I have the dumbest golf pet peeve, but I can't shake it

Golfpocalypse is a weekly collection of words about (mostly) professional golf with very little in the way of a point, and the Surgeon General says it will make you a worse person. Reach out to The Golfpocalypse with your questions or comments on absolutely anything at shane.spr8@gmail.com.

Now that the never-ending presidential election is over, and we have approximately six weeks until the next one begins, it feels like a good time steer away from the really big important things in the world and retreat into meaningless minutiae. At least on a golf website!

So let's get small and petty, and remind ourselves that no matter what's happening at the highest levels of government and world politics, tragic or triumphant, what really matters are the tiny grievances that keep us in a steady state of rage from moment to moment. You could drop a billion dollars on my front porch tomorrow morning, but the most memorable part of my day would still be the guy who cut me off in traffic. Is this a healthy way to live? Definitely not. And yet, will I change? Unlikely! As Mel Brooks once said, "tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die."

So today, I want to talk about pet peeves, particularly on a golf course. I love hearing what pisses people off, and the pettier the peeve, the more I like it. I can tell you that I, personally, do some very annoying things that almost certainly register as someone else's peet peeve. I've gotten to be a much better player over the past couple years, but if I'm having a terrible round, I will still re-tee after a bad drive, even if the drive isn't OB. I can't help it. I simply have to fix whatever went wrong, and I have to do it immediately. (Note: the second shot is almost always worse.) This is vaguely tolerable the first time, when the next player approaching the tee has to stop and move out of the way as I furiously shove another tee in the ground, but the fifth time? Gotta be extremely obnoxious.

The other very annoying thing I do is the way-too-early "great shot!" call. My stepfather does this constantly when we play, and I want to murder him every time. Oh, it's a great shot, is it Tom? Then why the **** is it hooking 30 yards OB?

(One of my most shameful golf course moments came when I actually yelled at him for this. We didn't talk for like two months.)

And yet, I do it too! I've tried to stop, and I've actually made strides, but I think my personal, pathological need to bring good vibes to a group is so strong that once per round I will inevitably compliment some shot that looks fine in the millisecond after it's struck, but ends up inside somebody's kitchen. I don't like this about myself, and I'm trying to get better.

Which brings us to my pet peeve, which is a little weirder but vexes me to no end. It's so strange I'm not even sure I can put it into a single sentence, but I'll try:

I hate playing with people who don't understand proper putting etiquette.

What does that actually mean? At the risk of sounding neurotic, which I very much, I believe that when everybody in a foursome is on the green, there is a proper choreography to be observed. To get the dance right, all you have to do is understand a few simple rules:

1. The person who is farthest from the hole putts first.

2. After you putt, it is ALWAYS up to you what happens next. Want to putt again? Sure. Just be quick-ish. Want to mark? Great, just don't use a poker chip like an asshole. Want to pick up and call it good, even if you're six feet away and you've already missed a bunch of three-footers? As long as we're not in a match, go to town! Shoot the phoniest 82 of your life!

That's it. That's everything. A child could master it. Many children, I assume, do. (The only children I play with are my own, and they're busy treating the bunkers like a personal sand box.)

And yet, I constantly find myself paired with people who don't get it. They'll putt, then look at me like I'm the cop in charge of allowing them to putt again. Or they won't have a mark, and they'll leave the ball sitting there in all its sadness and shame. It's infuriating. It's intolerable. They hem, they haw, they hesitate. [voice gets progressively more insane] THEY DON'T KNOW THE STEPS TO THE DANCE! DON'T YOU SEE?! NOBODY HAS TAUGHT THEM THE DANCE!

This is a stupid thing to be annoyed at, I know. But as a formerly awkward kid, there's something about the awkwardness of not knowing when to putt and when to mark that hits me like nails on a chalkboard. I'm not proud of this. I wish I weren't such an uptight weirdo about this one stupid part of the game. And yet, here we are—I'm a psychopath about putting etiquette, and I will never change.

FIVE TOUR THOUGHTS: NO EDITION

No tournaments on either the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour this past week! Very strange, very off-putting. Please, never let this happen again.

But instead of talking about golf, guess what? I'm using the space to talk Duke basketball, baby! If you didn't know I was a Duke fan already, I have likely succeeded in making you hate me. Sorry about that. But I watched Duke play their opener against Maine on Friday, and my God, this team is good. Best Duke team since the Kyrie Irving squad. Hear me now, believe me later, Duke is winning the national title, Kon Knueppel is going to be president in 2044, and even though Cooper Flagg is 24 years younger than me, I already seem him as a father figure. It's going to be a great year, folks.

I sincerely apologize for making you read this paragraph. Go Duke.

THE ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD LOCKS OF THE WEEK

Golfpocalypse is not a gambling advice service, and you should never heed anything written here. Better picks are here.

Career Record: 5-42. I only made one pick last week, and Hae-Ran Ryu came in just one shot behind eventual winner Rio Takeda. Which means I'm still red-hot, and you should continue re-mortgaging your home to take my advice. Also, an anagram of Hae-Ran Ryu is "Hear U, Ryan." I think that's a message to me of some kind, but I'm not sure what.

The PGA Tour is BACK at the World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico, and I've decided to make Duke a theme of the week. That's pretty easy for this event, because Max Greyserman, a Dukie himself, is the betting favorite. I watched this guy absolutely blow the Wyndham Championship with a somewhat unlucky but still horrendous quad on 14 this past summer, but he handled himself like a champ and has continued to play well, including a T-2 at the Zozo two weeks ago. I'm all in. Go "Flagg" hunting, Max.

Over on the DP World Tour, they're in Abu Dhabi, and because I got a late start this week I already know the first-round results. LOVE when that happens. And as it happens, the man in the lead shares a first name with the guy everybody thought would be Duke's next head coach after Coach K, but who got sidelined for Jon Scheyer—Tommy Amaker. So, cowardly and cheap as this may be, you better believe I'm rolling with Tommy Fleetwood.

The LPGA is in Hawaii, where they started on Wednesday for some reason, and there are currently two Dukies tied for tenth—Gina Kim and Yu Liu. Neither one of them are in the top 100 of the rankings, so unlike my craven Fleetwood pick above, either one represents an act of true courage on my part, and should be rewarded with a ticker tape parade outside Cameron Indoor Stadium. I'll go with Kim.

And who am I going with on the Champions Tour at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship? Oh, you better believe it's Ken Duke.

Finally, at LIV Golf Durham, I'm taking Duke Dukeson.

THE "DUMB TAKE I KIND OF BELIEVE"

There should be a 72-person tournament where they eliminate one guy after every hole until there is only one champion remaining. Granted, this would take forever on the first hole, with all 72 playing and then breaking ties and etc., and the logistics would be awful throughout, but imagine the drama as the field narrowed. I think we'd only need a month to stage something like this. The first Tour between the PGA and LIV to do this has my undying loyalty.

THE READER STORY OF THE WEEK

Here's Jamie with a tremendous list of his own pet peeves:

1. Guy on 3rd hole STILL doesn't have a ball marker in pocket
2. DO NOT talk to my ball
3. Guy goes off to the drink cart before putting out
4. Empty water coolers
5. Shells from sunflower seeds spit on course
6. Guy who doesn't watch his own ball off the tee ... usually a big miss ... then has no idea where it might have ended up
7. Playing lessons taking place in front of my group, while we wait
8. Rangers who just ride around all day doing absolutely nothing at all instead of getting slow pokes moving faster
9. Bad spots of no grass that last all season long without repair
10. Guys without a hcp who negotiate how many shots they "deserve"
11. Guys who don't watch the whole group hit tee shots because they only care about their own ball. Even worse when they ask "anybody see that?" after THEY hit

I have been 100% guilty of 1, 2, 6, and 11, and I am duly ashamed. However, Jamie is dead right about the useless marshals, and anyone who spits sunflower seeds on a green should be sent straight to the firing squad.

Previously on Golfpocalypse:

If you talk about politics on the course, please, for God's sake, stop
Loving Golf in 2024 is about finding where the money isn't
I believed in the magic of Tiger Woods when I was a kid, but I'm a cynic now
If you can enjoy playing golf alone, you have achieved Nirvana
I took 12 stitches to the head for golf before I even loved it
An annual 'Friends Ryder Cup' trip is the greatest thing in golf
Marshals at public golf courses need to get way meaner
I, and I alone, have the genius tweak to fix the Tour Championship
It cannot be fun to play golf when you're egregiously bad
Confession: I break clubs when I'm mad
Playing golf in bad weather makes me feel alive
Caring what other people think of your golf game is annoying to other people
Sympathize with Rory, because choking sucks