“I might have holed that 35 foot putt”

Not even Tiger Woods, I think, should say of a missed 35 foot putt “I could have holed that putt.” That’s would be boasting. “Could have” in the context of a failure locates that failure within the scope of what one has the ability to do with some reliability. We discussed an example of that in the previous post. “I could have holed that 14 foot putt” implies, first, that I have the ability to make 14 foot putts regularly and, second, that in this particular case there was a definite, fixable cause of my error. I missed the putt because I did Y, and Y is something I can ( and usually do ) correct.

Thirty-five foot putts are a different story. I do make them on occasion. I practice them regularly, but my long putt game is happy if I hole one in twenty at that kind of distance. It won’t be sheer luck if I sink the next one, but it is not part of my game to do so. I might do so, it’s possible that will do so, but to say “I can sink 35 footers” would be boasting of an ability I do not have. Eighteen or nineteen failures in twenty tries does not attest an ability. So, of my failure to sink a 35 footer I can say “I might have holed that putt”, implying that this was one of the easier 35 footers. But I should be not boasting that I could have that holed putt. People are likely to ask me to put my money where my mouth is, and then I shall I have the opportunity to play it again, and fail again, this time loosing money as well.