{"id":5044,"date":"2009-03-05T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2009-03-05T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/?p=5044"},"modified":"2009-03-05T08:27:55","modified_gmt":"2009-03-05T13:27:55","slug":"the_worst_of_the_worst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/b\/thrash_talk\/the_worst_of_the_worst","title":{"rendered":"The Worst of the Worst"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ThrashSince I have been in the habit of airing my grievances as of late, I’m going to continue that trend for another week, albeit with a much more insidious target than Phil Mickelson<\/a>. Those of us who play golf regularly and attend tournaments are most certainly familiar with this individual; although, as I learned quite recently, his natural habitat may be the driving range (more specifically, the indoor golfing facility).
\n
\nBefore we meet our antagonist (in every sense of the word), some backstory… The Family First Golf Dome here in Erie, PA is neither a comfortable nor a pleasant place. Being the only “driving range” open in the winter, it’s by default the best one. Attempting to work on one’s game there is a profoundly awkward endeavor, balls (driveway gravel) are quite overpriced and overcrowding is often an issue.<\/p>\n

An area essentially the size of a soccer field (and, it seems, often doubling as one, given the markings, the surface, and the large metal goals at each side) is encased in a bubble of blue and white plastic. Hit a full wedge? You hit the ceiling. Hit a driver? You get to see 1\/3 of the ball’s flight before it smacks into the opposite end of the enclosure. In short, it’s an okay place to work on your short game if you don’t mind hitting off carpet to study the way your ball reacts when landing upon another type of carpet, neither of have anything in common with grass except the color green.<\/p>\n

With all this in mind, obviously my expectations were rather low for my recent visit to the aforementioned establishment. I’ve always said that nothing inspires the less-than-serious golfer to drag the clubs up from the basement and head into a large plastic bag to shank a few like a gray and blustery day in late February. And so inspired, I made my way to The Dome to hit a few wedges and test out some equipment with a friend (the TM R9 is quite an armament, the Titleist 909F3, also).<\/p>\n

Everything was going well. By this I mean I waited the customary 20 minutes for a stall to open before two juiced Alpha Tau guys picked up their MuscleMilk (no, really) and moved on to bigger and better things. I engaged in a comedic “testing” (duffing) of a few clubs and honed my expert wedge game in my first few minutes on the mat. Gradually, however, I became aware of a disturbance in the hitting area directly to my right. The disturbance was large, he was loud, and he looked like Larry the Cable Guy while fancying himself a veritable David Leadbetter.<\/p>\n

I had of course, seen this individual before, not him, per se, but his brethren (perhaps “he” appears as a female too, but not in my limited experience). Last time I saw him, I was sitting on the PGA Tour’s signature green bleachers with my brother at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational attempting to watch various Tour standouts beating balls on the range.<\/p>\n

As a side note, let me say to you +2 handicappers, you 2 handicappers, and you “I’m going to be on tour-ers” you have no idea just how much better professional golfers are than you until you’ve spent a while watching their range sessions… this never fails to amaze me and my tournament going colleagues, some of whom have no problem shooting well under par on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

Anyways, we’re sitting there, minding our own business, watching the show and he<\/em> is sitting behind us, and in case you didn’t know, he knows everything about golf (and, we might assume, everything about everything). His signature maneuver is arrogantly presenting rudimentary (and often completely incorrect) insights into a golfer’s swing as though he’s cracked the human genome.<\/p>\n

“You see that,” he says, “Vijay has a two plane swing, he needs to switch to a one plane swing if he wants to compete.”<\/p>\n

“Tiger slides his hips too much on the downswing, it’s sapping his power.”<\/p>\n

“All power in the swing is generated by snapping the club like a whip and swinging as hard as you can.”<\/p>\n

I wasn’t sure who he was talking to, and indeed, he never seems to care, he is, always, a teacher standing before his pupils – an orator before an enthused populace. From his mouth spews a stream of endless golfing wisdom, loudly and boldly, of course. He’s probably a 20 handicapper, is skeptical of golf technology, plays often at municipal courses, correcting the swing flaws of his awful playing partners, and is generally bellicose in all settings. In this particular case, the magnitude of his insights compelled me to vacate the bleachers for the company of less learned individuals.<\/p>\n

I saw him again at a municipal range over the summer, praising his ball striking (210 with a driver, push slice) and discussing his recent swing changes with an enthralled associate (shifting more weight to the left side during the downswing, keeping his head still and other such revolutionary insights). When he showed up at the Golf Dome, however, I had no idea the aggravation which was about to ensue.<\/p>\n

Our antagonist was “instructing” his mother in the ways of golf. Red in the face and at high volume he was telling this poor 60-year-old woman what was wrong with her golf swing and five different things to do in order to correct the problems. Not surprisingly, his advice, which was generally incorrect, wasn’t helping her at all and he became increasingly belligerent.<\/p>\n

“What are you doing? What are you even thinking about? Just do what I say!”<\/p>\n

“You’re not turning your hips! Stop thinking about what to do!”<\/p>\n

He spewed such ludicrous and contradictory advice for the better part of an hour, selflessly neglecting his own game in order to impart his wisdom to another individual. His mother, no doubt, thought she was just out to hit a few balls and pass the time. Little did she know she was about to have a one-on-one session with the greatest teacher ever and make the transition from shooting 130 to routinely breaking 80 under his sage counsel.<\/p>\n

Generally aghast, I had a few questions running through my mind while overhearing his lesson. Who treats their mother that way? How does this guy consider himself an authority on golf or golf instruction? Is he going to have an aneurysm? Ultimately, however, my problem with this individual in particular, and the typology in general, has to do with their continual need to impart their own rudimentary insights into the game (often to a disinterested audience) as a method of padding their own egos rather than out of any appreciation for (or understanding of) the game of golf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the brands of intolerable golf enthusiasts, one stands alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[98,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hot_topics","category-thrash_talk"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Worst of the Worst (Hot Topics, Thrash Talk) - The Sand Trap .com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thesandtrap.com\/b\/thrash_talk\/the_worst_of_the_worst\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"The Worst of the Worst (Hot Topics, Thrash Talk) - 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