"Hey, it's a golf course, not a flower bed!" What you DON'T like about the game....: #Reaction: Golf Digest

"Hey, it's a golf course, not a flower bed!" What you DON'T like about the game....

Friday, July 6, 2012

We love to check into our sister site, GolfWRX.com, for lively forums on every golf topic under the sun. My favorite subject is "What do you dislike about golf?", which launched about a year ago, and would give any industry exec a pretty fair idea of how to improve things. Every sort of golfer seems to contribute--traditionalists and the hat-backwards-shirt-untucked crowd--and it's surprising on how often they all agree.

What bugs golfers most? My unscientific summary of a year's posts:

1. Slow Play. (By a wide margin. Good for the USGA to assess a slow-play penalty at the Open Thursday).

2. Golf snobs (and "cigar-chomping idiots")

3. Expense

4. "Odd" rules (like out-of-bounds)

5. Uneven tee boxes (go figure)

6. One's own erratic play

Excerpts from a recent post by Anchor44, a disabled Navy vet, cover the landscape well:

I hate:

--Slow play, most of all

--Knowing that a good driver costs more than a 32" HDTV, or a deer rifle. A set of good clubs cost more than a good riding lawn mower, with no moving parts.

--Superintendents that don't allow carts off cart paths . Hey guy, it's a golf course, NOT a flower bed.

--Courses that overbook or tee times that are 5 minutes apart.

--The high cost of green fees at some courses that really should be grazing cattle instead.

--People who insist on playing the tips and hit a banana slice 200 yards consistently

--Golf snobs

--15 handicappers that take 2 minutes to read a putt.

--Scratch golfers who take 2 minutes to read a putt.

--People who would ban carts. I'm a disabled vet and I can't walk more than about 150 yards. But my threesome consistently plays 18 holes in less than 3 hours.

MattTheTaff caught the spirit of things with:

Other people. Seriously. If I'm walking down the 1st fairway with a stranger and ask him "do you take drugs Danny?" and his immediate response isn't "Every day," then he's getting Got Picture But No Sound treatment for 18 holes.

(Matt would enjoy our "18 Most Annoying Golfers slide show.)

But my favorite post on the subject at GolfWRX.com has to one this week by Lafayette7:

NOTHING !!!!!!!! I LOVE GOLF !!!!!! ............ I don't care how fast I can play, I don't care how slow I have to play. Don't care if I ride or walk. Don't care if the beer cart doesn't come around enough. Don't care if I lose my ball, or if I have to hunt for my partner's ball. Don't care if it's raining, windy, snowing, foggy, hot, cold, bugs, or bad partners. Don't care if the greens are fast or slow, the tee boxes are shaggy or short, fairways are hard or soft. Don't care if it's a good lie or bad lie. Don't care if it's hotdogs or steak in the clubhouse. I don't care if i have to play with a semi round stone and a stick............I'll be out there...........I love golf.........My only real peeve is that every day the sun goes down and I have to come in from the course....but every morning, the sun is back and I'm on my way to the course again.......

Now that's a golfer.

--Bob Carney