I played golf today. My friend and his friend played too. That’s a threesome…typically men like foursomes when they are hitting their balls deep, but we had a threesome.
Anyway.
We were on the first tee ready to tee off when a golfer playing by himself rolled up in a cart. I knew what was coming. He had to play with us to round out the much coveted foursome. The same thought went through my head that always does whenever I find out I have to play with people I don’t know. “Fuck.”
This guy was about our age (mid 20′s) and from the moment he opened his mouth he was a walking awkward dance. There are a lot of golf nuances that kind of piss me off and by the end of the day he was batting about .600. He even hit a lot annoyances that aren’t even golf related. I’ve decided it’s best to run all the ones this guy encompassed down list style:
- Single golfer picking up with a random group of people who know each other – I’ve already mentioned this. I know that there are some people who relish in meeting new people on the golf course and finding out interesting things about them like what they do for a living and where they are originally from, but I could really care less. I golf to have a good time with my friends and cigars. There are million of icebreaker games. Golf isn’t one of them.
- The really really really bad golfer – This guy was awful. Granted, I don’t claim to be next
Ron JeremyTiger Woods, and really don’t mind if you can’t break 100 on a good day. But at least get the ball in the air on occasion. - The really really really bad golfer who thinks he’s really good – It was just his off day.
- Giving unsolicited lessons – One of the other guys in my original group hadn’t played golf in a year or two and wasn’t very good. New guy felt it necessary to immediately start giving swing lessons. Not like, “You’re aimed up a bit to the right.” I’m talking about full-on, multi-minute, mini-instructional video with physical contact…on pretty much every swing. Remember too, this guy was awful.
- Getting over excited for others’ decent shots – “Ah! You got a par! Nice job, bro!” “Oh, wow! You hit that right down the middle!” And then he’d throw the hand up for a high five. Oh yes…he did. And of course you feel obligated to not leave him hanging. Once he made a guy in my ground “pound it out, bro!” for a slightly better than average chip shot. I just sunk my head.
- Having poor golf etiquette – I should probably rephrase this for him. His golf etiquette wasn’t so much poor as it was just wrong. For instance, he once borrowed my divot fixer to fix a divot before he took his putt that he felt was in his line for a solid two minutes. He then proceeded to aim two feet left of where he just fixed this divot. Another time, I was literally a few feet away from put the pin back in the hole after we finished up on the green and he insisted on taking the flag out of my hands and putting back for me. Thanks?
- Being way too over zealous about the fact that you drink beer, like women, and cuss. – Drink Cart Girl: “You guys need anything? We have $2 beers.” Dude: “$2 beers!?!?!?! Hell yeah, I want one!” He gets beer and she drives off. “Holy shit, she was hot wasn’t she? And she’s giving out cheap beer! Wow!” No real further explanation needed, I feel.
- People who try really hard to be funny, but just simply aren’t – This one is harsh. I know. But you should have heard some of these jokes. He legitimately used four ‘that’s what she said’ jokes Michael Scott style. And they didn’t even make sense. He also threw out a lot of poor golf lingo jokes that, again, weren’t funny and made little sense. Some people just aren’t talented at certain art forms and should therefore just not do them. I can’t draw, so I don’t. This guy lacked the art of humor…or really anything remotely tactful. He should have quit a long time ago.
Now onto the non golf related peeves.
The only real good thing about my experience with this guy today was that it gave me much needed Blogosis material. At least I can thank him for that.