Today my friend and I played in a state run Scotch golf tournament. Before we left home, knowing we were to play an alternating shot format, my husband asked if I’d like to take the 9 millimeter or the Glock… I said since there were two of us playing perhaps we would need both. I didn’t know that to kill all the demons that arose today we’d need to carry something the size of an elephant gun.
Actually, the day was lovely, all in all. Playing for fun and fully cognizant of the fact that in a tournament of this size and caliber “middle of the pack” is a fine place to finish, we played well. Not perfectly, but entirely acceptable.
What looked early on to be a day that promised thunderstorms and downpours turned instead to blue skies and puffy clouds, albeit exceptionally hot and steamy. What more can you ask for than a summer day on the golf course with a good friend? It could have been an absolutely perfect day, except for something that kept needling me. Something came to be quite an irritant, and it wasn’t heat rash… or the voracious bugs that swarmed the soggy fairways… it was the pin.
Quoting the USGA’s etiquette section of the Rules of Golf:
Players should remain on or close to the putting green until all other players in the group have holed out.
Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? There it is, spelled out quite plainly, in black and white. Therefore, I found it absolutely amazing that our fellow competitors not just once, but continually, would putt out and leave the green well before we’d dropped our ball into the cup. Not only would they walk right off the green as soon as they holed out themselves but they more than once engaged in conversation between themselves as we finished up, and often positioned themselves off the green but directly behind my line to the hole. Determined not to miss a putt on their account, I determinedly blocked all peripheral vision and stroked every one into the cup, turning this annoyance into a good lesson in concentration.
This exceptional lack of etiquette from a twosome, who otherwise seemed overly eager to flash their “deputy of rules and regulation” badges at any possible infraction, was astounding. If this had been their first tournament I might have chalked up their actions to inexperience, but these were clearly two very seasoned and competitive golfers. Combined with a few some other slightly less than comforting exchanges of conversation throughout the round, I speculated if perhaps that was the very issue.
It was the eighteenth green before either of them made the effort to replace the flagstick. The day left me wondering if they know how much a pin weighs. Perhaps if they picked one up more often, they’d have the answer.
