During my career as a professional golfer, working in and around golf clubs, I have noticed a shift in the way golfers behave on the golf course.
It has, as we can see from the Ryder Cup, become a game where etiquette is being replaced with football terrace style behavior.
Now I have nothing against passion being shown on a golf course, but my tolerance of “rowdy” behavior is drawn when golfers fail to respect the golf course, and in essence the other golfers on the course.
One of my jobs when I was working at a local course was to ensure the course was maintained to a high standard, this meant regularly checking the tees, greens, fairways and bunkers with the head green keeper.
We checked everything, water hazards, the depth of sand in the bunkers, the length of the rough and fairway to mention a few.
All necessary processes vital to the enjoyment of the golfer.
After one of the checks we performed after suffering a few days of torrential rain and course flooding, I got the chance to play the course with a new club member.
The club member was in their 60´s, a stout, well to do gentleman that had been playing golf since his teens.
He was known as the club´s “judge and jury” as he was always making comments, suggesting things and above all complaining.
I wanted to see why he was so determined to make sure we knew what was wrong with the golf course.
As the gentleman played down the first hole, the complaints began “this fairway is always covered in unrepaired divots, it is an eye-sore”.
Upon reaching the greenside bunker which the gentleman had found with his approach, the same complaints began; “the bunkers never get raked properly” and “typical I am in some idiot’s footprint”.
What happened next simply shocked me.
The gentleman, having taken two shots to get out of the bunker promptly stomped across the green and continued to play.
Astonished, I mentioned that he had forgotten to rake the bunker and offered to do it for him, for which he thanked me.
Although shocked I thought it must have been an oversight on his part due to anger of not successfully escaping the bunker.
But to my horror, the same thing happened on the 2nd hole.
This time, angered by me notifying him of his second oversight, he proclaimed “why should I bother when no one else ever does”
Now, the thing is not whether he had or hadn´t raked the bunker, it was his attitude to it and the constant complaining that led me to caution the member.
It is this change in attitude to the up-keep and care of golf courses that has begun to creep into the game, a lack of respect for the golf course, other players but more importantly the green staff, who work tirelessly in all weathers to maintain the course in the best possible condition.
Be passionate, get excited when you score a hole in one or crack a drive straight and true down the middle of the toughest hole on the course, but please remember to make sure you help your green keeper out;
Replace divots, repair pitch marks and rake bunkers.
It is not just the green keeper that will benefit, every golfer and the club will benefit too.
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