Whats up with the guys at this course?

So my roommate and I went to a local municipal course. On the 16th I hit a fat shot in the high grass to the left of the fairway. An old guy that worked at the course had been watching nearby and immediately drove his cart over to where we were. He made some rude comment about how we need to pour sand on our divots (I hadn't even had time to go back to the cart to get any, and I don't think the grass I was in needed/was repairable with sand. It was short normal grass). Anyways, after the round I asked my roommate, "what was up with that guy?" He agreed he was kind of a jerk and told me that a few months prior him and his little brother were playing at this course and someone made a comment alluding to the fact that THEY weren't repairing their divots on the tees, when they were in fact repairing 3-4 on each tee that had them. Overall it seems like if you are younger (my roommate and myself are 21) this place thinks you know nothing about the game's etiquette and treats you poorly. I have since stopped going to this course as there are others (some cheaper and definitely more friendly) in the area. How should I feel about these situations?

I'd find out who is the general manger for the course and write him a letter. A paper letter, not email.

I'd explain your experiences without exaggeration and complain that you feel unwelcome at the course, and you are not the only young person to feel that way.

Golf courses nationwide are struggling with lower rounds. Golf has always needed to bring young people into the game. The marshal, possibly thinking he was doing his job, was missing the forest for the trees. Not only that, he was wrong in that case.

Anyway, I'd let the manager know in a letter.

The other thing I would do is...have a thicker skin. I've had those old grumpy bastids yell at me for crap that I didn't do, yell at me for something some random idiot thrown in my foursome that I didn't know did. I've heard it all. It used to intimidate me, then irritate me, and now it doesn't bother me at all. I learned to tune those guys out.

I have a zillion pet peeves on the golf course, but I *try* to not worry about them during the round .

Meanwhile, thank you for repairing divots.

Here's a tangentially-related question. I always walk. The carts at the courses around here are all stocked with sand buckets, but I don't see any for walkers. What's the right thing to do here? I don't usually have much issue because I barely take divots. When I do, I can usually find enough fresh scraps of soil/grass to fill in and tamp down, but I'd sorta like to know whether I should be finding a bucket and trying to find a way to carry it on my bag as I hike.

Great question about walkers and divot repair. I don't know a solution. In the old days (maybe now even) caddies would wear a bag around their waist with sand/grass seed mix and fix divots, refilling their bags at the par threes (where the mix was in a container for players to use for their divots.) This is obviously not a solution for most walkers. I notice after a college or high school tourney on a course I play the fairways are a mess with divots everywhere and no effort at all to repair them.

What I do using a cart is fill my divot and mayber two or three more in the area. Two containers on a cart are usually empty at the turn, but the tenth tee has a rack full of replacement containers. I'm not sure a walker would want to do it, but there is no reason one of these containers (they have a pour spout) could not be carried and used -- but it might be a mess with all the loose mix that spills.

Anyway... great question and I wish college golfers had to fix divots as part of their round requirements. With several teams on my home course, that would help a lot.

Typical response of many senior people at courses to juniors (or people they think may be juniors/their inferior).

I had the same throughout my younger years. Unfortunately I had to wait until I had full membership rights to tell them what I think of them...which I'm now more than happy to do.

Perhaps a more mature approach is the letter writing one. I've had to do this a couple of times and generally got a very favourable response from the club, usually with an apology.

Funny part about being young....folks don't always give you credit for the knowledge and applied wisdom that you have. Maybe the old grump just is jealous of your youth. As dumb as this sounds, I have known a couple of old geezers (both were starters) that simply didn't want to see new golfers playing their courses. They wanted to "keep" it for their senior groups. They failed to realize the demographics of who is actually spending the coinage in the pro-shops on clubs, shoes, shirts, premium balls, hot dogs, and highly overpriced beer.

Don't be afraid to stand up for yourself. Demonstrate your knowledge to them by telling them that you sand in all your divots and repair your ball marks...pull your divot repair tool out of you pocket and show 'em.


I propose a low cost solution to the walkers and overall to divot and ball mark repair. We actually did this on a couse a couple of times and it was a load of fun. We had repair parties a couple of evenings. Groups of members got together and the first time had several cases of beer....second time we got smart and had a keg. We used carts that were staged at the cart return shed and rode the course sanding in everything we could find (both times were spring sandings where we had seed/sand mix). It was fun to hang out and smoke cigars and soak up some suds while getting something positive done on the course. Girlfriends and wives began showing up later on and we made it a tailgating type event with some burgers, dogs and hot wings. It cost the course nothing....just kept the young fella cleaning the carts a little later....off course he was enjoying the flirting with some of the gals and I suspect trying to sneek over to the keg....couldn't have that.

As a walker, I have the same problem about not being able to repair divots with the sand mixture, but I take decent "toupee" divots with my short irons, so I put those back in the hole I made and tamp it down. It's not perfect and some of the patches probably don't "take", but it beats nothing at all.

Every course now seems to have some of these 'golf police' that I swear are just looking for things to complain about. They are the equivalent of 'rent-a-cops' who think they have more power than they do and feel it's up to them to keep the world safe for others. I'm just glad they don't get guns and nightsticks (at least not yet, although in NY they might).

the guy is probably lazy and doesnt want to do it himself... lol

I belong to a private club where most people walk. To solve the divot mix problem we have heavy duty neoprene footlockers at the first, tenth, and a couple other tees. In the lockers are divot mix and empty GatorAde bottles. Fill a bottle with mix, put it in a pocket on your bag and you're ready to go. Include such a suggesstion in your letter and turn a negative complaint into a positive suggestion.

That's a good suggestion. I know they have the refill boxes at many of the holes on my courses, so maybe I'll just bring an empty bottle with me. The bottle/bucket things on the carts are too big to fit in my bag, but I have a little pouch that I occasionally keep a water bottle in. Thanks for the suggestion!

I can't speak to the marshals atittude; but usually during the off season (fall-winter), at least here in the NW the grass isn't growing so its pointless to replace your divot. So they use sand with some grass seed in it to fix divots during that time.

I hope you don't make the same mistake that the "divot nazi" made - not all of us geezers are alike. For the most part, the older guys that I know are happy to meet and even play with younger folks who appreciate the game and are good citizens on the course. Unfortunately, there are too few of those folks, young or old, around. I guess if I had to put up with as many fatheads, drunks, would-be Tigers, mis-placed Jimmie Johnsons, and loud-mouth oafs as course marshals do on a regular basis, I be somewhat grumpy, too.

Just a thought. Do you realize that by not going back to that course, you are giving the J*****s that gave you a hard time exactly what he probably wanted? A much more rewarding approach might be to show up regularly, smile and wave, make sure he knows that being a b**t has very little effect on a younger person who really loves the game. It would probably ruin his whole day.

Good luck and keep playing. Something good may happen.

Here's a repair question for you...
The course I usually play doesn't supply sand of any kind to make repairs with. You cant replace the divots cause they blow into about 50 pieces and scatter all over the place.
What do you do?

i work at a muni to get free rounds whenever i want and most of the marshalls/starters/guys that work there are retirees... some are pretty cool... maybe cuz i work there... but there are a few crotchety geezers that are just not happy in general and believe they own/run the place... heck 1 muni here is an absolute dogtrack and the geezers and their buddy's really do seem to own the place and ill never pay to play there again... and constant(years) of complaining does nothing... most ppl avoid the place like the plague... that only reinforces the fact that those guys basically have a city owned private club to play at and get paid for...

anyways... my suggestion is to ignore grandpa... make sure you didnt do anything wrong... an keep playing

Well, I usually try to gather some material up and set it back in the divot. Basically, I try to leave a lie that wouldn't set up an impossible golf shot if a ball landed in it. If the course has the kind of grass that doesn't produce replaceable divots, they should provide sand.