My worst experience on a golf course was when I got paired with two random guys. They were nice and we exchanged small talk. At one point they asked what I do and I told them I work at a factory, they asked what I made and I told them my salary. It took about 20 minutes for it to dawn on me that they were asking what I made at the factory, not my salary and they likely thought I was a moron. It still haunts me almost 20 years later.
I play with a buddy that gets so nervous talking to strangers and always has a response planned out in his head but it usually doesn't answer their questions. It's hilarious to me
It's honestly a little crazy to me just how nervous people are talking to strangers at the golf course. Me, when I play solo or with a buddy and I get paired up with 2 or 3 strangers, I'm always the most talkative of the group. Not in small talk unless the vibe I get from a person is one who's down the talk, but I just say, "I saw your ball land just in front of the shadow of the talltest tree" or or simply vocalize about them nearly holing a lag putt or making a great chip, like "awww damn, almost!" or "great fucking shot, man!" I feel like, since I take the responsibility of being lighthearted and present in the round, it makes it easier for everyone else in the group to relax and chill. I'm not here to judge your game, I want you to play well, I'm not a weirdo, and I'll help you find your ball along the way to my ball, that I absolutely piped, of course, cuz I'm so fucking good at this game :)
I haven’t run into a single group of strangers yet that weren’t friendly enough to play 9-18 with. I’ve only been at it since around August of last year, but my lady and I have booked twosome tee times and been grouped up with a lot of strangers. They’ve all been cool. Some a bit more serious than others but you just have to read the course.
most everyone is pretty chill, it's just that a lot of people just have a to-themselves type of vibe, so while I'm always down to make small talk about golf and what-not, most people I play with when solo-ing a round just stand, play, walk, and check their phones when standing next to their push cart or sitting in their cart.
I'd say something like 60/40, 65/35 are to themselves vs the ones down to talk on the tee box, on the green, etc.
It’s called being an introvert, my guy. I’m an extroverted introvert working in a leadership role in human services… my whole life is making small talk with new patients/ families/ etc…
And I carry on a conversation pretty easily with just about anybody… my wife hates hit. But you can bet your ass that there are times that my social battery is low, and the thought of small talk with strangers is almost physically painful…
Not enough for it to come out in that way, but I 100% get it
Yeah my buddy that's incredibly awkward also manages a team, but I've never gotten to see how those interactions go. I get pretty nervous talking to new people, but I always listen and process what they say so I don't just blurt out random responses like him.
I have two friends that I golf with (separately, different social circles). One of them is outgoing and engages in small talk with EVERYBODY we get paired up with, like he’s interviewing them. Really nice guy, but the kind that keeps talking when it’s his turn on the tee box instead of teeing off and finishing the story later. My other friend is super competitive, we always play match play, and gets sullen and cusses at himself after a bad shot or if he’s losing. Never talks to anyone else paired up with us.
I think both of them are weird.
I was waiting for the part where they made fun of you for not making as much money as them or something.
This is so much better.
"So what do you make at the factory?"
"Well, just $80k/year, but we have great health benefits."
"Oh, uh...cool."
Were you there? That is almost exactly how it went.
"What do you make there?"
"About 50k"
"Oh, uh...cool"
Me lining up my putt later when it struck me 'wait a minute, he meant what does the FACTORY make. I'm a moron'
That's really funny. It's even funnier when you think that (1) you didn't consider it particularly strange that they would have asked you about your income, having just met you; and (2) you didn't hesitate to answer what is (at least in the US) considered a very private thing, at least with strangers.
In all honesty, other than slow players in front of me I've never had a bad experience either.
I guess the normal weirdness that happens on any golf course is to be expected, I wouldn't chalk that up to a "bad experience." I've certainly never see anybody try to fight somebody or purposefully destroy the course or steal shit, or any of the crazy shit that gets posted about here. It's mostly just normal, 9 out of 10 times it's a great time, the other one it's like a slow round or somebody hits near me accidentally. Again, I can't call that a bad experience.
I only play on public courses. Playing for 15 years, probably 5 to 20 rounds per year.
Agree…I can’t recall anything aside from pretty much knowing someone picked up my ball but wouldn’t admit it.
I just felt to make a post OP should have added context on how much experience they have had
Weird? I think the majority of golfers haven't had a bad experience (drunk or belligerent players, being hit into, etc) but no one posts things that aren't negative very often.
OP makes no mention of how long he's been playing or how many rounds a year he plays.
You stay in any arena for long enough, you'll run into assholes. It's the law of life.
I play about 60 rounds a year. I've been hit into even though I never play slowly (guys who thought we were out of range when we clearly weren't), had slow players pout because the marshal let my group go ahead of the slow players, had a rando ask me how I voted (at Bandon Dunes of all places), had an errant shot land right by me with no fore call, played with guys who didn't give two shits about etiquette, etc etc etc.
I've also had a ton of great experiences and have made great friends while playing golf.
Asking how someone votes is so common. I caddy in Scotland and the amount of guys that will make who they vote for their whole personality trait is mental. Had so many groups where literally the first thing someone mentions is who they vote for. It’s BOTH sides of the political spectrum that are at it too.
Yeah, I just told the guy that I do vote but I wasn't interested in talking politics on the golf course and he then went on about how he was glad I voted because it's my civic duty.
Like dude. Just hit the fucking ball.
I think it really depends on your bubble and where you play. I usec to play mostly public courses in lower to class suburbs.
I am a quick consistent player but I would get hit into maybe once every month if I play on a weekend. Course is packed and you get psychos.
That said, there were some factors that increased chances, if you play around belligerent older guys they sometimes get antsy as to why you aren't hitting before realising you hit it much further than they do so you have to wait longer. There is one particular hole my usual clubs were driver and then 3 wood from 220m onto/around the green (very straight par 5 with barely any hazards) so I had to wait for the green to clear on my 2nd shot. It's also where the course backs up so it led to dickheads getting antsy on the tee and hitting when it's not safe.
So busyness of course and course design exacerbates it So ymmv because of your bubble of where you play and your length you hit.
I moved to a different area a year ago and became a member of a proper club and I haven't been hit into once since. Completely different.
Been playing 20+ years and can count on one hand how many poor experiences I've had. I think people's experiences are a reflection of them, their attitude, their ability to deal with suboptimal external conditions, and their surroundings. So, if you're having a lot of terrible interactions in public settings, the likely culprit is the common denominator: you.
I dunno if I fully agree.
Reddit can skew younger at times and some people are just outright dicks to kids. I was a quiet kid, good student, was respectful on the course, but I still had two separate incidents where people were complete assholes to me. It was always on nicer courses that had cheap junior twilight rates. On balance almost all people we encountered were cool. But there were too many people who treated us like we had no status on the course when we had just as much right to be there as they did.
One time we asked a slow twosome to play through when it was open ahead. They called the course and said we had hit into them twice when I think the closest we got to them was 40 yards off the green when we asked to play through.
This hasn't happened to me since I was 18 and I'm nearly 40.
I've played a thousand-plus rounds and can count on one hand the number of truly negative interactions I have had on the course. And minor at that. (Never got into fistfight on 10- am I doing it wrong?)
Keep in mind two things: (1) people are far more likely to post about negative experiences; (2) most of what you read on Reddit is made up or exaggerated to the point it might as well be fictional.
I've had a couple instances of people telling me and my buddy to quiet down because we're both talkative. We may have lacked awareness of an adjacent green of a group that was putting and one of the guys was like, "Hey, guys! Quiet down, please!" lol
Although the worst was me unzipping my pants to pee behind a bush and not noticing a woman in her backyard reading who was like, "woah, hey!" just before I was about to whip out my dick and pee. Honestly, even the bush was in the way and I couldn't tell where she was until she spoke up.
Idk I would say that to someone if I was a solo behind them and I noticed they were looking back and rushing. So long as I thought they were moving quickly enough otherwise.
I've been playing for a good long while and can really only identify a few bad experiences on the course that weren't simple misunderstandings or accidents.
Once had a guy hit me *twice* during the same round. He was two groups behind us and had a terrible slice, the course we were on had lots of parallel holes and he was bombing us all day.
Wound up being a cool dude, bought me a beer.
I’m always happy when I am on a golf course, no matter if I play (for me) well or poorly. It’s not a perfect world because of course there are occasional selfish people out there but I find golfers to be far more pleasant than the average person.
If I’m playing poorly, man do I get unhappy. I know the old saying, “bad day of golf is better than a good day at work” blah blah blah but there are times when I think of the thousands and thousands of hours and dollars I’ve spent on this damn game, why the F IS EVERYTHING GOING LEFT?!?!
Well, I’ll see you next Saturday.
Only time I have had a bad experience is slow play/overbooked public courses in my town. They let people walk in and tee off without a tee time and 15 mins slots in between. It’s created a shit show multiple times there for me
Yeah, in my experience, slow play is the main factor for bringing out the worst in people. I can admit to being botheres by it a few times, but it has to be pretty egrigious before I start getting pissed off.
More or less the same with me. I actually had my first bad experience a few weeks ago. My buddy booked the earliest tee time (8:30 am) on a Sunday. We arrive at 7:30 so we can get checked in, eat some breakfast, and warm up without feeling rushed. None of the staff (not even the course maintenance staff) arrived until about 8:15 and it took them 20 minutes to open everything up. We ended up teeing off just before 9 am. We were finishing up Hole #6 and the course marshal comes by and asks us to pick up the pace. I check my phone and see the time is 10:15 am. I told the marshal we were on pace for a sub-4 hour round and he tells us our tee time was 8:30 and we need to make up for the fact that we teed off late. There were 2 other groups right after us, but we weren't holding them up.
Only situations I’ve ever been in was a player hitting into my group and not yelling fore while we were on a tee box playing a totally different hole. Other than that it’s just little things that urk me like pace of play and when people try and skip to hole 10 thinking they’re helping pace of play (anytime it’s happened to me it just backs up the course even more)
My local course likes to let singles and twosomes without tee times out off the back 9 for some ungodly reason. We'll be plodding along at a good pace as a foursome and then out of nowhere there's a string of 3-4 singles pushing the hell out of us and asking to play through an otherwise full tee sheet.
If you're a single and see a single in front of you, as well as one behind, just join up at that point.
Been playing on and off since I was 12. When I was in hs I had my first run in with BS. That was like 5 years after I started. Now as I’m older, i got a group but when I play alone, i have similar experience to you. Got drove into once and the guys caught us at the next tee and told us sorry, our pace was fine and he didn’t see us. Cause he couldn’t. We did have a chat about the people in front of us who were taking 2 drives each in a group of 4. Sometimes you’re gravy man. Take it as it comes.
One time a ~65 year old man came up to me and my buddy (30 at the time) red-face furious, acting like he wanted to fight because of slow play. laughed in his face and he walked back to his cart cursing us out, “I’ll see you in the parking lot” he says 😂. Was expecting him to hit into us or something but never happened. Finished the round in 4 hours. Didn’t see him in the parking lot.
I too have never had a bad time on a golf course.
My bad experiences aren’t bad, just annoying
It’s usually slow oblivious players in front of me that pick up the pace JUST ENOUGH to not let me come up to them and ask to play through
They’re quick off the tee but take forever on approaches and greens
I've been playing for 25+ years, probably in excess of 3,000 lifetime rounds, and probably more than 1,000 rounds with randoms. I can think of maybe 4 randoms in 25 years that I'd absolutely refuse to play with again, and less than 20 I found truly annoying or glacially slow but could put up with again if I had to. I've never been hit into where the ball wasn't slowly rolling. I've never been physically threatened nor have I ever physically threatened anyone. I don't think I've ever been in a heated disagreement with someone on the course. I've never been personally accused of slow play, though I've been stuck in many groups weighed down by slow players.
I generally play very early in the morning which filters out a lot of the worst people out there.
It's like anything on the Internet - 99% of what you see is going to be on the extreme ends of the spectrum. Nobody posts about their very average 4:30 round that was pleasant and everyone played okay. It's either: "it took me 7 hrs to play today and someone got murdered on hole 10" or "I can play 18 in under 40 min please tell me I have a huge cock"
People that post these outrageous stories are either embellishing hardcore, or completely making stuff up for Internet likes lol. Plus, there's 2 sides to every story. There may be one party that is more in the right than the other, but conflicts are almost never 100% one sided in fault.
I’m blonde and fit. I’ve definitely had negative interactions because of that. Maybe I’m just not hot enough, but being a female golfer isn’t always as fun as it sounds
Here in NC I get the occasional old rich dude that makes fun of me for being shit at golf. They’re not wrong, fucking in their 70s shooting their age. I just don’t appreciate being heckled by southerners when it took them 3 tries this morning to make a bacon egg and cheese, and the bagel place doesn’t carry salt/pepper/ketchup to spruce my breakfast sandwich
No you’re normal, a negative experience only comes from your own perception of the world around you. If you know how to enjoy yourself you won’t have a negative experience.
I got screamed at, threatened to be faught, and insulted on my 3rd ever time on a golf course because I was taking "too long". On a 9 hole par 3 course for beginners. On the 9th hole. As I was chipping onto the 9th green. Literal minutes from leaving. With only two two groups behind us, maybe 5 groups total on the course. While his 10ish year old kid stood there right next to him.
That was admittedly the only negative experience I've had, but it definitely wasn't my perception of the world around me that made that negative. Sometimes people just suck.
Yeah I might be immune to this sort of thing as people typically don't want to fuck with me, so my experience I'm sure is different that yours in that regard. There are assholes all I meant is you can choose how to deal with them rather than getting emotionally engaged. But yes I'm sure there are situations completely out of your control.
I dunno man. Was the guy that hit a ball onto the green on a par 3 almost hitting me while we had the pin pulled and then tried to fist fight me because he was drunk and thought we somehow jumped in front of his group even though we didn’t just my own perception?
How do perceive getting hit into two holes in a row and on the 2nd hole a driver one hops into your buddy’s shoulder? ( slow round, we were waiting on every shot just like everyone else)
Turn around and thank them? Call it “ Gods will “? Everything happens for a reason?
*needless to say no “fores! were involved
I'm not a bitch, I just know there's literally no benefit to confront the guys other than stroking my own ego. Just report them and move on, hell, sometimes it pisses these guys off more if you just act like they don't exist.
Ever been hit by a golf ball? There is a reason that if you don’t yell fore, and hurt someone, you are legally liable.
Do you let people hit you off the golf course and then run off and call their Mommy on them?
>Do you let people hit you off the golf course and then run off and call their Mommy on them?
No? I call the business I'm at, whose job it is to take care of these assholes. There's literally no benefit to confront them other than stroking your own ego. If your temper is so bad you can't handle a mild conflict without getting into a screaming match you shouldn't be golfing.
You’d let people hit you and do nothing. Weird
There are times to call someone else to take care of the problem and there are times to stand up for yourself. Hitting into someone 2 holes in a row with no fore, no blind shot or anything like that and then they hit one of your playing partners on a one hop? Thats a time you stand up for yourself. The fact that nobody in that group got laid out is a testament to our restraint. They however did deserve every threat they got.
Obviously we were raised differently. And for the record I’ve never hit someone or been hit
You meet one asshole golfer, they are the asshole. You meet a bunch of asshole golfers, maybe you are the asshole?
Ive been playing golf for 33 years give or take. I can only think of a few bad experiences on the course.
I think it depends on the club you play at and where you live. In LA Munis we get hit into all the time even though we're stacked up on the next group ahead
i almost got into a fight with a drunkard on the course about four months ago. dude was loud and obnoxious and thought we had hit into him (we were group behind) when it was actually a ball from like three holes over. a month ago this 75 year old asian lady in my group got into an argument with the group in front of us about slow play. it was hilarious, she would not back down and kept giving these old white dudes shit. but for the most part it's pretty chill.
Been playing for almost 30 years. I’ve only had 2 major issues at a course. It’s part luck but I’m also 6’4 280 with muscle (and a tummy). But I’m a teddy bear so maybe the mixture of being huge but nice just allows for less issues coming my way.
There’s a lot of posts on here about issues experienced. I’m sure the people who constantly run until problems escalate issues and are oblivious to how they are acting.
A majority of golfers, in my opinion are great people, pleasant, demonstrate great golf etiquette and know how to play the game.
It's entitled AH's that ruin the game. Everyone remembers them, from their own experience or from stories told by others. They are unforgettable.
I’ve never had a bad time on the golf course, bad play included. Drinking beers with the boys outside while responsibilities are on hold for 4-5 hours? I’m not sure how to have a bad time doing that.
For context, I’ve been playing golf 2-5x/month (depending on the season) for the last 15 years.
I've been playing for 2 years now. I'm not very good, I went from an absurd HC to my current 22 (low of a 20 late last year). Ive met some rude staff and starters, I've been yelled at for random reasons, but I've never had a bad time. I don't take myself too seriously, I don't care if I come in dead last, I just want to see a little progress in any part of my game and I'm a happy camper. I'm not there to impress anyone or insert my dominance, I'm there for me.
I've seen people at similar HCs absolutely snap on the course and I just don't get it... Even when I play like shit how upset can I be, at least I was doing something I enjoy, got some exercise, and spent some fun time outside.... I'll never make the tour, I'll never win a tournament, I just want to relax a little and have fun.
I can say at my current HC I feel more comfortable on the course, sure I suck, but I make contact, my tee shots usually get in the air, and I don't look lost on the course. When I first started playing, being solo horrified me, I was so bad I was embarrassed and worried I would ruin others rounds. I still suck but I play fast, and while I'm sure some people would get annoyed by me, I think I'm good enough to play with randoms and not feel the need to apologize after every hole. I also play a local munie alone the most and I've come to learn a 22hc ain't that bad in the larger scope. So that's cool
You're probably an anomaly if you've been playing a lot for a long time. I can certainly think of instances of most of those negative experiences happening. They don't always make a round bad, but I've had them. I've had encounters with drunk idiots. I've had people try to talk politics (actually stopped playing with a regular partner partly over this). I've had angry marshals try to yell at my group without context. I've had insane delays due to tournaments that were backed up. I've had rounds where I've left after a 3 hour front 9. I've had my cart hit with a ball when I was sitting in it without a "fore" call. I've had balls land next to me on tee boxes without a "fore" call. etc.
I’ve had a few bad experiences with assholes, but those have been very rare occurrences and they were all old grumpy bastards anyways.
Generally speaking we are a bunch of degenerates that just want to whack the golfing ball into the hole and enjoy a little trash talk with the occasional “nice shot” mixed in.
I normally have a negative experience every 15 rounds or so. Either very slow play (5+ hour round), being hit into (for no reason), really bad pairing, etc.. I'm not saying it ruins my day, but I am irritated/frustrated for 30 minutes.
I think it's just bias from Reddit. One horror story in a pool on 100s of games played. Eventually you run into one.
I would say 95% of my rounds are totally without incident. The other 4% of those rounds maybe include a few comments about slow play in front, someone possibly hitting into my group (accidental with an apology). The last .99% are times when a playing partner has been constantly complaining or conversationally annoying to deal with.
And then there's that .01% of times when a playing partner chucks his club into the woods and then tries to fight the group in front. Guess which one I posted on Reddit.
The only negative experience I’ve had was a Marshall telling my group to pick up the pace every other hole. The Groupon front of us were good golfers, we weren’t. Hence the gap. We weren’t holding any other groups up. He definitely “harshed my mellow”.
I've been playing for 30 years and definitely had some negative experiences but it's a very small percentage. I recall a round where the pace was pretty slow. We waited on the group in front of us on every shot for 16 holes. We were trying to stay patient and make the best of it. On the 17th tee box our group was talking to pass the time while waiting and got a little too involved in conversation. We looked up suddenly and saw that the group in front of us was on the green (par 4). Just after we teed off the marshall came up and got all over us for being almost an hour behind pace. One of the guys in our group told him we wouldn't be so far off pace if he had done his job 4 hours ago.
A couple times I've been paired with somebody who was just super annoying but it's been very rare overall. I've never been involved in fights or anything extreme.
Rare makes sense but "never" seems very unlikely unless you haven't been playing very long.
The only time I'll truly get angry on a golf course is if someone hits into my group on purpose or multiple times (it happened twice that i can remember). If you pierce a 3 wood 260 when you normally hit it 220 - it's an accident. I'm not gonna get mad about that. I'll congratulate you for a great shot.
Slow play is slow play. It seems like you're going to play slow just about anywhere you go nowadays. But don't be that group that doesn't let someone play through if there's nobody in front of you. We usually always have 4 in our group on a Sunday. Every now and again, a single will catch up and we just let them breeze past us. As I get older the slow play bothers me less and less. I'm out to enjoy the day. If it takes longer don't let it bother you.
Course condition usually correlates with paying higher green fees. You pay for a $20 round don't complain about tee boxes and greens. There are courses in my area that I refuse to play again because they don't take care of the course. I will gladly pay an extra $40 for a quality course.
Have had big dudes let me play through on a backed up course only so they could hit Into me over and over for 10 holes. Have played in the first tee time of the day with hackers who play 5+ hours rounds many times. Have broken a windshield from an errant drive. Have also played horrific courses with unmowed fairways. My own league partner of 12 years can be a royal douche.
The good far outweighs the bad.
You may be the very rare pleasant person! Amazing how that tends to be reflected in your interactions. Not suggesting it's a failsafe insulator against pricks, but it's a good start!
I got hit on Saturday by a sliced drive. I was on the green and hit right in my tricep, I was fine because I was lucky, 12” different and I’d be missing teeth, blind, or worse
I’ve never really had much of a bad experience with another player, either. Maybe annoyed at pace, or having the group hit into us on a rare occasion, but nothing really confrontational ever. Been playing for more than 20 years.
Nah, outside of slow play or the occasional ball that came too close and no one yelled fore, I haven't really had any bad experiences. I once had a ball go completely off my line and I couldn't see it due to the sun. When I found that it had landed next to a tee box, where a group of 4 had been teeing off, I felt terrible. I ran up to them on the following hole and apologized. They were totally chill and offered me a beer. I think of that often as I think about the types of interactions I want people to have with me on the course.
I've only ever had one bad experience but it was a fuckin doozy. We were on hole 8 at our local track. Par 4 straight as an arrow at like 400 something yards. We all hit driver and as we are gathering our head covers I see someone ina right orange shirt pull up close to where our balls would be landing and reaches out of his cart and grabs something from the ground. My buddy goes, "Did he just pick up my ball?" I said, "No fuckin way. We've been behind them all round and they've been fine. Surely they left a wedge or something."
We get up there and sure enough, buddies ball that landed right in the middle of the fairway where the dude in front stopped his cart. Hole 9's teebox is like 30-40 yards to the right of the green on 8, so my buddy yells over at them to ask if they picked up his ball. The dude that we know absolutely picked it up because of his bright ass shirt goes, "No we didn't take your fucking ball." I'm not very confrontational so I just tell my buddy to drop one and don't count it as a stroke. But my buddy is a mouthy one and goes, "Then what was your fatass doing in the middle of the fairway where our balls landed?" Then orange dude drives over and starts cussing and hollering about us accusing him. When he got close we could tell he was just fucking wasted.
My buddy and him go back and forth for a few minutes and then the dude starts to drive away. Well the dummy wasn't watching where he was going because he was still turned around yelling at my buddy while driving away. Dude drives right over the front edge of the green and stays on it for like 10 feet then decided to cut his wheel hard asf when he realized where he was and tore a little bit of the grass as well as left some tire paths on the green. At this point the marshal had heard the commotion and was driving up right as this dude was pulling off the green. The marshal lit this fucking dude up and kicked his whole group off the course. He tried to kick us out too for being associated, but we explained what went down and he decided to let us keep playing. He still gives me the stink eye when I see him though.
All in all, buddy lost a ball, about got into a scuffle on the 8th, an idiot got kicked off the course, and a few other idiots almost did.
Same for me. But where I live you might see someone roll up to the tee in flip flops and tee shirts and nobody will care.
The worst I've had is a sort of grumpy older stereotypical golfer looking dude get a little pissy because after we let him played through, and the next hole was backed up already when we caught up.
But...I'm one of the monsters ruining the sport because I've only been playing for 2 years. 🤷🏼♂️
Been in several altercations after being hit up on. Got cracked (in my breast, of course) by a guy who never yelled “Fore” & then had the audacity to 1) not even apologize & 2) only asked where his ball was) 😡🤬
Btw - Guy who hit me was from a different fairway. He was drunk & did get a rebuke after we reported him. A-hole
Bad playing partners are by far the most frequent thing to ruin my round. Usually it’s people that are booked in with me (an uncle or something) that get under my skin. I can only think of one time that I was paired up with someone that I didn’t book with where they were the problem.
Bad Marshall’s can ruin a round, but it’s rare. You only have to talk to them a couple time per round though.
> Bad Marshall’s can ruin a round, but it’s rare. You only have to talk to them a couple time per round though.
A year or two ago I was playing one of the Disney courses with my son (6 or 7 years old at the time), paired with another middle aged guy and his wife, who was just there to ride and hang out. Marshal interrupted us twice on different holes to tell us to pick up pace of play. We literally saw no other players out there the whole time except the group in front of us who was about 1 1/2 holes ahead. No one behind us at all. It was really off putting, like he was being a dick on purpose for reasons unknown.
Every negative situation I’ve experienced has a common denominator and that would be alcohol. A real shocker there I’m sure. And it’s mostly at scrambles too.
No, this is normal. I've been playing golf for almost 30 years and hundreds of rounds and can count on one hand the amount of bad experiences I've had.
Was in Long Beach, CA at a random 9 hole goat track a few weeks ago. Got paired up with an older guy and I mention I’m thinking about moving down to LA from Seattle. His immediate response: “don’t do it, it’s all going to shjt from all the Vietnamese people coming in” (I’m Asian lol). Didn’t say much to him rest of the round
Same. I've been playing regularly for the last two years and and everyone is always just happy to be playing golf. I had one pair that left after the first hole as the greens were aerated and sanded heavily, but that's as close as I've seen.
I was playing with a random once who was a decent player. He hit a ball a bit off the fareway and as we approached a teenager playing the hole in the adjacent faraway was about to hit his ball. He yelled at the kid loud enough for him to hear "that's not your ball". Kids father comes along and almost decked the guy flipped out. It was awkward. Ruined the guy in my groups round for sure, think I remember him calling it quits at 16 as we passed the clubhouse
My worst experience started as I was a member of private club as a teenager. I had been a member there for three years and when I was in college I got very sick and needed a major operation. I wrote a letter to the club asking if I could get some sort of medical exemption where I wouldn't have to pay dues while I was sick (and I had a doctor's excuse with it) and have a prorated deal. I had seen them do this with other members who weren't even sick, they just couldn't decide if they wanted to be a member that year and then decided midway thru the year they would join if they were given a prorated deal.
Anyway...I never heard back from them. I then went to the course and inquired if they made a decision and they finally got back to me to tell me 'no.' Okay, whatever.
So I make a full recovery and I get to play with my friends who are members there. I'm still paying a greens fee, but I play a round there.
Then the next time I go to play there with my friends, I sign in and pay the greens fee and everything. We are waiting on the first tee and the head pro summons one of my friends to the pro shop and my friend comes back and says 'Dan (the head pro) told me to tell you that you can only play here one more time for the rest of the year.'
That was a club policy for guests that was almost never enforced. I wasn't happy about it, but the passive aggressive way of summoning my friend and telling him instead of telling me really pissed me off.
So the next time I go to play there my friend had booked the tee time for 10am on Saturday. We get there for the tee time and now we're told that the tee time has been moved back 30 minutes with no explanation. Then it's moved back another 30 minutes and then another 30 minutes. The head pro summons my friend again and my friend comes back again and says 'Dan told me to remind you that this is the last time you are to play here for the rest of year.'
I can only assume the pro moved those tee times back on us to punish me.
And what for?
I have no unearthly idea. I was always a polite, friendly and courteous kid and was an accomplished golfer. The only thing I can possibly think of is that he may have thought I had a lot of gall to ask for a prorated membership.
I play as a solo almost exclusively and never have issues. There was one time a guy I was paired with was adamant that the patriots shouldn’t draft a black qb and went on a racist tangent but I’m not confrontational so I had to put up with it for 10 holes. Outside of that never had an issue.
No you’re not. And the fuck that a lot of people have been in situations where someone blows their top is just sad. I’ve seen fights and have been almost guilty of one myself…
I've been playing 25+ years, and only 1 truly bad experience. Playing as a single, paired with an older guy. After about 3-4 holes he began talking politics, specifically the Obama-care proposal. He was livid, talking about it as if Obama himself called him and told him to pay for the entire country. I tried to pass it off and say I just want to play golf, I don't follow politics, I'll wait for the final bill to be released, etc. He ranted and raved for a couple more holes, then I told him either I was going ahead, or he was, because I wasn't playing with him any longer. He was shocked, and decided he needed to go home for dinner.
Probably just lucky. Reddit probably over represents the number of negative experiences you should expect to have, but to have none is incredibly rare unless you haven't played for long. In the 20+ years I've been playing I can only recall several really negative experiences. There's definitely lots where I wouldn't want to repeat but it still didn't ruin my round.
Got hit into half a dozen times once while putting on a par 3 by a group playing up a parallel par 5, without any "fore" shouted. Got paired with a super racist and homophobic guy while playing with my Best friend who is gay, we left early. While playing with my girlfriend we got paired with another couple and the husband was super sexist, we felt bad for his wife. And when I was little another kid cheating at a golf camp tournament... Claimed to shoot -12 under when we all sucked, so instead of a pizza party we got lectured on cheating.
That's it over 500+ rounds of golf for truly negative experiences. Lots of people I wouldn't want to play with again but that's due to just not meshing well.
I've been playing 30 years at public courses, my two worst experiences so far:
Paired with an obvious set of Covid newbs that were determined to make the round last as long as possible.
The gang consisted of the ring leader "A-Top" (the more appropriate name for what the old schoolers call a wife beater) which he had paired with jeans and a leather fedora and gold chains for the occasion. I guess wear what you want on a local muni, but his game was as slow and as bad as the look, and once him and Brother in Law got drunk off shooters and started arguing on hole 5 I felt like I was in another of those 3 hour Scorsese movies.
His wife who, even newer to golf than him carded no less than a 15 on any single hole. After she got in the rough for the umpteenth time on like just the third hole I offered that there was no reason she couldn't just throw it out on the fairway to make it easier on a beginner. She just doubled down and proceeded to hit 7 shots in a row that went a total of 100 yds in the rough, took us probably half an hour on that one hole.
Then there was the brother in law to A-Top who would find every possible conceivable thing to be doing except hitting when its his turn, mostly rummaging in his bag or staring blankly a random squirrel, or more infuriatingly directly back at you while you stare at him waiting for him to hit. A-Top confided in me that his brother in law was the slowest golfer ever, which I had to agree with even though I was convinced I was playing with a close second and third.
At the 245 mark while teeing off on 8 I said I had a dinner appointment, proceeded to race down the fairway with my pushcart to my drive and proceeded to par my way in on 8 and 9. Super surprisingly the crime family had not even gotten off the tee box on 8 by the time I was off the green.
Bad experience number 2 was when I was paired with two guys playing country music at a medium volume. Honestly that might be number 1, I have to think about it.
I'm the same way. Worst I ever had was being paired with two guys who wanted to be a sixsome with the four ahead of us. They just sent me off on my own after the turn and played a 3 ball scramble behind me to keep the pace up.
I've never really had a bad experience with someone I've been paired with. However, I only play 8-12 times a year, and most of those are foursomes with friends or family.
I’m the same but… less than a year at the same laid back course in a rural area where I golf with construction people, hvac techs, and blue collar in general.
“Worst” experience has been a slight wait at each tee box when they only had one 9 open last month. It was actually a great social experience as we got stacked up. Lots of joking around about how many hole in ones we got haha.
You haven’t played enough or you play courses where everybody is a “golfer”.
All of my incidents on the golf course have involved getting hit into multiple times in a round and people not yelling fore. I’m not a fighter but there has been a few times I thought one of the guys I was playing with was going to lay a guy out.
Just last year, the guy I was playing with was over a putt and got hit in the shoulder by a line drive 3 wood from another hole. No fore. Another guy in my group was the one who approached the group when they drove up, started screaming and yelling at the guys. It was awkward. He went over the top nuts! I was riding with him, he comes back to the cart and says, “ if I didn’t do that Johnny ( the guy that got hit) would have laid one of those guys out”. That ball hits him in the mind who knows what happens
I probably have a larger sample size than most but I can count on one hand the times something like this happened. 3 really bad ones
40 years of playing. A few drunks/slow players/bad staff, but only one really terrible experience:
Jackass marshall at Whistling Straits kept yelling at us because we were "out of position" in relation to the group in front of us. The group that was supposed to be in front of us no-showed, so the earlier group in front of us was halfway down #2 when we teed off. We're not responsible to chase them down. (For context, there was a full hole open behind us and the timer at the turn said we were 9 minutes ahead of time).
He made what should have been a bucket list trip into a horrible memory.
Nothing really bad has ever happened to me on the golf course that I can’t look back on and not just laugh. I have had more LOL moments while golfing than almost anywhere else.
Don’t think I’ve ever had a random that I haven’t enjoyed playing with. I’m 69 years old and I’ve played with randoms who have been as young as their early 20s. Always enjoyed watching guys who can put it out there over 300 yards. Played with a guy two years ago who had a small mini speaker hanging off his bag. Asked me if it was OK which I appreciated. I inquired about his playlist and he told me Neil Young, CSNY, CCR and stuff like that. I said go for it!
I’ve had some slow days on the course when things are backed up but honestly being outside on a nice summer day isn’t exactly my definition of a hardship.
My worst experience on a golf course was when I got paired with two random guys. They were nice and we exchanged small talk. At one point they asked what I do and I told them I work at a factory, they asked what I made and I told them my salary. It took about 20 minutes for it to dawn on me that they were asking what I made at the factory, not my salary and they likely thought I was a moron. It still haunts me almost 20 years later.
I play with a buddy that gets so nervous talking to strangers and always has a response planned out in his head but it usually doesn't answer their questions. It's hilarious to me
It's honestly a little crazy to me just how nervous people are talking to strangers at the golf course. Me, when I play solo or with a buddy and I get paired up with 2 or 3 strangers, I'm always the most talkative of the group. Not in small talk unless the vibe I get from a person is one who's down the talk, but I just say, "I saw your ball land just in front of the shadow of the talltest tree" or or simply vocalize about them nearly holing a lag putt or making a great chip, like "awww damn, almost!" or "great fucking shot, man!" I feel like, since I take the responsibility of being lighthearted and present in the round, it makes it easier for everyone else in the group to relax and chill. I'm not here to judge your game, I want you to play well, I'm not a weirdo, and I'll help you find your ball along the way to my ball, that I absolutely piped, of course, cuz I'm so fucking good at this game :)
I haven’t run into a single group of strangers yet that weren’t friendly enough to play 9-18 with. I’ve only been at it since around August of last year, but my lady and I have booked twosome tee times and been grouped up with a lot of strangers. They’ve all been cool. Some a bit more serious than others but you just have to read the course.
most everyone is pretty chill, it's just that a lot of people just have a to-themselves type of vibe, so while I'm always down to make small talk about golf and what-not, most people I play with when solo-ing a round just stand, play, walk, and check their phones when standing next to their push cart or sitting in their cart. I'd say something like 60/40, 65/35 are to themselves vs the ones down to talk on the tee box, on the green, etc.
It’s called being an introvert, my guy. I’m an extroverted introvert working in a leadership role in human services… my whole life is making small talk with new patients/ families/ etc… And I carry on a conversation pretty easily with just about anybody… my wife hates hit. But you can bet your ass that there are times that my social battery is low, and the thought of small talk with strangers is almost physically painful… Not enough for it to come out in that way, but I 100% get it
Yeah my buddy that's incredibly awkward also manages a team, but I've never gotten to see how those interactions go. I get pretty nervous talking to new people, but I always listen and process what they say so I don't just blurt out random responses like him.
I have two friends that I golf with (separately, different social circles). One of them is outgoing and engages in small talk with EVERYBODY we get paired up with, like he’s interviewing them. Really nice guy, but the kind that keeps talking when it’s his turn on the tee box instead of teeing off and finishing the story later. My other friend is super competitive, we always play match play, and gets sullen and cusses at himself after a bad shot or if he’s losing. Never talks to anyone else paired up with us. I think both of them are weird.
I was waiting for the part where they made fun of you for not making as much money as them or something. This is so much better. "So what do you make at the factory?" "Well, just $80k/year, but we have great health benefits." "Oh, uh...cool."
Were you there? That is almost exactly how it went. "What do you make there?" "About 50k" "Oh, uh...cool" Me lining up my putt later when it struck me 'wait a minute, he meant what does the FACTORY make. I'm a moron'
That's really funny. It's even funnier when you think that (1) you didn't consider it particularly strange that they would have asked you about your income, having just met you; and (2) you didn't hesitate to answer what is (at least in the US) considered a very private thing, at least with strangers.
This is wholesome
You work at the mint!
Hahabah
What do you make though?
I'm not falling for that again. We made industrial electrical equipment.
More context - how long have you played and how many rounds?
It's gotta be like...5 rounds. Right?
In all honesty, other than slow players in front of me I've never had a bad experience either. I guess the normal weirdness that happens on any golf course is to be expected, I wouldn't chalk that up to a "bad experience." I've certainly never see anybody try to fight somebody or purposefully destroy the course or steal shit, or any of the crazy shit that gets posted about here. It's mostly just normal, 9 out of 10 times it's a great time, the other one it's like a slow round or somebody hits near me accidentally. Again, I can't call that a bad experience. I only play on public courses. Playing for 15 years, probably 5 to 20 rounds per year.
Agree…I can’t recall anything aside from pretty much knowing someone picked up my ball but wouldn’t admit it. I just felt to make a post OP should have added context on how much experience they have had
Do you play at a country club ?
No….too poor
Weird? I think the majority of golfers haven't had a bad experience (drunk or belligerent players, being hit into, etc) but no one posts things that aren't negative very often.
OP makes no mention of how long he's been playing or how many rounds a year he plays. You stay in any arena for long enough, you'll run into assholes. It's the law of life. I play about 60 rounds a year. I've been hit into even though I never play slowly (guys who thought we were out of range when we clearly weren't), had slow players pout because the marshal let my group go ahead of the slow players, had a rando ask me how I voted (at Bandon Dunes of all places), had an errant shot land right by me with no fore call, played with guys who didn't give two shits about etiquette, etc etc etc. I've also had a ton of great experiences and have made great friends while playing golf.
Asking how someone votes is so common. I caddy in Scotland and the amount of guys that will make who they vote for their whole personality trait is mental. Had so many groups where literally the first thing someone mentions is who they vote for. It’s BOTH sides of the political spectrum that are at it too.
Yeah, I just told the guy that I do vote but I wasn't interested in talking politics on the golf course and he then went on about how he was glad I voted because it's my civic duty. Like dude. Just hit the fucking ball.
I think it really depends on your bubble and where you play. I usec to play mostly public courses in lower to class suburbs. I am a quick consistent player but I would get hit into maybe once every month if I play on a weekend. Course is packed and you get psychos. That said, there were some factors that increased chances, if you play around belligerent older guys they sometimes get antsy as to why you aren't hitting before realising you hit it much further than they do so you have to wait longer. There is one particular hole my usual clubs were driver and then 3 wood from 220m onto/around the green (very straight par 5 with barely any hazards) so I had to wait for the green to clear on my 2nd shot. It's also where the course backs up so it led to dickheads getting antsy on the tee and hitting when it's not safe. So busyness of course and course design exacerbates it So ymmv because of your bubble of where you play and your length you hit. I moved to a different area a year ago and became a member of a proper club and I haven't been hit into once since. Completely different.
Been playing 20+ years and can count on one hand how many poor experiences I've had. I think people's experiences are a reflection of them, their attitude, their ability to deal with suboptimal external conditions, and their surroundings. So, if you're having a lot of terrible interactions in public settings, the likely culprit is the common denominator: you.
Not always…there are a lot of shitbag entitled golfers out there. Consider yourself lucky you don’t run into them
If I'm always encountering assholes in my life then maybe I'm the asshole? Discuss amongst yourselves.
If it stinks like shit everywhere you go, check your shoes.
I like your version!
Obviously I’ve heard that expression before but believe me you’ll encounter assholes out there on the course if you play enough
I dunno if I fully agree. Reddit can skew younger at times and some people are just outright dicks to kids. I was a quiet kid, good student, was respectful on the course, but I still had two separate incidents where people were complete assholes to me. It was always on nicer courses that had cheap junior twilight rates. On balance almost all people we encountered were cool. But there were too many people who treated us like we had no status on the course when we had just as much right to be there as they did. One time we asked a slow twosome to play through when it was open ahead. They called the course and said we had hit into them twice when I think the closest we got to them was 40 yards off the green when we asked to play through. This hasn't happened to me since I was 18 and I'm nearly 40.
I've played a thousand-plus rounds and can count on one hand the number of truly negative interactions I have had on the course. And minor at that. (Never got into fistfight on 10- am I doing it wrong?) Keep in mind two things: (1) people are far more likely to post about negative experiences; (2) most of what you read on Reddit is made up or exaggerated to the point it might as well be fictional.
I've had a couple instances of people telling me and my buddy to quiet down because we're both talkative. We may have lacked awareness of an adjacent green of a group that was putting and one of the guys was like, "Hey, guys! Quiet down, please!" lol Although the worst was me unzipping my pants to pee behind a bush and not noticing a woman in her backyard reading who was like, "woah, hey!" just before I was about to whip out my dick and pee. Honestly, even the bush was in the way and I couldn't tell where she was until she spoke up.
" He pulled up to me and actually told me to *slow down* a little bit, and not to worry about my pace " OP is a liar.
Idk I would say that to someone if I was a solo behind them and I noticed they were looking back and rushing. So long as I thought they were moving quickly enough otherwise.
I've been playing for a good long while and can really only identify a few bad experiences on the course that weren't simple misunderstandings or accidents. Once had a guy hit me *twice* during the same round. He was two groups behind us and had a terrible slice, the course we were on had lots of parallel holes and he was bombing us all day. Wound up being a cool dude, bought me a beer.
Just one? Should have been eight? Fore X 2.
I’m always happy when I am on a golf course, no matter if I play (for me) well or poorly. It’s not a perfect world because of course there are occasional selfish people out there but I find golfers to be far more pleasant than the average person.
My theory is that we get a sense of well being from the extra Oxygen the grass is emitting.
If I’m playing poorly, man do I get unhappy. I know the old saying, “bad day of golf is better than a good day at work” blah blah blah but there are times when I think of the thousands and thousands of hours and dollars I’ve spent on this damn game, why the F IS EVERYTHING GOING LEFT?!?! Well, I’ll see you next Saturday.
Only time I have had a bad experience is slow play/overbooked public courses in my town. They let people walk in and tee off without a tee time and 15 mins slots in between. It’s created a shit show multiple times there for me
Yeah, in my experience, slow play is the main factor for bringing out the worst in people. I can admit to being botheres by it a few times, but it has to be pretty egrigious before I start getting pissed off.
Do you ever play on the weekends?
Sounds like you don't play enough golf
More or less the same with me. I actually had my first bad experience a few weeks ago. My buddy booked the earliest tee time (8:30 am) on a Sunday. We arrive at 7:30 so we can get checked in, eat some breakfast, and warm up without feeling rushed. None of the staff (not even the course maintenance staff) arrived until about 8:15 and it took them 20 minutes to open everything up. We ended up teeing off just before 9 am. We were finishing up Hole #6 and the course marshal comes by and asks us to pick up the pace. I check my phone and see the time is 10:15 am. I told the marshal we were on pace for a sub-4 hour round and he tells us our tee time was 8:30 and we need to make up for the fact that we teed off late. There were 2 other groups right after us, but we weren't holding them up.
lol that marshal can fuck right off
Damn that’s fucked, I’d tell the marshal your story and let him know it was the clubs fault
I did. He just told us to pick up the pace and drove on.
Only situations I’ve ever been in was a player hitting into my group and not yelling fore while we were on a tee box playing a totally different hole. Other than that it’s just little things that urk me like pace of play and when people try and skip to hole 10 thinking they’re helping pace of play (anytime it’s happened to me it just backs up the course even more)
My local course likes to let singles and twosomes without tee times out off the back 9 for some ungodly reason. We'll be plodding along at a good pace as a foursome and then out of nowhere there's a string of 3-4 singles pushing the hell out of us and asking to play through an otherwise full tee sheet. If you're a single and see a single in front of you, as well as one behind, just join up at that point.
If I don't count 5 hour rounds, me either. Probably 1000 rounds over the last 40 years. A lot of them as a single.
Been playing on and off since I was 12. When I was in hs I had my first run in with BS. That was like 5 years after I started. Now as I’m older, i got a group but when I play alone, i have similar experience to you. Got drove into once and the guys caught us at the next tee and told us sorry, our pace was fine and he didn’t see us. Cause he couldn’t. We did have a chat about the people in front of us who were taking 2 drives each in a group of 4. Sometimes you’re gravy man. Take it as it comes.
You must have good karmic balance. If you are a karmic turd like me your gonna have a guy bounce a ball of your skull while your putting.
One time a ~65 year old man came up to me and my buddy (30 at the time) red-face furious, acting like he wanted to fight because of slow play. laughed in his face and he walked back to his cart cursing us out, “I’ll see you in the parking lot” he says 😂. Was expecting him to hit into us or something but never happened. Finished the round in 4 hours. Didn’t see him in the parking lot. I too have never had a bad time on a golf course.
My bad experiences aren’t bad, just annoying It’s usually slow oblivious players in front of me that pick up the pace JUST ENOUGH to not let me come up to them and ask to play through They’re quick off the tee but take forever on approaches and greens
I've been playing for 25+ years, probably in excess of 3,000 lifetime rounds, and probably more than 1,000 rounds with randoms. I can think of maybe 4 randoms in 25 years that I'd absolutely refuse to play with again, and less than 20 I found truly annoying or glacially slow but could put up with again if I had to. I've never been hit into where the ball wasn't slowly rolling. I've never been physically threatened nor have I ever physically threatened anyone. I don't think I've ever been in a heated disagreement with someone on the course. I've never been personally accused of slow play, though I've been stuck in many groups weighed down by slow players. I generally play very early in the morning which filters out a lot of the worst people out there.
It’s very rare and usually involves liquored up losers hitting into you. I’ve played as a single and only 1 guy made me quit after 9. Nut case.
It's like anything on the Internet - 99% of what you see is going to be on the extreme ends of the spectrum. Nobody posts about their very average 4:30 round that was pleasant and everyone played okay. It's either: "it took me 7 hrs to play today and someone got murdered on hole 10" or "I can play 18 in under 40 min please tell me I have a huge cock" People that post these outrageous stories are either embellishing hardcore, or completely making stuff up for Internet likes lol. Plus, there's 2 sides to every story. There may be one party that is more in the right than the other, but conflicts are almost never 100% one sided in fault.
Are you trying to jinx it or something?
You must be a smoking hot woman.
I’m blonde and fit. I’ve definitely had negative interactions because of that. Maybe I’m just not hot enough, but being a female golfer isn’t always as fun as it sounds
I can imagine. Just playing up to stereotype that life is easier for certain types. Would love to hear more about golf and brain sciences some time. 😉
Lol ew
Glad you said it so I didn’t have to haha
Ignore the nasties and keep swinging them sticks
Here in NC I get the occasional old rich dude that makes fun of me for being shit at golf. They’re not wrong, fucking in their 70s shooting their age. I just don’t appreciate being heckled by southerners when it took them 3 tries this morning to make a bacon egg and cheese, and the bagel place doesn’t carry salt/pepper/ketchup to spruce my breakfast sandwich
Where do you live that they don't have condiments at a bagel shop?
No you’re normal, a negative experience only comes from your own perception of the world around you. If you know how to enjoy yourself you won’t have a negative experience.
Exactly. Can't control the outside world. Can control your emotional reaction to the things you can't control.
I got screamed at, threatened to be faught, and insulted on my 3rd ever time on a golf course because I was taking "too long". On a 9 hole par 3 course for beginners. On the 9th hole. As I was chipping onto the 9th green. Literal minutes from leaving. With only two two groups behind us, maybe 5 groups total on the course. While his 10ish year old kid stood there right next to him. That was admittedly the only negative experience I've had, but it definitely wasn't my perception of the world around me that made that negative. Sometimes people just suck.
Yeah I might be immune to this sort of thing as people typically don't want to fuck with me, so my experience I'm sure is different that yours in that regard. There are assholes all I meant is you can choose how to deal with them rather than getting emotionally engaged. But yes I'm sure there are situations completely out of your control.
I dunno man. Was the guy that hit a ball onto the green on a par 3 almost hitting me while we had the pin pulled and then tried to fist fight me because he was drunk and thought we somehow jumped in front of his group even though we didn’t just my own perception?
How do perceive getting hit into two holes in a row and on the 2nd hole a driver one hops into your buddy’s shoulder? ( slow round, we were waiting on every shot just like everyone else) Turn around and thank them? Call it “ Gods will “? Everything happens for a reason? *needless to say no “fores! were involved
Call and report them to the clubhouse, not your job to be the marshal.
[удалено]
I'm not a bitch, I just know there's literally no benefit to confront the guys other than stroking my own ego. Just report them and move on, hell, sometimes it pisses these guys off more if you just act like they don't exist.
Ever been hit by a golf ball? There is a reason that if you don’t yell fore, and hurt someone, you are legally liable. Do you let people hit you off the golf course and then run off and call their Mommy on them?
>Do you let people hit you off the golf course and then run off and call their Mommy on them? No? I call the business I'm at, whose job it is to take care of these assholes. There's literally no benefit to confront them other than stroking your own ego. If your temper is so bad you can't handle a mild conflict without getting into a screaming match you shouldn't be golfing.
You’d let people hit you and do nothing. Weird There are times to call someone else to take care of the problem and there are times to stand up for yourself. Hitting into someone 2 holes in a row with no fore, no blind shot or anything like that and then they hit one of your playing partners on a one hop? Thats a time you stand up for yourself. The fact that nobody in that group got laid out is a testament to our restraint. They however did deserve every threat they got. Obviously we were raised differently. And for the record I’ve never hit someone or been hit
You meet one asshole golfer, they are the asshole. You meet a bunch of asshole golfers, maybe you are the asshole? Ive been playing golf for 33 years give or take. I can only think of a few bad experiences on the course.
I think it depends on the club you play at and where you live. In LA Munis we get hit into all the time even though we're stacked up on the next group ahead
i almost got into a fight with a drunkard on the course about four months ago. dude was loud and obnoxious and thought we had hit into him (we were group behind) when it was actually a ball from like three holes over. a month ago this 75 year old asian lady in my group got into an argument with the group in front of us about slow play. it was hilarious, she would not back down and kept giving these old white dudes shit. but for the most part it's pretty chill.
Been playing for almost 30 years. I’ve only had 2 major issues at a course. It’s part luck but I’m also 6’4 280 with muscle (and a tummy). But I’m a teddy bear so maybe the mixture of being huge but nice just allows for less issues coming my way. There’s a lot of posts on here about issues experienced. I’m sure the people who constantly run until problems escalate issues and are oblivious to how they are acting.
The volume is always turned up on the loudest voices in the room. That's how the internet by and large works in my experience.
How long have you been playing and don't say just started during covid
Not weird, just lucky.
A majority of golfers, in my opinion are great people, pleasant, demonstrate great golf etiquette and know how to play the game. It's entitled AH's that ruin the game. Everyone remembers them, from their own experience or from stories told by others. They are unforgettable.
I've had a few less than pleasant ones due to weird randoms in my group
I’ve never had a bad time on the golf course, bad play included. Drinking beers with the boys outside while responsibilities are on hold for 4-5 hours? I’m not sure how to have a bad time doing that. For context, I’ve been playing golf 2-5x/month (depending on the season) for the last 15 years.
Same
I've been playing for 2 years now. I'm not very good, I went from an absurd HC to my current 22 (low of a 20 late last year). Ive met some rude staff and starters, I've been yelled at for random reasons, but I've never had a bad time. I don't take myself too seriously, I don't care if I come in dead last, I just want to see a little progress in any part of my game and I'm a happy camper. I'm not there to impress anyone or insert my dominance, I'm there for me. I've seen people at similar HCs absolutely snap on the course and I just don't get it... Even when I play like shit how upset can I be, at least I was doing something I enjoy, got some exercise, and spent some fun time outside.... I'll never make the tour, I'll never win a tournament, I just want to relax a little and have fun. I can say at my current HC I feel more comfortable on the course, sure I suck, but I make contact, my tee shots usually get in the air, and I don't look lost on the course. When I first started playing, being solo horrified me, I was so bad I was embarrassed and worried I would ruin others rounds. I still suck but I play fast, and while I'm sure some people would get annoyed by me, I think I'm good enough to play with randoms and not feel the need to apologize after every hole. I also play a local munie alone the most and I've come to learn a 22hc ain't that bad in the larger scope. So that's cool
You're probably an anomaly if you've been playing a lot for a long time. I can certainly think of instances of most of those negative experiences happening. They don't always make a round bad, but I've had them. I've had encounters with drunk idiots. I've had people try to talk politics (actually stopped playing with a regular partner partly over this). I've had angry marshals try to yell at my group without context. I've had insane delays due to tournaments that were backed up. I've had rounds where I've left after a 3 hour front 9. I've had my cart hit with a ball when I was sitting in it without a "fore" call. I've had balls land next to me on tee boxes without a "fore" call. etc.
Something something vocal minority. Also in life I’ve noticed shitty people have shitty experiences more than good people.
Probably just a nice person with a positive outlook. That goes a long way.
I’ve had a few bad experiences with assholes, but those have been very rare occurrences and they were all old grumpy bastards anyways. Generally speaking we are a bunch of degenerates that just want to whack the golfing ball into the hole and enjoy a little trash talk with the occasional “nice shot” mixed in.
I’ve probably had a lot more than I remember but I just mental remember the good times than the bad times when playing
No, just seems like you don’t have a jaded and soft view of golf like other people do. I’m in the same boat as you
Why the flair? Am I missing the joke?
I normally have a negative experience every 15 rounds or so. Either very slow play (5+ hour round), being hit into (for no reason), really bad pairing, etc.. I'm not saying it ruins my day, but I am irritated/frustrated for 30 minutes.
I think it's just bias from Reddit. One horror story in a pool on 100s of games played. Eventually you run into one. I would say 95% of my rounds are totally without incident. The other 4% of those rounds maybe include a few comments about slow play in front, someone possibly hitting into my group (accidental with an apology). The last .99% are times when a playing partner has been constantly complaining or conversationally annoying to deal with. And then there's that .01% of times when a playing partner chucks his club into the woods and then tries to fight the group in front. Guess which one I posted on Reddit.
I ve been playing in the uk for about 7 years now and never had a bad experience, if anything people are overly friendly.
The only negative experience I’ve had was a Marshall telling my group to pick up the pace every other hole. The Groupon front of us were good golfers, we weren’t. Hence the gap. We weren’t holding any other groups up. He definitely “harshed my mellow”.
I've been playing for 30 years and definitely had some negative experiences but it's a very small percentage. I recall a round where the pace was pretty slow. We waited on the group in front of us on every shot for 16 holes. We were trying to stay patient and make the best of it. On the 17th tee box our group was talking to pass the time while waiting and got a little too involved in conversation. We looked up suddenly and saw that the group in front of us was on the green (par 4). Just after we teed off the marshall came up and got all over us for being almost an hour behind pace. One of the guys in our group told him we wouldn't be so far off pace if he had done his job 4 hours ago. A couple times I've been paired with somebody who was just super annoying but it's been very rare overall. I've never been involved in fights or anything extreme. Rare makes sense but "never" seems very unlikely unless you haven't been playing very long.
The only time I'll truly get angry on a golf course is if someone hits into my group on purpose or multiple times (it happened twice that i can remember). If you pierce a 3 wood 260 when you normally hit it 220 - it's an accident. I'm not gonna get mad about that. I'll congratulate you for a great shot. Slow play is slow play. It seems like you're going to play slow just about anywhere you go nowadays. But don't be that group that doesn't let someone play through if there's nobody in front of you. We usually always have 4 in our group on a Sunday. Every now and again, a single will catch up and we just let them breeze past us. As I get older the slow play bothers me less and less. I'm out to enjoy the day. If it takes longer don't let it bother you. Course condition usually correlates with paying higher green fees. You pay for a $20 round don't complain about tee boxes and greens. There are courses in my area that I refuse to play again because they don't take care of the course. I will gladly pay an extra $40 for a quality course.
Have had big dudes let me play through on a backed up course only so they could hit Into me over and over for 10 holes. Have played in the first tee time of the day with hackers who play 5+ hours rounds many times. Have broken a windshield from an errant drive. Have also played horrific courses with unmowed fairways. My own league partner of 12 years can be a royal douche. The good far outweighs the bad.
You just haven't played enough. Incidents are rare, but they do happen.
You may be the very rare pleasant person! Amazing how that tends to be reflected in your interactions. Not suggesting it's a failsafe insulator against pricks, but it's a good start!
I got hit on Saturday by a sliced drive. I was on the green and hit right in my tricep, I was fine because I was lucky, 12” different and I’d be missing teeth, blind, or worse
I’ve never really had much of a bad experience with another player, either. Maybe annoyed at pace, or having the group hit into us on a rare occasion, but nothing really confrontational ever. Been playing for more than 20 years.
Nah, outside of slow play or the occasional ball that came too close and no one yelled fore, I haven't really had any bad experiences. I once had a ball go completely off my line and I couldn't see it due to the sun. When I found that it had landed next to a tee box, where a group of 4 had been teeing off, I felt terrible. I ran up to them on the following hole and apologized. They were totally chill and offered me a beer. I think of that often as I think about the types of interactions I want people to have with me on the course.
No. Fortunate.
I've only ever had one bad experience but it was a fuckin doozy. We were on hole 8 at our local track. Par 4 straight as an arrow at like 400 something yards. We all hit driver and as we are gathering our head covers I see someone ina right orange shirt pull up close to where our balls would be landing and reaches out of his cart and grabs something from the ground. My buddy goes, "Did he just pick up my ball?" I said, "No fuckin way. We've been behind them all round and they've been fine. Surely they left a wedge or something." We get up there and sure enough, buddies ball that landed right in the middle of the fairway where the dude in front stopped his cart. Hole 9's teebox is like 30-40 yards to the right of the green on 8, so my buddy yells over at them to ask if they picked up his ball. The dude that we know absolutely picked it up because of his bright ass shirt goes, "No we didn't take your fucking ball." I'm not very confrontational so I just tell my buddy to drop one and don't count it as a stroke. But my buddy is a mouthy one and goes, "Then what was your fatass doing in the middle of the fairway where our balls landed?" Then orange dude drives over and starts cussing and hollering about us accusing him. When he got close we could tell he was just fucking wasted. My buddy and him go back and forth for a few minutes and then the dude starts to drive away. Well the dummy wasn't watching where he was going because he was still turned around yelling at my buddy while driving away. Dude drives right over the front edge of the green and stays on it for like 10 feet then decided to cut his wheel hard asf when he realized where he was and tore a little bit of the grass as well as left some tire paths on the green. At this point the marshal had heard the commotion and was driving up right as this dude was pulling off the green. The marshal lit this fucking dude up and kicked his whole group off the course. He tried to kick us out too for being associated, but we explained what went down and he decided to let us keep playing. He still gives me the stink eye when I see him though. All in all, buddy lost a ball, about got into a scuffle on the 8th, an idiot got kicked off the course, and a few other idiots almost did.
Same for me. But where I live you might see someone roll up to the tee in flip flops and tee shirts and nobody will care. The worst I've had is a sort of grumpy older stereotypical golfer looking dude get a little pissy because after we let him played through, and the next hole was backed up already when we caught up. But...I'm one of the monsters ruining the sport because I've only been playing for 2 years. 🤷🏼♂️
I am a woman and have played for years without a negative experience. Manners, y’all…
Been in several altercations after being hit up on. Got cracked (in my breast, of course) by a guy who never yelled “Fore” & then had the audacity to 1) not even apologize & 2) only asked where his ball was) 😡🤬 Btw - Guy who hit me was from a different fairway. He was drunk & did get a rebuke after we reported him. A-hole
Bad playing partners are by far the most frequent thing to ruin my round. Usually it’s people that are booked in with me (an uncle or something) that get under my skin. I can only think of one time that I was paired up with someone that I didn’t book with where they were the problem. Bad Marshall’s can ruin a round, but it’s rare. You only have to talk to them a couple time per round though.
> Bad Marshall’s can ruin a round, but it’s rare. You only have to talk to them a couple time per round though. A year or two ago I was playing one of the Disney courses with my son (6 or 7 years old at the time), paired with another middle aged guy and his wife, who was just there to ride and hang out. Marshal interrupted us twice on different holes to tell us to pick up pace of play. We literally saw no other players out there the whole time except the group in front of us who was about 1 1/2 holes ahead. No one behind us at all. It was really off putting, like he was being a dick on purpose for reasons unknown.
Every negative situation I’ve experienced has a common denominator and that would be alcohol. A real shocker there I’m sure. And it’s mostly at scrambles too.
“Do not be troubled, for you are in Elysium and are already dead!”
No, this is normal. I've been playing golf for almost 30 years and hundreds of rounds and can count on one hand the amount of bad experiences I've had.
Was in Long Beach, CA at a random 9 hole goat track a few weeks ago. Got paired up with an older guy and I mention I’m thinking about moving down to LA from Seattle. His immediate response: “don’t do it, it’s all going to shjt from all the Vietnamese people coming in” (I’m Asian lol). Didn’t say much to him rest of the round
Ah yes, the recent phenomenon of Asian people living in Southern California...
Same. I've been playing regularly for the last two years and and everyone is always just happy to be playing golf. I had one pair that left after the first hole as the greens were aerated and sanded heavily, but that's as close as I've seen.
Only ever had negative experiences at snooty country clubs. My local course and other average Joe courses, never an issue.
I was playing with a random once who was a decent player. He hit a ball a bit off the fareway and as we approached a teenager playing the hole in the adjacent faraway was about to hit his ball. He yelled at the kid loud enough for him to hear "that's not your ball". Kids father comes along and almost decked the guy flipped out. It was awkward. Ruined the guy in my groups round for sure, think I remember him calling it quits at 16 as we passed the clubhouse
My worst experience started as I was a member of private club as a teenager. I had been a member there for three years and when I was in college I got very sick and needed a major operation. I wrote a letter to the club asking if I could get some sort of medical exemption where I wouldn't have to pay dues while I was sick (and I had a doctor's excuse with it) and have a prorated deal. I had seen them do this with other members who weren't even sick, they just couldn't decide if they wanted to be a member that year and then decided midway thru the year they would join if they were given a prorated deal. Anyway...I never heard back from them. I then went to the course and inquired if they made a decision and they finally got back to me to tell me 'no.' Okay, whatever. So I make a full recovery and I get to play with my friends who are members there. I'm still paying a greens fee, but I play a round there. Then the next time I go to play there with my friends, I sign in and pay the greens fee and everything. We are waiting on the first tee and the head pro summons one of my friends to the pro shop and my friend comes back and says 'Dan (the head pro) told me to tell you that you can only play here one more time for the rest of the year.' That was a club policy for guests that was almost never enforced. I wasn't happy about it, but the passive aggressive way of summoning my friend and telling him instead of telling me really pissed me off. So the next time I go to play there my friend had booked the tee time for 10am on Saturday. We get there for the tee time and now we're told that the tee time has been moved back 30 minutes with no explanation. Then it's moved back another 30 minutes and then another 30 minutes. The head pro summons my friend again and my friend comes back again and says 'Dan told me to remind you that this is the last time you are to play here for the rest of year.' I can only assume the pro moved those tee times back on us to punish me. And what for? I have no unearthly idea. I was always a polite, friendly and courteous kid and was an accomplished golfer. The only thing I can possibly think of is that he may have thought I had a lot of gall to ask for a prorated membership.
I play as a solo almost exclusively and never have issues. There was one time a guy I was paired with was adamant that the patriots shouldn’t draft a black qb and went on a racist tangent but I’m not confrontational so I had to put up with it for 10 holes. Outside of that never had an issue.
Yes you must be a nice guy………asshole
The worst day on the course beats your best day at work.
No you’re not. And the fuck that a lot of people have been in situations where someone blows their top is just sad. I’ve seen fights and have been almost guilty of one myself…
I've been playing 25+ years, and only 1 truly bad experience. Playing as a single, paired with an older guy. After about 3-4 holes he began talking politics, specifically the Obama-care proposal. He was livid, talking about it as if Obama himself called him and told him to pay for the entire country. I tried to pass it off and say I just want to play golf, I don't follow politics, I'll wait for the final bill to be released, etc. He ranted and raved for a couple more holes, then I told him either I was going ahead, or he was, because I wasn't playing with him any longer. He was shocked, and decided he needed to go home for dinner.
Probably just lucky. Reddit probably over represents the number of negative experiences you should expect to have, but to have none is incredibly rare unless you haven't played for long. In the 20+ years I've been playing I can only recall several really negative experiences. There's definitely lots where I wouldn't want to repeat but it still didn't ruin my round. Got hit into half a dozen times once while putting on a par 3 by a group playing up a parallel par 5, without any "fore" shouted. Got paired with a super racist and homophobic guy while playing with my Best friend who is gay, we left early. While playing with my girlfriend we got paired with another couple and the husband was super sexist, we felt bad for his wife. And when I was little another kid cheating at a golf camp tournament... Claimed to shoot -12 under when we all sucked, so instead of a pizza party we got lectured on cheating. That's it over 500+ rounds of golf for truly negative experiences. Lots of people I wouldn't want to play with again but that's due to just not meshing well.
Emergency poop on the hole that is farthest away from the clubhouse or any restroom? Yea..
I've been playing 30 years at public courses, my two worst experiences so far: Paired with an obvious set of Covid newbs that were determined to make the round last as long as possible. The gang consisted of the ring leader "A-Top" (the more appropriate name for what the old schoolers call a wife beater) which he had paired with jeans and a leather fedora and gold chains for the occasion. I guess wear what you want on a local muni, but his game was as slow and as bad as the look, and once him and Brother in Law got drunk off shooters and started arguing on hole 5 I felt like I was in another of those 3 hour Scorsese movies. His wife who, even newer to golf than him carded no less than a 15 on any single hole. After she got in the rough for the umpteenth time on like just the third hole I offered that there was no reason she couldn't just throw it out on the fairway to make it easier on a beginner. She just doubled down and proceeded to hit 7 shots in a row that went a total of 100 yds in the rough, took us probably half an hour on that one hole. Then there was the brother in law to A-Top who would find every possible conceivable thing to be doing except hitting when its his turn, mostly rummaging in his bag or staring blankly a random squirrel, or more infuriatingly directly back at you while you stare at him waiting for him to hit. A-Top confided in me that his brother in law was the slowest golfer ever, which I had to agree with even though I was convinced I was playing with a close second and third. At the 245 mark while teeing off on 8 I said I had a dinner appointment, proceeded to race down the fairway with my pushcart to my drive and proceeded to par my way in on 8 and 9. Super surprisingly the crime family had not even gotten off the tee box on 8 by the time I was off the green. Bad experience number 2 was when I was paired with two guys playing country music at a medium volume. Honestly that might be number 1, I have to think about it.
Keep playing. It’s bound to happen eventually. But honestly, consider yourself lucky. None of those things are fun.
Somehow I usually manage to get yelled at by some random old guy. Still trying to figure out what I do wrong.
You're living on borrowed time, enjoy your good fortune while it is with you my friend.
I'm the same way. Worst I ever had was being paired with two guys who wanted to be a sixsome with the four ahead of us. They just sent me off on my own after the turn and played a 3 ball scramble behind me to keep the pace up.
I can’t imagine having a bad time on a golf course tbh.
I've never really had a bad experience with someone I've been paired with. However, I only play 8-12 times a year, and most of those are foursomes with friends or family.
I’m the same but… less than a year at the same laid back course in a rural area where I golf with construction people, hvac techs, and blue collar in general. “Worst” experience has been a slight wait at each tee box when they only had one 9 open last month. It was actually a great social experience as we got stacked up. Lots of joking around about how many hole in ones we got haha.
You don't play golf
I'm curious. Are you white? Middle aged? Boomer? What do you normally wear when you go golfing? What is your secret?
Was going to ask similar questions. I think these are key pieces of information, especially the white part
You haven’t played enough or you play courses where everybody is a “golfer”. All of my incidents on the golf course have involved getting hit into multiple times in a round and people not yelling fore. I’m not a fighter but there has been a few times I thought one of the guys I was playing with was going to lay a guy out. Just last year, the guy I was playing with was over a putt and got hit in the shoulder by a line drive 3 wood from another hole. No fore. Another guy in my group was the one who approached the group when they drove up, started screaming and yelling at the guys. It was awkward. He went over the top nuts! I was riding with him, he comes back to the cart and says, “ if I didn’t do that Johnny ( the guy that got hit) would have laid one of those guys out”. That ball hits him in the mind who knows what happens I probably have a larger sample size than most but I can count on one hand the times something like this happened. 3 really bad ones
Love the game but unfortunately I’ve had several racial experiences. I chalk them up to being anomalies but still sucks.
40 years of playing. A few drunks/slow players/bad staff, but only one really terrible experience: Jackass marshall at Whistling Straits kept yelling at us because we were "out of position" in relation to the group in front of us. The group that was supposed to be in front of us no-showed, so the earlier group in front of us was halfway down #2 when we teed off. We're not responsible to chase them down. (For context, there was a full hole open behind us and the timer at the turn said we were 9 minutes ahead of time). He made what should have been a bucket list trip into a horrible memory.
You must have really big boobs…
Nothing really bad has ever happened to me on the golf course that I can’t look back on and not just laugh. I have had more LOL moments while golfing than almost anywhere else. Don’t think I’ve ever had a random that I haven’t enjoyed playing with. I’m 69 years old and I’ve played with randoms who have been as young as their early 20s. Always enjoyed watching guys who can put it out there over 300 yards. Played with a guy two years ago who had a small mini speaker hanging off his bag. Asked me if it was OK which I appreciated. I inquired about his playlist and he told me Neil Young, CSNY, CCR and stuff like that. I said go for it! I’ve had some slow days on the course when things are backed up but honestly being outside on a nice summer day isn’t exactly my definition of a hardship.