Golf Course Etiquette
Golf Course Listing
| Written by: Rob Williams | 2:31 PM PST - 8/12/2009 |
I wanna play it the way the pros would,” says one clown in plaid pants, a checkered golf shirt and a yellow hat. “Gonna get our money's worth today,” says his friend with khaki shorts, black socks and white sneakers. “We want to see the whole course,” says the third of the foursome as he slams his first beer of the day, almost falling over in his flip-flops. “Hey, if we never challenge ourselves, how will we improve…am I right,” queries the fourth member of the group as he lights his first stogie…and belches.
These are the stupid things heard daily on golf courses around the world as amateur hacks, (who have little business on a course of caliber in the first place), saunter their way toward the back tees, or the “tips” as they're known in golf vernacular, preparing for a day of disappointment and claiming that the course is “unfair.”
I'm still not sure how the course is unfair when the player is incapable of hitting the ball further than three feet off of the ground, but that's for another article, I suppose. Our culture's decay has seeped its way into our great game in a variety of manners and this is just another example: The inability to acknowledge or find one's own humility. We're not that good. Let's face it, shall we? The back tees are there for a reason; they're in the back, to make them more difficult to find, more difficult to get to and as course designer Pete Dye once said “To hide them from the ding-alings that don't belong there.”
Playing from the tips is nothing more than selfish ego on display. Ego for obvious reasons; heaven forbid that you are not good enough to play alongside the likes of Mickelson, Woods and Els (which you are not, lest you'd be doing it). Selfishness for the reasons that drive all of us nuts on the course every day; there are more golfers than just you. As George Costanza once famously screamed on an episode of Seinfeld, “We're living in a society here!”
When you play the tips and have no business doing so, you slow down the entire course and make the day less enjoyable for others. Using excuses like “but I am a fast golfer,” hold no water because hitting a ball nine times quickly on a par 3 still takes longer than hitting it twice well. Further, the argument that you are a “courteous golfer” and know when to pick your ball up and move on betrays your argument on two fronts. First of all, if you are picking your ball up and not finishing certain holes because you are so bad that you are holding up people waiting to play, then you are not even playing “from the tips,” for you are not completing the journey of each hole! Secondly, you cannot, by definition, be a “courteous golfer,” if you insist on playing from tee boxes that lengthen each hole to a level that is beyond your ability. It's what we call an oxymoron and you, my friend, are the moron.
If I seem rather harsh in my diagnosis of this sickness, forgive me. I have found that often a surgeon must cut in order to cure and it is time for all of us to ask our caddy for a scalpel and begin slicing and dicing the epidemic of etiquette-itis that is sweeping our game.
Some courses have begun to do so by insisting that the course pro pre-approve any group before they play from the back tees. This is quaint but not effective since any group of golfers so egotistical as to ask to play the back tees when they lack the ability to do so will also lack the courtesy to adhere to the pro's decision. Don't believe me? Watch them on the second tee where no one can see them and take note as they head to the back tees muttering “Stupid pro, what does he know…I'll show him.” This quote usually comes right before a loud “plop,” is heard as the first of four golf balls sails into the man-made lake located nineteen feet in front of the back tee box. This, of course, after no one in the foursome took less than a double bogey on the opening hole, downhill, straight-as-an-arrow par 4,328 yard, 18 handicap easiest hole on the course, each using two “breakfast ball mulligans.” Of course, they were “just getting warmed up,” (after 45 minutes on the driving range).
This problem will only be solved via immersion therapy. It is time to round up every golfer that insists on playing the back tees despite their double digit handicap and place them on a jumbo jet bound for Arizona. When they arrive, their pilot will attempt to land them on the deck of an aircraft carrier located in Lake Havasu since “that's how the pros do it.” Perhaps we'll drop the same group into the middle of the Grand Canyon so they can “see the whole landmark.” And just to make it interesting, we'll make sure the canyon floor is littered with diamondbacks, Bark scorpions and Gila monsters; after all if the group doesn't challenge itself, how will it improve?
I wanna play it the way the pros would,” says one clown in plaid pants, a checkered golf shirt and a yellow hat. “Gonna get our money's worth today,” says his friend with khaki shorts, black socks and white sneakers. “We want to see the whole course,” says the third of the foursome as he slams his first beer of the day, almost falling over in his flip-flops. “Hey, if we never challenge ourselves, how will we improve…am I right,” queries the fourth member of the group as he lights his first stogie…and belches.
These are the stupid things heard daily on golf courses around the world as amateur hacks, (who have little business on a course of caliber in the first place), saunter their way toward the back tees, or the “tips” as they're known in golf vernacular, preparing for a day of disappointment and claiming that the course is “unfair.”
I'm still not sure how the course is unfair when the player is incapable of hitting the ball further than three feet off of the ground, but that's for another article, I suppose. Our culture's decay has seeped its way into our great game in a variety of manners and this is just another example: The inability to acknowledge or find one's own humility. We're not that good. Let's face it, shall we? The back tees are there for a reason; they're in the back, to make them more difficult to find, more difficult to get to and as course designer Pete Dye once said “To hide them from the ding-alings that don't belong there.”
Playing from the tips is nothing more than selfish ego on display. Ego for obvious reasons; heaven forbid that you are not good enough to play alongside the likes of Mickelson, Woods and Els (which you are not, lest you'd be doing it). Selfishness for the reasons that drive all of us nuts on the course every day; there are more golfers than just you. As George Costanza once famously screamed on an episode of Seinfeld, “We're living in a society here!”
When you play the tips and have no business doing so, you slow down the entire course and make the day less enjoyable for others. Using excuses like “but I am a fast golfer,” hold no water because hitting a ball nine times quickly on a par 3 still takes longer than hitting it twice well. Further, the argument that you are a “courteous golfer” and know when to pick your ball up and move on betrays your argument on two fronts. First of all, if you are picking your ball up and not finishing certain holes because you are so bad that you are holding up people waiting to play, then you are not even playing “from the tips,” for you are not completing the journey of each hole! Secondly, you cannot, by definition, be a “courteous golfer,” if you insist on playing from tee boxes that lengthen each hole to a level that is beyond your ability. It's what we call an oxymoron and you, my friend, are the moron.
If I seem rather harsh in my diagnosis of this sickness, forgive me. I have found that often a surgeon must cut in order to cure and it is time for all of us to ask our caddy for a scalpel and begin slicing and dicing the epidemic of etiquette-itis that is sweeping our game.
Some courses have begun to do so by insisting that the course pro pre-approve any group before they play from the back tees. This is quaint but not effective since any group of golfers so egotistical as to ask to play the back tees when they lack the ability to do so will also lack the courtesy to adhere to the pro's decision. Don't believe me? Watch them on the second tee where no one can see them and take note as they head to the back tees muttering “Stupid pro, what does he know…I'll show him.” This quote usually comes right before a loud “plop,” is heard as the first of four golf balls sails into the man-made lake located nineteen feet in front of the back tee box. This, of course, after no one in the foursome took less than a double bogey on the opening hole, downhill, straight-as-an-arrow par 4,328 yard, 18 handicap easiest hole on the course, each using two “breakfast ball mulligans.” Of course, they were “just getting warmed up,” (after 45 minutes on the driving range).
This problem will only be solved via immersion therapy. It is time to round up every golfer that insists on playing the back tees despite their double digit handicap and place them on a jumbo jet bound for Arizona. When they arrive, their pilot will attempt to land them on the deck of an aircraft carrier located in Lake Havasu since “that's how the pros do it.” Perhaps we'll drop the same group into the middle of the Grand Canyon so they can “see the whole landmark.” And just to make it interesting, we'll make sure the canyon floor is littered with diamondbacks, Bark scorpions and Gila monsters; after all if the group doesn't challenge itself, how will it improve?
Rob Williams is the owner and host of the Rob,
To
read more
Golf Range Etiquette - Are you an...