Some Of The Things I Love About Golf

I played a round of golf recently that just reinforced some things that I really love about the game as well as make the game fun.  I played in a foursome with a good friend of mine and we were paired with a couple of guys by the starter to round out our group. Let me share a few of the things from this round with you.

One of the things that I love about golf is that it is one of the great humblers in life.  One of the two guys that we were paired with ended up being one of those guys that I don’t enjoy playing with.  He was loud, obnoxious, and believed that he was just a step away from the pro tour with his golf game.  The truth of the matter was that he was about a 10 handicap and a pretty good golfer, but you wouldn’t have believed it to listen to him.

As we played the first several holes, this guy is complaining about why he wasn’t parring every hole.  The pin placements were stupid, he had forgotten his “special” wedge and so his short game was off, the greens were in rough shape so his putting was off and on and on and on.  As we came to a gorgeous and relatively easy par 5 (it was the #14 handicap hole), my partner asked if we wanted to play the hole for who buys drinks from the cart girl who was sitting up by the green waiting for us.  And by the way my partner is a 15 handicapper.

So the loud guy jumps all over this figuring this is a sure thing.  His partner was a pretty decent golfer, about an 11 or 12 handicap.  Well being that it was a par 5, the obnoxious golfer pulls out his driver, tees off first and proceeds to hook his ball into some swampland.  And it went downhill for him from there.  After his tee shot, my partner and I hit 3 woods and both proceeded to par the hole.  So you know who bought the drinks and the loud guy suddenly got a little quiet heading to the next hole.

A few holes later I saw a Dad and his two young sons on an adjacent fairway just absolutely having a blast.  And it wasn’t about them playing good golf, they were all over that fairway.  But the kids were laughing and so was the Dad.  Just great quality time together on the golf course. I love it.

After the turn, I experienced another thing that I really love about the game.  My game started leaving and I was really struggling for several holes.  And my buddy turned to me and said something that any golfer has heard many times.   “Well Dave, a bad day on the golf course beats a good day at the office every time!”.   And he was so right.  It was a gorgeous day and a great course we were playing and after he said that I didn’t let my play affect having a good time at all for the rest of the round.

And one last thing before I go.  After we finished the round and the loud, obnoxious guy stomped off to his car, his buddy came walking back.  “Sorry about Joe”, he said.  “He can be hard to put up with, but I just wanted to let you guys know how much we enjoyed playing with you today”.  Just reinforcing the point to me that for every obnoxious Joe that we run into on the golf course, there are many more nice, decent golfers out there and I always enjoy getting to know them during a round of golf.

Have fun out there all you golf nuts!