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The Obnoxious Golfer
Golf, in the early stages, was considered a “Rich” man’s, or a “Gentleman’s” game. Having known many rich men, I have determined that being rich does not automatically qualify you as being a gentleman. A perfect example would be the great Bobby Jones. We can watch his golf lessons on tape on the Golf Channel. This calm gentleman, with his well-modulated Southern accent was, at one time, banned from playing in any USGA sponsored tournaments because of his temper tantrums. It was not until he wrote a letter of apology and a promise to control his temper was he ever able to come back and register his many great feats. A famous quote by Bobby Jones: “Golf is a game that creates emotions that sometimes cannot be sustained with the club still in one’s hand.”
We have all experienced bad days on the golf course and the resulting altering of our personalities and usually for the worse. There are days when it seems that that all the breaks are bad, (We don’t count the good breaks) and you even start feeling sorry for yourself, and can’t understand why others can’t share your feelings. It is about at this stage of the game when your complaining is starting to get on the nerves of your playing partners, and you can become obnoxious.
There was a member of one of my clubs, who never hit a bad shot in his life that was not caused by an outside agency. He could hear people talking in an airplane at thirty thousand feet. To make matters worse, one of his playing partners would never stop talking and would describe every shot he had just hit. They were a great pair and continued playing with one another until they could no longer play. They are both gone now. I don’t know if they went up or down, but they are probably still playing together.
You are fortunate if you can find a foursome, in which you can find all four compatible.
It is more difficult than looking for a mate. All you have to do is to concentrate on something you don’t like about that person, and if it magnifies that person is eliminated. That involves only one person, but getting a foursome is more complicated.
Out of an estimated 100 golfers teeing off on a day, only 10 will come close to the round they were dreaming of all night. Those 10 will go home and be nice to their family. The other 90 will have mixed reactions, and will often take this mood home with them.
One of my favorite stories was about one of my members who had had a bad round of golf. He sat for a long time just looking at the wall. Finally, as he got up ready to leave, I asked, “Tom, what is your problem?’ He looked at me and said, “I am going home now, and if my wife does not have my supper ready, I am going to beat the hell out of her. If she does have it ready, I am not going to eat it.”
At one time there was a foursome, which did a lot of gambling. One day Tom and Sam gave Jim and Joe quite a financial beating. Jim was so distraught that he went in to the men’s locker room and got a razor and slit his wrists. He was standing at the sink draining his blood, when his partner stuck his head in the door and said, “Tom and Sam said they would give us two up a side tomorrow.” Jim clamped his wrists together to stop the bleeding, and said, “What time?”
Some players can irritate you because of their natural habits, such as spitting sunflower seeds, or tobacco juice, or have some nervous mannerism. This unintentional, but can still work on your nerves.
On the other hand, there are others who do things on purpose. Always standing in your line and moving just at the right time. You become aware that they are going to do this and this is a distraction in itself. Moving their shadows at an opportune time or dropping a club., etc. Methods of distraction are too numerous to mention. On the PGA Tour there are fines and reprimands for many. The most unusual fine ever imposed on a PGA player was imposed on Tommy Bolt, who was fined $250.00 for deliberately passing gas when his playing opponent was putting.
A fine player, in competitive golf, will find players who will tend to upset their games. A fast player hates to be paired with a very slow player, and there are times when the players have different swing tempos, and one can upset the other. Their best way is not to even watch. Some years ago, another pro and I were paired for two rounds with the slowest guy in the world. We got together, and every time he would be going through his ritual,(called a routine now.) we would sit down and sit down and break out a book, and start reading. It blew his mind, and his game.
Need any help in distractions? Call me. I used to play with Walter Hagen Jr. He knew all of them, and used them all of them on me.