Stop Calling Everything A Strategy

I keep hearing the word strategy at open play and I don’t think people know what it means anymore.

Hitting it to the worse player isn’t a strategy. It’s just looking at who’s worse and then hitting it there. That’s not a plan. That’s eyesight.

Stacking isn’t a strategy. You just want to stand on the side you like. That’s fine. You don’t have to draw a diagram for it.

“Keeping them honest” isn’t a strategy. You hit one ball down the line an hour ago and missed. Nobody’s been kept honest. They forgot about it immediately.

The third shot drop is a shot. The reset is a shot. “Patience” is just not doing the dumb thing for a few seconds, which, fair, is hard for some people, but it’s not a system. There’s no whiteboard.

Somebody at the gym told me his strategy was to “let them make mistakes.” That’s not a strategy either. That’s what happens when you don’t have one.

I asked a guy what his game plan was last week and he talked for two minutes. Then we played and he hit it as hard as he could every single time. So that was the game plan. He just needed a longer way to say it.

Most of this is just hitting the ball to a spot and hoping. Which is fine. That’s the game. You don’t have to make it sound like you’re landing a plane.

Nobody at Tuesday open play is running a system. Some people are just hitting it better than other people. You can tell because they’re winning and not explaining anything.