My brother lies about his Grint Scores…
We all know golf is a game of honor. It’s a gentleman’s sport where you call penalties on yourself, replace your divots, and accurately record your score.
Unless, of course, you are my brother.
For months, my brother has been on an absolute tear on The Grint app. His handicap was plunging faster than an amateur’s drive into the treeline on Hole 1. Every weekend, he’d drop a screenshot into the family group chat boasting about a smooth 81, an 83, or a tidy 79. He was posting scores that suggested he was one crisp contact away from qualifying for the Korn Ferry Tour.
There was only one problem: every time I actually stood on a tee box next to him, his swing looked like a man trying to kill a wasp with a broom handle.
I knew something was rotten in the state of Denmark—or at least on the back nine at our local public course. The math wasn’t mathing. So last Saturday, I did what any loving, supportive brother would do: I launched a covert, high-stakes military espionage operation on his 9:15 AM tee time.
The Receipts
I arrived at the course thirty minutes early, clad in dark sunglasses, a neutral-toned hoodie, and armed with a pair of Bushnell binoculars and a pocket notebook. I parked my cart two fairways over, hiding behind a dense cluster of pines on the par-4 3rd hole like a disgraced private investigator trying to catch a cheating spouse.
What I witnessed over the next four hours was not golf. It was an elaborate performance art piece grounded in creative bookkeeping.
Here is a page straight from my field journal:
Hole 4 (Par 4): Brother blocks his drive 40 yards deep into the dense woods. I hear three distinct clanks of ball against bark. He emerges from the brush, tosses a ball onto the fair cut with his hand when no one is looking (Drop #1), shanks a 7-iron into the green-side bunker, takes two swings to blast out, and three-putts.
Actual Score: 7
What he probably felt in his heart: 4
Hole 7 (Par 3): Knolls his tee shot directly into the water hazard. Doesn’t take a penalty drop. Re-tees, hits the fringe, chips past the cup, and putts out.
Actual Score: 5
What he told his playing partners: “Put me down for a par, I played the provisional.” (That is not how provisionals work).
Hole 14 (Par 5): The masterpiece. A tee shot into the deep native grass (never found, no penalty counted), a shanked 3-wood, a foot-wedge out of the mud behind a tree, an overshot green, a flubbed chip, a second chip, and a classic 3-putt.
Actual Score: 9
Recorded Score: “Gimme a bogey, I had a bad lie.”
By the 18th green, my notebook looked like an FBI audit of a mob front company. I tallied up the raw, unadulterated, ground-truth strokes.
He shot a 114. A completely respectable, average-joe, weekend-duffer 114. There is no shame in a 114—unless you tell the world you’re a 9-handicap.
I snuck back to my car, drove home, and waited for the inevitable.
At 2:15 PM, my phone buzzed with a notification from The Grint. Then came the text in the family group chat, complete with a screenshot of a beautifully rendered digital scorecard:
“Rough day with the putter, but grinded out an 82! @Brother, just sent you the attest request on Grint, hit accept real quick so it counts toward my handicap.”
An 82. He shaved thirty-two strokes off his round. He didn’t just pad his stats; he committed grand theft handicap. He effectively deleted almost two entire holes from his round.
I stared at the “Attest Score” notification glowing on my screen. Accepting it would make me an accessory to a federal crime against USGA rules. It would be an insult to every golfer who has ever legitimately taken a triple-bogey like a man.
I didn’t hit accept. Instead, I sent a reply to the group chat:
“I can’t attest this. But I CAN attach this PDF invoice for the 32 lost balls you forgot to count on holes 3, 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, and 17. Check Hole 14’s breakdown—I took photos from the woods.”
The group chat immediately erupted. My dad started dropping crying-laughing emojis. My uncle asked if I was available for private detective work next Sunday.
My brother hasn’t texted back yet, but his Grint score is still sitting in “Pending Attestation” limbo. Until he owns up to the 114, he’s going to have to find another co-conspirator—because as long as I have binoculars and a golf cart, the integrity of the game is safe.
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