It is a scientific fact that golf is not played against the course. It is not played against “Old Man Par.” It is played against the eroding patience you have for the three other human beings sharing your cart.
I have been playing golf for twenty years and often get assigned to play with strangers at my usual course, Lincoln Park in Grand Junction, Colorado. In that time, I have come to realize that the random draw of a foursome is God’s way of punishing us for skipping church. You will never just meet “guys.” You will meet specific archetypes of human dysfunction, all of whom are playing with clubs that cost more than my first car.
If you are trying to identify who you are in your group, don’t bother. If you don’t recognize any of these people, it’s because you are one of them.
1. The Unsolicited Swing Coach
This man usually shoots a 108, yet he possesses the confidence of Tiger Woods in 2000. He cannot help himself. He watches you slice a drive into the next county—an event you are already painfully aware of—and waits exactly three seconds before saying, “You know what you did there? You lifted your head.”
Thank you, Phil Jackson. I thought maybe I had been possessed by a demon or perhaps a sudden gust of gravity had targeted my ball specifically. But no, it was my head.
The Swing Coach has watched four YouTube videos on “shallow mechanics” and now feels qualified to reconstruct your entire kinetic chain on the 4th tee box. He uses words like “pronation” and “lag” while he is currently lying four in a sand trap.
2. The Creative Accountant
I have a buddy—let’s call him “Todd” because that is his name—who is a marvel of mathematics. I watch Todd hit his drive into the water. I watch him drop a ball. I watch him shank that ball into a tree. I watch him chip onto the green and two-putt.
By my count, that is a double bogey. Maybe a triple if we’re being strict about the drop. Todd walks back to the cart, writes on the scorecard with the seriousness of a tax auditor, and says, “Put me down for a bogey.”
How? How did we get there? Did we enter a wormhole on the fairway? The Creative Accountant treats the scorecard like a negotiation. He believes that if nobody saw the ball hit the water, the water doesn’t exist. I never say anything, because it’s not my business. I just make sure never to play a money game with him, and avoid an overly obvious eye roll when he tell me his final score. (It’s very hard to do.)
3. The Rage Monster
This guy is the reason people drink on the course. He is usually a decent player, which makes it worse. He expects perfection. When he misses a 12-foot putt that would have been a tough make for a pro, he reacts as if he has just been told his dog died.
He screams. He slams the club head into the turf. He throws the ball into the lake. He mutters things that would make a sailor blush followed by: “You idiot! You absolute moron!” he yells at himself. He says what I think about him.
It is incredibly uncomfortable. I am just here to avoid mowing my lawn. I am here to enjoy a mild breeze and a lukewarm domestic beer. I am not here to witness a mid-life crisis unfold in real-time over a pitching wedge. When the Rage Monster explodes, the rest of us just look at our shoes and drive the cart very, very slowly.
4. The Guy Who Is Just Happy To Be Not-At-Work (Me)
This is the only noble category. We don’t care about the score. We care about the beverage cart girl’s schedule. We care about whether the hot dog at the turn is fresh. We are happy to look for your ball in the woods because it gives us a chance to urinate behind a tree in peace.
We are the glue holding the foursome together. We nod at the Swing Coach, we ignore the Accountant’s math, and we try not to make eye contact with the Rage Monster. We are just trying to survive eighteen holes so we can get to the clubhouse and lie to our wives about how long the round took.