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Whatever happened to golf etiquette?

Texas Hacker said:
Don't agree with this as it's not my experience, unless of course you "a general you not a specific you" is the d**k.
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unless the d**k is yourself.
 
giorgiokaan said:
Wherever you play you will always end up with a d**k in your group
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I disagree. Ive met many great people and players on the course and I can count on one hand the jerks Ive had to play with. Sure there are some quirky golfers out there but they probably think the same about me. I think a lot people (not saying you are) are "put off" or offended too quickly these days which could play into this as well.
 
giorgiokaan said:
Wherever you play you will always end up with a d**k in your group
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Most times the people you play with are decent and fun people to play with, and I mean the strangers now. Sometimes a bad apple can be placed in the same flight, but generally golfers are a good bunch of people. Sure, not everyone keeps telling jokes, or are being social, are hot or play good, but they are still fun to play with. A-holes, yes they exist, but more seldom.
 
So I am playing at my home course yesterday and I am standing on 9 green putting out...and I see a foursome head to the first tee....just as I start to walk back to my cart they turn around and head back towards the club house.

I drive up to the club house and they tell me...."hey we are gonna tee off on 10, you can play through in a minute"....now I was a single and playing fast....front nine in an hour and 5 minutes....I said....No you aren't I will be in the out is 2 seconds and be out of your way before you guys get losened up...and I head into the clubhouse to grab a water....I hear one guy call me an A$$hole.....I come out and I looked right at him and said....Did you say something to me?....he said "no"....I got it the cart and headed off.

I really wish our course had a starter....that way stuff like that doesn't happen.
 
TripleBogieTim said:
So I am playing at my home course yesterday and I am standing on 9 green putting out...and I see a foursome head to the first tee....just as I start to walk back to my cart they turn around and head back towards the club house.

I drive up to the club house and they tell me...."hey we are gonna tee off on 10, you can play through in a minute"....now I was a single and playing fast....front nine in an hour and 5 minutes....I said....No you aren't I will be in the out is 2 seconds and be out of your way before you guys get losened up...and I head into the clubhouse to grab a water....I hear one guy call me an A$$hole.....I come out and I looked right at him and said....Did you say something to me?....he said "no"....I got it the cart and headed off.

I really wish our course had a starter....that way stuff like that doesn't happen.
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Sorry to hear thst, Tim. Its almost like people want to be jerks..
 
courses should have an etiquette officer who patrols the ground looking for offenders. To get the job he has to be at least 6ft 4, 250 pounds and an ex doorman. They should be armed with a small stun gun. you get the idea. It would soon teach people to have manners!!

Being new to the game I do hit errant drives. I will always call 'fore' and the direction and apologize profusely if there is anyone near the ball or I am causing another group to wait while I hit my shot. Surely if you do not have manners on the course you don't have manners off it.

What makes this story worse is the fact that there were children around the place, J rodgers clearly has a lot of self control as I would have removed the iron from his hand and wrapped it around his head.

At least we know that there are thousands of people who still do have manners on the course as they are the members of THP.
 
One of the greatest things about golf is te people. Our group always talks about how at least 95% of the time when getting paired with someone you don't know they end up being good people. There have been people i have misjudged in the past based on seeing them around the course. (Wrongly of course) I think golfers by and large, could be the best collection of people out there. I can only think of a handful of D*cks i've met on the course. The problem seems to be once you find a D*ck they usually way over the top.

I'm glad you said something to this guy. Hopefully, he realizes he was a D*ck and can make the change.
 
I'm guilty of poor etiquette. I don't think it's limited to the many things listed, it goes to language too and I can get pretty foul. It's something I want to work on while playing with others that may not share the joy of nasty language.
 
me and my friend were playing Saturday, we play pretty fast. twosome in front of us joins up with another twosome, all pretty bad, shanking drives, taking 10 shots a hole. not to mention the 14 yr old walking down the course chasing his ball swinging the club back n forth. anywho, get to the turn and hear one guy ask another if they should us pass, guy looks at other guy and says no, cause the people in front of them had just teed off. start the back nine n waited on every tee box for 15-20 mins for them to get out of our driving distance. last hole none of them finished out they picked up before the green and left.
 
irbgolf11 said:
me and my friend were playing Saturday, we play pretty fast. twosome in front of us joins up with another twosome, all pretty bad, shanking drives, taking 10 shots a hole. not to mention the 14 yr old walking down the course chasing his ball swinging the club back n forth. anywho, get to the turn and hear one guy ask another if they should us pass, guy looks at other guy and says no, cause the people in front of them had just teed off. start the back nine n waited on every tee box for 15-20 mins for them to get out of our driving distance. last hole none of them finished out they picked up before the green and left.
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That's kind of a tough one. If the people in front of you were waiting on the group in front of them and the course was crowded, it was probably a hard decision for them to make. If they let you go ahead, they would have had to wait for the other group to clear, then your group to clear. If another group caught up to them while they were waiting, what then? It would take them forever to finish their round at that rate. But if they couldn't keep up with the group ahead of them, I agree they should have let you through as soon as it became apparent they were holding up progress.
 
If I am in a 4 some and the course is just stacked with 4 somes all the way in front of us (happens all the time) I wouldnt let a twosome play through. Is this poor etiquette? As long as you are keeping up to the group in front of you I dont see the problem.
 
ArmyGolf said:
If I am in a 4 some and the course is just stacked with 4 somes all the way in front of us (happens all the time) I wouldnt let a twosome play through. Is this poor etiquette? As long as you are keeping up to the group in front of you I dont see the problem.
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Not poor etiquette. I had a single try to go in front of my wife and me and we were sitting on a bench waiting for the green on a par 3 to clear (actually, we were waiting for them to get to the green!). ANd it was stacked up for at least 6 or 7 holes ahead of them.
 
I never understand the people that race up to the tee box every time when it is clearly packed. Just slow down and enjoy your round you aren't going anywhere.
 
When I first started playing, i will admit, I was guilty of poor etiquette. I would go play as a single or even with some friends and I was terrible with my language and even hitting my club on the cart. I knew nothing about the game and to me it was just something to do on the weekends. I had no idea about the equipment and what goes into it. I thought that the only place that existed to buy equipment was Walmart and it wasn't expensive.

As I got older, it became clear to me that this was a fun game and that I could enjoy it and it didn't matter that I hit a bad drive or topped my iron shot or skulled my chip shot. I made those mistake but I do beleive that they made me a better person and made me learn to enjoy the game.
 
fairband said:
I never understand the people that race up to the tee box every time when it is clearly packed. Just slow down and enjoy your round you aren't going anywhere.
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My thought exactly! I always have a round with no pressure and hate when I play with anyone who hurries.It's my time to relax and enjoy.If the course is packed,keep pace with everyone and just enjoy!
 
Jrodgers0622 said:
So today I'm at the course practicing my chipping and putting on the practice green that is adjacent to the end of the ninth fairway. A guy hits an arrant shot and it lands two feet off the practice green beside where I am practicing. He pulls up to the practice green in his cart and proceeds to pull out his wedge and hit his shot, digging a huge divot and shoveling a mound of dirt onto the practice green. At this point i'm waiting for him to brush away the dirt on the practice green, but since he had not the slightest bit of etiquette. He walks back to the cart and is getting ready to pull off when I finally spoke up and asked him he he could please sweep away the mounds of dirt he left on the practice green. He looks at me and says what are you some kind of A-hole? I told him no but you obviously dont care about anyone else on this course. He became infuriated, grabbed an iron out of his bag and charged at me cursing me like he was gonna hit me. I just stood there waiting for him to take that swing. He then bent down and startedbrushing away the dirt screaming curse words in front of me, my wife, my daughter and 7 other spectators. He finally pulled away and flipped me off for good measure. Little does he know that one of my good friends is the head pro at that course. I made one call after the incident and his membership was revoked immediately.

Just shows how much golf has changed and lost its traditions and how people today have no morals anymore.

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I'm with you 100%. What gets me more than anything is people neglecting to call out FORE when they hit an errant shot. I understand it can be embarrassing to have to yell out announcing to the whole course that you just hit a bad shot, but a flying golf ball can really inflict some pain and possibly an injury. Just this past weekend, while i was playing in a sat morning league, a person in the group behind mine completely flew the green and came within inches of hitting one of my playing partners. The ball then proceeded to hit the cart path, dart forward and almost take my head off!!! My whole group looked back and the guilty party was just standing there with club in hand just looking stupid. Not even a word of warning from him and of course no apology.
 
Those are the kind of people that are ruining golf.
 
DZ10 said:
I'm with you 100%. What gets me more than anything is people neglecting to call out FORE when they hit an errant shot. I understand it can be embarrassing to have to yell out announcing to the whole course that you just hit a bad shot, but a flying golf ball can really inflict some pain and possibly an injury. Just this past weekend, while i was playing in a sat morning league, a person in the group behind mine completely flew the green and came within inches of hitting one of my playing partners. The ball then proceeded to hit the cart path, dart forward and almost take my head off!!! My whole group looked back and the guilty party was just standing there with club in hand just looking stupid. Not even a word of warning from him and of course no apology.
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I hate to admit it but I've done that before. Thinned one so bad that I was totally stunned for a moment and couldn't get the words out. By the time I remembered what I was supposed to do, it was too late. I probably looked like a fish standing there staring at them with my mouth opening and closing with no sound coming out.
 
Sometimes "Fore!" is in the eye of the beholder. If I hit a shot that curving towards you, but obviously going to fall well behind you, I'm not going to yell "Fore!" A person might be surprised by the ball landing close, but if I can see there's no danger, I'm just going to let it fall. Obviously, if I'm in doubt, I'm going to yell "Fore!"
 
Playing with Wake a month or two ago I got hit twice in the same round without a fore yelled anywhere. One was in our 4 some that was just clueless, and the other I don't even remember how it happened. It was a crazy round.
 
Trout Bum said:
Playing with Wake a month or two ago I got hit twice in the same round without a fore yelled anywhere. One was in our 4 some that was just clueless, and the other I don't even remember how it happened. It was a crazy round.
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I played a round with the father in law a few years ago as part of a society day , to this dayI dont know how he managed this but I was stood about 5 yards back and to the left of him when he teed off with his driver , his tee shot hit me on the upper arm, had a lovely Titleist dimples imprint on my arm for about two weeks , he was mortified , I still remind him when i think its time for him to buy me a beer !!!!! Slightly off subject but the stories reminded me of this incident........

I agree with the majority of the posts here , that people need to be educated on the etiquette , and that the majority of people you meet on the course are good people , but no matter what you teach people there will always be one that is a total...........
 
wadesworld said:
Sometimes "Fore!" is in the eye of the beholder. If I hit a shot that curving towards you, but obviously going to fall well behind you, I'm not going to yell "Fore!" A person might be surprised by the ball landing close, but if I can see there's no danger, I'm just going to let it fall. Obviously, if I'm in doubt, I'm going to yell "Fore!"
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I hear ya, I used to be that. Now I try to yell fore if it's within reason even if I know that it's not going to hit them because I think it's less about alerting them of imminent danger and more about showing respect to their presence. I hit a bad shot that's coming their way, they don't know it's coming their way, so I yell fore to let them know that I know they're there and that there is a ball coming in there area.

Nobody enjoys yelling fore, I certainly don't, it's embarressing; but I always try to think about being on the otherside of it. I hate when people hit a ball that lands near me because of the danger involved. If someone hits a ball that comes within 20 yards of me it bothers me to a certain extent. Acknowledge my presence in the area by alerting me that a ball is coming, so I try to do the same even in situations where i'm dead certain that the ball won't come close to hitting them.
 
The scary thing is that joining a club does little to protect you from dealing with A-holes...A while back I was catching up with a group of 6 playing together, all aged 50-70. Playing in a group of 6 automatically makes you guilty of slow play, but since I was alone I will take some blame for playing too fast I guess (haha).. I went ahead and played #7, a short par 3, before I teed off on 5 because the group had just reached the green on 5.. I then played 5 and 6, and had to wait on them before I could hit my approach to 6. As I putted out on 6 these guys still had 4 tee shots to hit on #7....instead of just driving on by I waited so as to not interrupt them...while I was being polite their ringleader came up to me and said "Son, the best thing you could do right now would be skip this hole and pass us"...Translation, "I am way too damn important to wait 3 minutes for you to play through"... I politely told him "Thank you for the lesson sir, I was mistakenly under the impression that I should let faster players play through when they caught me..I will know better from now on"...then I said "When I saw how slow you are I went ahead and played this hole so I wouldn't have to wait any longer on you but thanks for the advice"..

The beauty of this story is that the "ringleader" is a board member at my club, at least he was at that time. IDK if that changed with the recent elections. The yahoos raised memberships for 2013 by 20-40% depending on which package you have while all the neighboring clubs are lowering their rates. Volume always trumps price point when you need revenue, but with guys like him making the decisions I don't expect they will ever make enough people feel welcome and wanted to generate the needed income to sustain. I do expect, however, that come Jan 1, 2013 I will be paying dues to someplace other
 
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great points... however i would add the following...

Sometimes etiquette is not followed because the golfer doesnt know better. What might be common sense to you might not be for someone else.
Maybe the guy was new at golf... was embarassed and didnt like getting pointed out for his mistake/action.

I know when i first started playing... i defintely screwed up alot of things and got called out..etc.... but thats how i had to learn.... my dad didnt teach me this game...alot of things i didnt know...... i had to pickup certain things from reading, from other players...etc.
 
Just a quick question What if they yelled "fore" and you didn't hear? The other day I was about 30 yards from another golfer and having to talk as loud as I could just so he could hear me over the wind.
So maybe sometimes "fore" is yelled and not heard. Maybe?
 
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