Etiquette disagreement with my wife

I maintain on a busy day that is almost mandatory if we go off as a twosome and a twosome catches up to us (due to the slower play ahead) that we invite them to join us.  She still gets a little tense with strangers but 99.9% of the time the folks paired with us are very nice (who can't be nice when golfing?).  If they want to say no to us then that's no problem but I think it's the responsibility of the twosome in front to ask the single or twosome trailing to join.

I've included a poll so I can go to her with popular opinion.

Love to hear your guys thoughts.

Thanks,

I think you have to ask them to join you. I generally golf with two other buddies so we usuaaly only get caught up in this if a single shows up on the first tee but even then we generally ask if they would like to join us.

Where's the third option?

"If it's just me and a friend, I invite them to join. When playing golf with the wife however, I don't invite that twosome to join us, because she doesn't feel comfortable playing golf with total stangers."

Thanks Sean, is that what you would do?  I'm trying to convince her that it is very basic that we should always invite them to join.

Absolutely that's what I'd do. BUT . . . I'd never schedule a round during a busy part of the day. We're more likely to play at twilight or on a mutual day off mid-week.

We're stuck always playing on Saturday and Sunday.  And on Los Angeles area public courses that means 5 hour rounds.  If we do manage to go off as a twosome (rare) we will usually be caught.  So it's not like she really melts down with strangers.  In fact normally after a few holes our new partners are just part of the round and all is good.  It's just the joining that is weird for her (I swear I will never understand women).  She really gets pissed if I say we should invite the threessome behind us to join.  And she is normally about the least shy person in the world.

I'm sure you meant twosome or single, because a group of 5 is bad form regardless of gender.

Personally, I gave up trying to "understand women" years ago. That's the secret of happiness*. Just consider yourself a lucky man to have a wife who plays in any capacity - mine has suggested not playing this year at all.

*  I'm not sure exactly how my big screen TV works and I've forgotten most of the fermentation process, but my love of a beer while watching the big game is unwavering.

The LA county courses send out fivesomes (the city doesn't).  So I did mean threesomes in that case.

i hate that they do.. Skylinks!?  Why?!  all you're doing is creating a 6+ hour round, even starting a first light, you're there for 5 hours.

yep, the long beach munis too.

I have the same problem with my wife, yet we have never had anything other than a positive experience when other golfers have joined us.

When we played public courses we were always paired up and she dealt with it.

Now with private membership even if we only go out as a twosome(which is rare) we are generally surrounded by full groups so it only comes into play with tournaments when we are short a person for our group and once again - every tournament paired with a previous stranger has resulted in nothing less than a good time.

I will always invite a twosome behind us to join if for no other reason than to avoid any awkardness at every tee box the rest of the way.

No way.  If I make a tee time, I think it should be me and whoever I want to golf with.  I have no interest in paying money to spend time with total strangers.

Do you get a private box at all sporting events?  Must be nice.

No, but I don't live in or near a big town so that helps, jack@$$ .....

Your email link doesn't work.

My brother feels the same way about getting paired with other people. It really limits where we can play. We don't play together all that much and if the thought of someone joining us came up, it would be game over - he might even walk off the course. He's such a barrel of laughs I can't even describe it properly.

That's the way it is at my private course - but I always tell the shop any singles can join us.

But honestly - if twosomes tied up the whole course with tee times, the courses would have to raise rates to make up the revenue. There isnt a public course around here that you can expect to play with anything other than a foursome during peak times.