Baffy already knows this golf. Sixty seconds a round, and he tells you where the strokes went.
Two minutes. No account. That’s how you meet Baffy.
Fairways. Greens. Sand saves. Your last app drew you a chart of it.
The round went somewhere else. Two balls right off tight tees (both of them now Gus’s). A chip left in the rough, then the next one over the green. Three putts from twenty feet. Baffy counts that, then names the pattern that cost the most.
Enter the score, then tap the thing that cost you. Lost it right. Chunked a chip. Three-putt. One hand, glove on.
Baffy measures the round against your own last twenty. Your game is the baseline.
One adjustment, or one thing to hit at the range. Nothing else gets to compete for your attention.
Six penalty strokes off the tee, all of them right of the fairway. Your putting cost 3.1, but it costs about that every round. The tee is the part that moved.
Hit the hybrid on the four tightest tees. Change nothing else.
The card says 108. Baffy says why.
Then he hands you one thing to change.
He also finds the thing that went right, every round. Every round has one. A round with nothing wrong in it still gets a word.
He ends every round with one trip to the range: what to hit, how many, in what order, and what it is meant to fix.
Do it, and the next round checks the tape. Skip it, and Baffy says nothing.
Type it the way you’d say it. Eleven clubs, hand-me-down Pings, a driver you bought when you were mad.
He finds the hole between the clubs. One verdict. Used first.
If buying a club would change the next few rounds, he names it. A lot of Saturdays the range is the better move, and he writes that down too: what to hit, how many, in what order.
Between your pitching wedge and your sand wedge, worked out from what you shoot rather than from a number you gave me.
Irons shaped like yours run about 42 degrees at the pitching wedge, and a sand wedge is 56. That is a 14 degree hole at the bottom of the bag, where four to six is what you want between wedges. One wedge at 49 splits it into two steps of seven. Seven is still a degree over, so closing it properly takes two wedges, and this is the one to get.
Two to four seasons old, $40 to $80, which is where they were listed in August. Add ten or fifteen for shipping, and the same again if the grip has gone.
The fitter at the shop sees your clubs and never your card. Your golf app sees your card and never your clubs. Baffy is holding both, so a hole in your bag stops being a guess about your swing and turns into six short holes where you were caught between clubs, every one of them between the same two.
It runs on rounds you already played. No launch monitor, nothing strapped to a club, nothing extra to carry. A short hole comes with its yardage printed on the card, and that is the whole ingredient. It was there before you turned up.
Which is why the bag is not something you check once. Every round you keep tells him something about your clubs that nobody could have known the day you typed them in, and he never asked you for a thing to learn it.
Sometimes what comes back is that nothing is missing. 14 rounds in, and the number on the club has cost you nothing. He writes that down as readily as he names a wedge, and that is the reason to believe him when he names one.
One email when the first tee opens. Turn up early and your first year is $29.
16,000 courses, off the phone already in your pocket. Other apps charge about $70 a year for the same number. It is free here because it costs nothing to serve: no map to license, no tiles to buy.
Front, middle, back on 4,000 of them so far, and more every time the greens get mapped. Works with no signal.
Or play it on your own. Baffy keeps the card either way.
They score on their own phones. Nothing to download. Nobody sees anyone else’s, in private.
Every hole he has how far you are from the green, and the club in your bag that gets there.
One scan on the first tee and the group is in. Walt’s nine on the seventh stays Walt’s business.
Course rating, slope and the best eight of your last twenty, posted from rounds you already played. You have enough to think about.
The spread between your best round and your worst keeps closing after your average has stalled. That is usually the point where improvement stops being visible, and it is still improvement.
Earned by what happens on the course. No streaks, no points. Opening the app earns you nothing, and your phone has enough chores.
A few from the collection, and the rest require golf. Nothing to report is a round without a penalty stroke. The feather is Gus going home empty.
This is whose company you’re in. A caddie, a starter, and a crow with a stash nobody has found.
Municipal caddie. Thirty years at the same course. He walks the round with you, then tells you where the strokes went and the one thing to change. Dry, patient, quietly amused. Never mean.
She runs the first tee. Clipboard, radio, and no interest in your extra practice swings. She has stood at this muni longer than anyone can remember. When she says you’re up, you’re up.
A crow in the trees on the 7th. Lost balls are his now. His recovery rate is excellent. His return rate remains under review.
Nothing is locked. Keeping score, your history, the handicap, the yardages and the bag stay free for as long as you play. $39 hires Baffy as your caddy all year. Rain or shine. He talks you through every round after your fifth, tells you how far to the green, names the club that gets there, and sends you to the range with one job.
The bag check works today, in your browser. Keeping score, the yardages and Baffy himself arrive with the app, and the founding group hears the morning it opens. There is no date on this page because there is not yet one worth printing.
Baffy has yardages for 16,000 courses, including the municipal tracks most apps treat as an afterthought. If yours is missing, add it once and it stays available for everyone.
Your phone is enough. Yardages also show up on your watch if you own one. No sensors, no rangefinder, nothing to strap to a club.
It goes the other way. Below a 95 average Baffy starts asking which way you missed; below 89 he starts asking about the club you pulled. Same three seconds a hole, harder questions, and it holds up to around a 12 handicap.
Swing video, flyovers, social feeds and public leaderboards. Baffy is built to find the leak, hand you the work and get out of the way.
Yes. Share a link or first-tee code. Everyone scores on their own phone, and Baffy talks each of you through your own round afterward, in private. No download or account required.
Roughly three seconds per hole and less than a minute for eighteen. Half that for the nine you squeezed in after work. If it takes longer than your partner’s pre-shot routine, something has gone wrong.
Keeping score, history, handicap, yardages, the bag check and badges are free for as long as you play, and so are the first five rounds Baffy talks you through. Baffy Club is $39 per year, and the founding group pays $29 for year one.
Gus has a stash nobody’s found. Put it down as lost right and move on.
He means your scorecard. He means it kindly. Mostly.
Join before it opens and your first year is $29.
One email when the first tee opens. Maybe one before. Nobody here has a newsletter strategy.
