My Mini-Rant

I was stuck behind a threesome today. There was no room in front of them, so playing through would have been pointless. Still finished 18 in 4 hours, so not dreadfully slow... and I tried to spend as much time practicing my pitching, chipping, and putting on the previous green as possible. There wasn't another golfer within the six or seven holes behind me, so no problems there. I even played one par five over again.

As I was driving back to the tee, I saw one of the dopes in the threesome in front of me parked about a foot off the cartpath. I muttered something to myself about what a jackass he was, given that the cart path was RIGHT THERE and that this nine holes is much more newly seeded. I take extra care in driving on it as little as possible.

The guy later yelled over "Hey, were you talking to me?" (I wasn't really, just talking to myself ABOUT him, heh heh), so I said "no". He continued with "Is there a problem?" Since they were on the 16th hole, I didn't care enough to get into it. So I just let it go, but in thinking about it, part of me really wishes I'd said "yeah, there is a problem. Several in fact: you or your partners have driven carts between the greens and greenside bunkers. You've parked them on grass when a path is right there. You've forgotten clubs on three holes. You've parked your cart in FRONT of the green. You've driven within 10 yards of virtually every green and tee. You've stayed in the cart and not dropped anyone off at their ball. You've not replaced a single divot, including the ones you've taken on the tees. You've played the blue tees, despite the fact that I haven't seen you hit a ball 200 yards in the air yet. You stopped the beer cart girl for ten minutes on one hole, and finally, you haven't raked a single trap you've been in. That about covers it."

Whispering Woods is a public course (with members), so while I don't expect the non-members to take care of the course like they play it a few times a week (like I do), I do expect a little general common sense and courtesy.

Next time, frankly, I've resolved myself to not being so afraid of confrontation. I'll calmly explain my position next time and leave it at that. I could just tell the pro or a ranger, but I believe in telling people what I think face to face, in a polite but firm manner.

You know, I kind of figured a lot of the responses here would be of this type, of the "don't say anything" type. But man, that gets old fast, and you know, if people never speak up, then others will just continue to take advantage of their silence and unwillingness.

Civil heroes throughout history have been the ones that have spoken up. Rosa Parks spoke by not moving to a different seat. Clearly I'm not comparing telling someone they're being a jerk on the golf course to standing up to racism. I'm just saying it saddens and sickens me to a certain extent that we're so non-confrontational and so afraid and so willing to NOT say something. We've become a nation of chickens. In fact, looking back, I'm more disappointed in my own (in)actions than theirs. CG031, it's not the same as your situation. You were lippy and called and old guy names. I was planning to ask the people to take care of the course and observe the basic rules of cart and golf etiquette, sans name-calling, etc.

Yes, they are. Have you seen the worn areas (usually on the inside of turns) beside the cart path where people drive carts? It's hardpan dirt. Please, talk to your superintendent. They rope off the areas around tees and greens at some courses for a reason.

And I never said the footprints were shallow. You're supposed to dig your feet in to bunkers a good two or three inches, and these guys did. I could have tolerated one or two of these things, but all of them combined was just too much. I read somewhere recently a saying about "being whipped with a shoelace repeatedly" and that's what this was: a bunch of small irritations that just kept building. Forget to replace one divot or rake one trap? Fine.