Reckless driving can flip golf into a very good trip, spoiled.
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In golf, we study to take the nice with the unhealthy. However generally the unhealthy turns into greater than we will bear. Not the wretched pictures. The execrable habits.
In a latest survey, we requested our viewers to share reminiscences of probably the most egregious on-course conduct they’ve ever witnessed. 1000’s responded.
As a result of the replies are too quite a few to reprint in full, we’ve sorted them into classes and supplied examples that signify the worst of the worst. Right here they’re, our 14 inductees into the Golf Etiquette Corridor of Disgrace.
CHECK OUT THE FULL RESULTS OF OUR GOLF-ETIQUETTE SURVEY HERE
1. Poor course upkeep
Failing to repair ball marks and fill divots is unhealthy sufficient. However next-level negligence additionally appears frequent. One respondent described “a dude” who climbed “out of the steepest facet of a bunker, leaving cavernous gouges within the facet of the bunker and by no means even glanced on the rake.” One other informed of a participant “tomahawking a putter right into a inexperienced in frustration, imbedding it a number of inches down.” After which there was the man who, after lacking a putt, “swung at his ball to knock it away however missed and took a six-inch divot on the inexperienced, proper subsequent to the opening. It was unrepairable.”
2. Reckless driving
Anybody who calls golf a very good stroll spoiled hasn’t paid consideration to what individuals do in buggies. Flipping them, as an example. 4-wheeling them by means of bunkers. Additionally: Doing donuts within the fairways. Bashing into different carts. Using roughshod over greens. And no, one reader wrote, “I wasn’t with Trump.”
3. Fisticuffs
Joe Louis was a golfer. So is Sugar Ray Leonard. Oscar de la Hoya is large on the sport. A variety of different gamers appear to assume they’re pugilists, primarily based on the variety of tales we heard of fights breaking out (“proper there on the inexperienced,” one reader wrote), usually within the aftermath of 1 group hitting into one other.
4. Music on the course
Music is okay, most respondents stated. However not when it’s performed at Metallica concert-level decibels. And never when it’s pumped from a number of sources that aren’t taking part in the identical tune. “We had three audio system in a single foursome,” one respondent wrote, “all set to completely different hip-hop music loudly.”
5. Costume-code violations
The foundations round apparel are getting looser on a regular basis. Hoodies are in. Shorts are allowed the place they was once forbidden. However a few of our respondents are nonetheless making an attempt to carry the road. One reported being miffed on the sight of somebody taking part in in a V-neck undershirt. At the least they weren’t taking part in within the uncooked. “Bare swings on a golf journey,” one respondent wrote earlier than acknowledging that the offending golfer was, actually, “me.”
6. Taking, um, reduction
And never simply behind timber or deep within the woods. In our survey, anecdotes abounded of golfers letting fly on tee bins, cart paths, fairways and greens. One reader reported seeing a fellow participant going — tips on how to put this? — quantity two instantly within the cup. One other informed this story: “Membership championship. Second gap. A member of our threesome has a raging hangover and IBS. In horrible discomfort, he grabs his golf towel and bolts for the deep fescue. Disgusting.”
7. Dishonest
Foot wedges. Hand wedges. Un-granted gimmes. The listing goes on. “My opponent hit 5 provisional balls off of a tee and didn’t declare what ball was what quantity and the way it was marked,” one respondent wrote. “He then stated he discovered his first ball.” And: “A participant in one in all my buddy journeys would hit tee pictures approach into the woods however someway it was all the time within the clear. He was by no means invited again to subsequent journeys.” Doubtful recoveries had been a recurring theme. “A participant all of the sudden ‘discovering’ their ball within the tough and it’s sitting up so effectively it may be seen from 20 yards away aft actual members of the foursome tramped all by means of the realm the place the ball now sits and never one noticed the ball.”
Golf-etiquette survey outcomes: Sounding off on sluggish play, dishonest, costume codes
8. Public endangerment
Unhealthy pictures occur. However no level including damage to insult. “No fore name,” one respondent wrote. “Hit me with a drive from about 100 yards away and broke a bone in my foot.”
9. Drunk and disorderly
Nothing flawed with a cocktail or two. However “getting so wasted you fall over getting out of the cart is past the realm of acceptable,” one reader wrote. So is the conduct one other respondent reported of a boozy golfer “driving a cart in circles on the inexperienced.”
10. Sluggish play
If the definition of madness is doing the identical factor time and again and anticipating completely different outcomes, no marvel sluggish play drives so many individuals batty. Most irritating of all, one respondent wrote, was the golfer with the behavior of “taking 20 apply swing and hitting it two toes after which doing it once more.”
11. Extreme telephone use
Discreet texting? Positive. However many readers informed of fellow golfers yacking like merchants on the stock-market flooring. “Standing on the tee speaking on the telephone for a number of minutes,” one wrote. “When referred to as on it, the individual swung with the telephone tucked below their chin. Hit about 5 toes.”
12. Gum chewing
Tiger Woods chewed gum at Augusta Nationwide en path to successful the 2019 Masters. Different Tour professionals have embraced the apply. In case you’re going to repeat them, although, please, preserve it quiet. “Performed Pinehurst No. 2 with my dad years in the past and we had been paired with one other older gent,” one respondent wrote. “His spouse was allowed to stroll the course with us and was continually snapping a bit of gum in her mouth the entire spherical.” And a inexperienced jacket wasn’t even at stake.
13. Mood tantrums
Snapped putters. Splintered drivers. Damaged axels on carts. To listen to our respondents inform it, you’d swear that the sport is wildly common amongst toddlers. To wit: “An individual I used to be taking part in with was taking part in terrible. On in regards to the fifth gap he took his total bag and threw it right into a pond and stomped off the course. Considering he had come to his senses after I noticed him coming again down the golf green, I needed to giggle when he walked into he pond, picked up his bag, retrieved his automobile keys after which drop his bag again within the water.”
That’s the upside of unhealthy etiquette: At times, it presents comedian reduction.
