit out of sand, drive the ball,lag putt...golf isnt just 1 thing it is an accumilation of various skills one must pocess in order to succede..i am a scratch golfer and moving from 0 to + is proving to be very very hard...golfing has its conditions as well..wind, rain, cold, heati dont see how poker can even be considered on the same level as golfpay my entry into any poker tourney where 90% of the field are pro's i have the chance to play well and do something nice..put me in the field at the masters or any other pga tourney i will come is last place

if we put you in a tourney with 90% pros, you definatley can win. but if you do win, you are not better than the pros, you just got luckier. if you somehow beat the pros at golf, that meant you were better. golf is a lot easier to actually improve. you can play in the pro tourneys all day and beat them a couple of times. but at the end of the day, they are still better than you

[aaronj 0]

ur missing the whole point here... as u stated i could possibly win a hold em event with my current skill..there is no way in hell at my current golfing ability i could play in the masters and win ...i would be lucky to break 180 for 2 days, and im a 0 hdcp..any1 who says poker is harder than golf has no idea of what they are talking about

[MR_BIZKITZ 0]

ur missing the whole point here... as u stated i could possibly win a hold em event with my current skill..there is no way in hell at my current golfing ability i could play in the masters and win ...i would be lucky to break 180 for 2 days, and im a 0 hdcp..any1 who says poker is harder than golf has no idea of what they are talking about

TRUE.... with poker I feel I play to my potential often but on the golf course I never feel like I played to my potential and the truth is I usually didn't. I have a 2 hdcp( and still gaining .3 shots a year ) and once or twice a year I shoot really low and still feel like I could have made up a shot somewhere. I play to my potential like once every 3 years.

[aaronj 0]

thats another thing ..with golf almost always u can look back and say i left at least 1-2 shots out there..where as poker playing well you cant really say u made to many mistakes..just got unlucky

[showstopper24 0]

ur missing the whole point here... as u stated i could possibly win a hold em event with my current skill..there is no way in hell at my current golfing ability i could play in the masters and win ...i would be lucky to break 180 for 2 days, and im a 0 hdcp..any1 who says poker is harder than golf has no idea of what they are talking about

i think you are missing my point as well...you can win the poker tourny but that does not mean you are better than the pros-poker involves a lot of luck. if you suck out on someone, you did not play to your potential but just got lucky

[Balloon guy 158]

i think you are missing my point as well...you can win the poker tourny but that does not mean you are better than the pros-poker involves a lot of luck. if you suck out on someone, you did not play to your potential but just got lucky

What if that was my game plan from the beginning? To get lucky?Now I have hit almost every perfect shot there is: Awsome long drive, crisp iron into the hole, sand shot, 60' putt etc. But never enough in a row to make a difference to my handicap. so I'm saying I have shown the ability in spurts to play with the best.....but not consistantly.If you took my best scores for each hole on a course I've play 50 times I bet I would approach the course record, but I never broke 80.Now I cannot say I have ever made the awesome read and made a huge laydown, or called a bluff off perfectly with J high, etc. Nor have I really had a tell on a person that allowed me to ignore the cards and play the player. These skills elude me.So is golf just easier to play than poker in the very short term?Okay I know I suck at both, but humor me.

[showstopper24 0]

What if that was my game plan from the beginning? To get lucky?Now I have hit almost every perfect shot there is: Awsome long drive, crisp iron into the hole, sand shot, 60' putt etc. But never enough in a row to make a difference to my handicap. so I'm saying I have shown the ability in spurts to play with the best.....but not consistantly.If you took my best scores for each hole on a course I've play 50 times I bet I would approach the course record, but I never broke 80.Now I cannot say I have ever made the awesome read and made a huge laydown, or called a bluff off perfectly with J high, etc. Nor have I really had a tell on a person that allowed me to ignore the cards and play the player. These skills elude me.So is golf just easier to play than poker in the very short term?Okay I know I suck at both, but humor me.

all i am trying to say is this:lets say on a scale of 1-10, you are a 1 at both poker and at golf.You can go to the driving range for a couple of days and be like a 3.but you can play poker for a couple of days and remain at 1 (although you can jump to 3 but not just after a couple of days)if someone sucks at both, golf is easier to improve (in my opinion)

[burgerman 0]

I am told that if you play the better of two balls from every point on the golf course for 18 holes you see your potential without lots of additional practice, lessons or swing/grip changes. I do this every now and then and find that my potential is about par or a bit lower. I seldom play this well but occassionally I find myself with a decent chance at this score.I generally don't feel this way about my poker. I play a fair amount in Las Vegas cash games at Caesars when I'm there and never feel I come close to fulfilling my potential -- even after a nice win. I am constantly analyzing key hands and finding questions about my own play that would have maximized my expected value.One of the posts pointed out the difference in the amount of self-help literature currently on the market for golf and poker. I found his point compelling. However, for me it's harder to play to my potential at poker than golf.Best --Burgerman

[aaronj 0]

i could take a homeless person and in 1 full day teach him how to play holdem..and at the end of the day put that person in SNG and have the potential to do well...i could take the same person to the golf course show him basic golf fundamentals...after throw this person on the first tee and say thats enough after the 4th hole...case in point..DN mohter in law (i think) registerd for a sng then realized it was Omaha in some form she had to print the rules of omaha off the internet and she eneded up winning it..in golf this is impossible