You’ve been there when the group of grump-meisters behind you are getting impatient and starting to encroach on your personal golf space. Maybe you’re playing with your son who has just started the game, or with your grandfather who plays off 42 in reality? It doesn’t really matter, the problem is not you it’s them.
A post about the ignoramus buffoons who are not only damaging your round, they are also damaging the reputation of the course and the club.
It’s an appropriate title to give to people who believe that, like all bullies, they are safe with their kinsmen around them and can intimidate anyone that they choose to, just because they can.
It’s a sad situation because these golf bullies, certainly in my experience, are normally very good golfers – but with one fatal flaw – their ego. It’s almost what you could call a self-fulfilling prophecy because the better some get at golf the more arrogant they get too. I really despise this attitude in some golfers.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m sure that 90%+ of these people are never like this away from the golf course, which is something of an enigma to me.
It makes me wonder sometimes who these people aspire to, it’s almost as if they want to be respected as a good golfer – by intimidation.
Now don’t get me wrong, I suppose some of these people are not even aware that they are doing it. Why? perhaps because it is accepted behaviour in the culture of their country club? This is something that I will be writing about in a later post.
It grieves me when I see a couple of burly guys on the course with a young kid and they are doing it, firing balls up behind the group in front, it’s no wonder that some young kids get the impression that intimidation is ok, the only problem there of course is that youngsters have broader boundaries so they are more likely to take that kind of behaviour and practice it away from the golf course.
This is not a good situation for golf in general. Thankfully it is just a microcosm of golfing leisure, but none-the-less I see it almost everywhere I play from time to time.
Sure, as in all people of celebrity, the leading golfers on TV have a big part to play here. When ego centric golfers watch someone famous throwing their teddy out of the pram having a spat on the course they think they can too, they must think they are in a play-off for the Claret Jug or something akin to it, during their 9 holes on a Sunday afternoon.
Celebrity has THE lead role to play in all aspects of social culture, they are the world’s role models at the end of the day, and when they sow the wrong seeds – ‘Triffids’ grow.
As proof of that you only need to go and watch some of the talented young kids on your local driving range. They’re not trying to be Maximus ‘Sugar Ray’ Leopard (great golfer & the local golf course bully) they’re trying to be Ian Poulter, Tiger Woods Phil Mickelson, Paul Casey, Ross Fisher et al.
The idiocy of some golfers when they fire golf balls up behind you in an attempt to intimidate you is sacrilegious. What these idiots are potentially doing is driving potential new members away from the club, and driving new comers to golf away from the game. Long term, if left to fester, this could have a damaging impact on the health of their local club.
This is more apparent when you go into a club that has that certain ether about it, it’s snarky and moody and you see some members walking around doing their best impression of a Rooster, like they’re the cock of the club, and they normally are…
I’ve been to some courses on several occasions and see this same type of behaviour time and again, not to me personally, but I watch other groups playing in tandem just getting on enjoying their game, with a group of ego-roosters playing up so close behind them that from a distance they look like an 8-ball group.
There are at least three courses where this has been so prevalent that I won’t ever return there, even if they offered me a free membership, and the saddest aspect is that they are perhaps among the finest courses I have ever played (and trust me that’s a lot of courses all over the world).
The courses I am referring to here are all in the UK, but that doesn’t mean this is a UK only problem. In fact some courses I played in the USA had Rangers permanently out on the course, some because they were really excellent courses and made sure everyone had the best possible time on the course, but others were more like Door Men on your local nightclub – go figure for yourself.
It only takes a small clutch of people like me, who talk to other visitors at the bar, before the club’s membership list starts to look pretty skeletal in a few years time.
I think it is, golf is so much more accessible these days by such a broad range of folks from all walks of life, and this, as in anything that grows to be more ubiquitous has to accommodate both incumbents and new entrants, and also change to survive.
Unfortunately, not all change knits together nicely and it is just a fact of life that change can be a catalyst for turbulence. Sounds powerful that doesn’t it, in real terms it means that when a new person, group of people, or even culture change appears in a lot of stuffy old country clubs that it is resisted by the incumbent tenants (and I mean tenants and not members for good reason, read on)…
…Now you might say what has that got to do with bullies? Well, sometimes you see another type of bully in the country club. It’s the one whose Great Grandfather is buried under the 18th green (metaphorically speaking) and even though he doesn’t own the course – he thinks he owns the course.
Some of these people are just not accepting of new comers, sometimes they are so brazen about it that they will openly berate new comers whilst in conversation with their fellow ego-roosters in the bar, or on the course. The numbers of times I’ve over heard conversations like this in a clubhouse, and I just wonder to myself what they would think if it was their own kids joining a new school, would they tolerate it? No chance, they’d be grilling the headmaster in a nano-second.
Typically, a lot of us Brits just aren’t complainers, I don’t mean moaners – we’re brilliant at that, but complainers take action, and this is something I very rarely see in this kind of circumstance. It must happen, good clubs have clear rules and procedures for making a respectful complaint, others though, you need to sit in front of the ‘Reich’ before you can make newspaper headlines, meaning some clubs care more about censorship than fellowship.
Later I will be writing a post about this topic, and it will be centred on how to complain to your country club – respectfully.
Hopefully, some clubs that read this may even give me a head start by offering their procedures below, in the comments section.
Hopefully some of the headlines in this article made the hair on your neck stand up, that was intentional – because it is the kind of language and behaviour that bullies perpetuate. It needs to stop, but it will only stop if you make a stand or make it to being Prime Minister, and you can make a stand by complaining in a respectful way and making an appeal to your peers.
Bullies might think they are safe in their group of 4, but you need to realise that there are 65 Million* in your group just waiting to help you out. (* the generally accepted population of the UK)
If you want to be a soft complainer, just forward this article to your Reich Rooster at the club, they should get the message – unless it gets censored – in which case forward it to all the members – that’s the power of the internet.
Like the article? Does it touch on your personal experience? If so, tee a comment up below, and rip one.
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