Awkward Moments
12 awkward moments in golf...and how to get out of them
Golf is a complicated game. It's governed by a seemingly endless list of mysterious rules, rituals and other etiquette niceties, some written down and some not, because in four-plus hours, over varied terrain, in an often highly charged, competitive atmosphere, all kinds of weird stuff happens. Sometimes it seems like hitting the ball is the easy part—it's dealing with all that messy humanity that poses the problems. What follows are various tricky situations—all of which have personally happened to us, or we have perpetrated, or been witness to, or heard about—and our suggestions for how to tackle them.
Your extremely competitive boss unexpectedly invites you out for a game of golf
at his club. That has never happened before. On the front nine, he shares with
you all kinds of insight from his years in the business: the value of hard work, dedication, determination and how to succeed in life. "Just remember," he tells you as he lights up a cigar on the eighth tee, "nobody likes a loser."
From then on, you play like a man inspired. You pound it miles down every fairway, hit daring approach shots to tucked pins and drain every putt. Your boss has stopped with the business seminar and is concentrating hard, but the harder he tries, the worse he plays. You're killing him, and now he's getting mad. He's 4 down with five to play.
What do you do next?
Bury the guy. Show no mercy. Put him away. Nobody likes a loser. But make sure you win with grace (being a good winner is just as important as being a good loser). No fist-pumping. Thank him for the game and tell him you got lucky. When you get back to the office—assuming you still have a job—no public bragging. (You want to be invited back for a rematch, right?) But yeah, play hard, always. Anything else is an insult to your opponents—and to yourself. Golf is war. Never forget that.
You're playing in a friendly match at your local course with a guy you don't know too well. He's getting all the breaks: Every time he hits a wild slice into the trees,
he seems to find the ball in a perfect lie with a clear shot to the green. After a while, you suspect foul play, and, sure enough, just when you've found what is undeniably his ball, in a bush to the right of the 12th fairway, you hear him shout: "Found it!"—and he's 50 yards closer to the green, again with a perfect lie.
What do you do next?
This happened at a club we know, on the 18th fairway, almost within earshot of the clubhouse. The cheater was called back to his original ball by the other guys in his group. "Come and look at this," they said. When he reached them, without saying a word, they simply pointed at his ball. The guy turned white—he knew that they knew. Word got around. He became a bit of a pariah after that and for months would rarely show his face in the clubhouse. Sometimes he would park at the far end of the course and play a few holes on his own in the evenings. That summer his hair turned gray, then white. Eventually he quit the game.
Friendly match? No such thing if cheaters are involved. Cheating is the wood worm in the foundations that civilization is built on, and it must be quashed. We like the story of the British sportswriter Leonard Crawley, a fine amateur golfer and cricketer between the wars (he played in the 1932 Walker Cup). Playing with a cheat one day, Crawley remained silent throughout the fellow's many transgressions on the golf course. But when they got back to the locker room, he decked the guy, picked him up, gave him a talking to, then bought him a drink. We can't advocate physical violence, of course. But we do recommend confronting the cheat. Call him over to his ball and make it clear that you know what he's up to. "Pick it up," you tell him. "You're out of this hole. And don't ever do that again." Then give him your best Robert De Niro "I'll be watching you, Focker" impersonation from "Meet the Parents."
You and a friend go to play at a well-known golf club, easily the best and most famous course you've ever played. There are a lot of people milling around near the first tee, and when your name is called, you suddenly sense everyone watching you, and you're completely overcome with nerves. Shaking, you tee up the ball, take a swing—and hit a pitiful dribbler, the ball coming to rest just a few feet in front of you.
What do you do next?
Hitting a foozle off the first tee is one of the greatest fears known to humankind, along with snakes, public speaking and going on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney. But the fact is, it has happened to everyone who has ever played the game. Over the years, we've seen many of the best golfers in the world hit terrible, hugely embarrassing duffs in front of thousands of people (and sometimes TV cameras, too).
Prevention is better than cure. Learn to play with pressure by competing in tournaments, making money bets with your pals, entering a pro-am and playing with good players. On any big day, get to the course early, warm up and hit some balls on the range. On the first tee, expect to be nervous. Being nervous will not result in a bad shot—it should actually help you—but being anxious and tense about being nervous very well might. Breathe, look down the center of the fairway and make your normal swing. Don't try to hit a perfect shot—a half-decent one will do just fine.
OK, you knew all that already. But still you hit a horrendous dribbler, and the ball is just sitting there, a few feet away, mocking you and advertising your ineptitude. At this point you could take a bow, or crack a joke to the assembled gathering ("I sure got all of that one!") or pretend there's something wrong with your driver (closely examine the clubhead, point to it, then shake your head a lot). But it's better simply to accept what happened and then do what you should always do in golf, regardless of the situation: Focus on the next shot. Don't take a mulligan, even if offered, or pick the ball up. Don't panic. Don't rush. Relax—no one cares about your lousy shot. Be grateful for the opportunity to prove to yourself and the world that you can handle this situation. Pull out a club you like— a 7-iron or a hybrid, perhaps—and zero in on the task with Tiger-like intensity. Hit the ball. Wherever it ends up, hit it again. This is golf.
