Talking to a Competitor About Their Shot Before They Hit

[Ruler]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Intent can be easier or tougher to determine.

Indeed it can be but that cannot be an obstacle for making an act a breach. At least it has not been so far.

 

2 hours ago, iacas said:

So again, good luck and prove it. All for a comment someone makes about how tough a shot looks? C’mon. No.

 

As I have said quite a few times before, I am not talking about a single comment but continuous and deliberate verbal acts aimed at making another player to make bad shots. The way I see it such behavior does not belong to a golf competition, or on a golf course in general, for that matter.

But I guess we are done here. We all have our own opinions on this and that is only fair.

[ncates00]

18 minutes ago, Ruler said:

competition

Why should a golf tournament be different from any other sport with regards to a little bit of needling and trash-talking? Did you not play other competitive sports growing up? People talk all the time. It’s part of competition. 

 

20 minutes ago, Ruler said:

golf course in general

Good grief, you are seemingly hyper-sensitive.

 

As many here have already pointed out, conduct of another, with the intent to distract, during one’s swing is different from mere comments well in advance of one playing his or her shot—like the example we saw with the OP. The former is an understandable annoyance, and the aggrieved person should address it. As to the latter, address it if you wish, and hopefully the other will comply, but you may need to toughen up. 

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, Ruler said:

Indeed it can be but that cannot be an obstacle for making an act a breach. At least it has not been so far.

Actually it has. 

1 hour ago, Ruler said:

I am not talking about a single comment but continuous and deliberate verbal acts aimed at making another player to make bad shots.

Again, what if a player is chatty, and the other golfer just gets distracted easily? How do you accurately tell if someone is purposely being distracting versus not? 

I would say 99% of people out there when asked if they are trying to be distracting, they would say no. They may be distracting, but unaware they are doing so. By definition, not doing so intently. 

Also, I have never run into someone who is purposely trying to distract golfers during their golf swing. I had a friend who wasn't aware of his shadow once, and interrupted a putt. I know the guy, and it was an accident. Besides that, I have never seen a purposeful intent to distract other golfers in any setting. I just do not see this happening, and thus it doesn't need to be a rule. If it was a rule, it would be impossible to write in a clear, concise, and fair way. 

[Ruler]

2 hours ago, Ruler said:

Indeed it can be but that cannot be an obstacle for making an act a breach. At least it has not been so far.

 

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

Actually it has. 

There are many Rules where intent is the key, such as deliberately or accidentally deflecting / stopping a moving ball, or putting a ball in play, or starting a hole. Maybe you will explain to me what you meant with your comment as I do not understand it.

 

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

Also, I have never run into someone who is purposely trying to distract golfers during their golf swing. I had a friend who wasn't aware of his shadow once, and interrupted a putt. I know the guy, and it was an accident. Besides that, I have never seen a purposeful intent to distract other golfers in any setting. I just do not see this happening, and thus it doesn't need to be a rule. If it was a rule, it would be impossible to write in a clear, concise, and fair way. 

Nor have I ran into such a person (have heard of some such individuals, though...)  but this is simply a discussion about potential need for such a Rule. I have not yet seen anything that could have been classified as serious misconduct either but here we are, there is a separate sub-rule to deal with it as well as a tool for the Committee to deal with minor misconducts as well. Apparently there has been a need for it.

 

2 hours ago, ncates00 said:

Why should a golf tournament be different from any other sport with regards to a little bit of needling and trash-talking? Did you not play other competitive sports growing up? People talk all the time. It’s part of competition. 

Are you seriously comparing sports like football, ice hockey, basket ball or soccer with golf?? Sports where players try to do as much wrong as they can without being detected??

Yes, I have played all most common sports and many of them on a competitive level, and there are sports in which players respect the opponent(s) and only concentrate on their own performance (snooker, pool, tennis, table tennis, etc.) and then there are those in which you try to shake your opponent(s) with anything you can. Golf belongs to the former and I cannot imagine one competitor trying to verbally shake another, that just does not belong to competitive golf. You can exercise it among your pals and we do that as well but never ever in a competition.

[ncates00]

19 minutes ago, Ruler said:

Sports where players try to do as much wrong as they can without being detected??

I never said this. You’ve created a strawman. Think harder about what the topic of discussion is. 

 

19 minutes ago, Ruler said:

there are sports in which players respect the opponent(s)

This is a faulty assumption. You’re assuming that a little bit of trash-talking is disrespectful. It need not be. In fact, most people only talk to others deemed worthy of the talk to begin with. Therefore, there may be respect. For instance, I talk smack with buddies in large part because I respect them and know they won’t take it personally, something you apparently don’t understand. 

 

19 minutes ago, Ruler said:

Golf belongs to the former and I cannot imagine one competitor trying to verbally shake another

This makes me question everything you said about you playing other sports competitively. Just because you think golf is different doesn’t mean it is or that others agree with you.
 

19 minutes ago, Ruler said:

we do that as well but never ever in a competition.

Ok? So what? Others do. People talk 💩. If you really think someone saying something as simple as the OP discussed, you need to toughen up. I’ve already conceded that if the behavior occurs during your swing that I agree with you. However, mere statements as the foregoing are negligible. As I said: ask them to stop or, again, toughen up. 

Edited August 9, 2021 by ncates00

[NM Golf]

On 8/6/2021 at 3:03 PM, reidsou said:

Others compared this to trash talk in football or basketball. But golf is an individual sport. The rules correspondingly specify "the spirit of the game" and "showing consideration to other players", which includes "not distracting" them. 

I agree this one incident is not "serious misconduct". But if, as described, the same player is continually attempting to distract others, then that is against the spirit of the game. A committee code of conduct (rule 1.2b) could address. 

Individual results should not be dependent on avoiding being paired with "dick move" players. 

OK...you use the word "distract", someone could only distract me if they made loud sounds or moved while I am swinging. Doing something like that on purpose would definitely be serious misconduct.

Saying something to "get in my head" is not distracting. If you let some clown put thoughts in your head prior to you hitting a shot I say you are just weak-minded. I mean get real, you want the committee to penalize or DQ a guy because he tells you you have a bad lie or to watch out for that OB down the right? Put your big boy pants on when he tries that and stripe it down the middle. I guarantee that will close his mouth faster than tattling on him to the rules committee. 

[reidsou]

5 hours ago, NM Golf said:

Saying something to "get in my head" is not distracting. If you let some clown put thoughts in your head prior to you hitting a shot I say you are just weak-minded. I mean get real, you want the committee to penalize or DQ a guy because he tells you you have a bad lie or to watch out for that OB down the right? Put your big boy pants on when he tries that and stripe it down the middle. I guarantee that will close his mouth faster than tattling on him to the rules committee. 

The OP alleged that the "clown's"  behavior was intentional and chronic. Implied that others also found it annoying. If so, then members may decide not to tolerate it. 

I haven't had this experience. But I have experienced friction from a competitor who did not like to report his correct score or follow the rules. So much so in one case that another member of our foursome walked off the course, rather than finish the round. I finished the round, but it was a bad experience. Turned out the player had been irritating other club members for years, but no one had done anything about it. 

It's not always appropriate to "put your big boy pants on" and ignore it. Sometimes behavior that violates the spirit of the game should be addressed. 

[ncates00]

15 minutes ago, reidsou said:

a competitor who did not like to report his correct score or follow the rules.

That’s different. 

[NM Golf]

17 hours ago, reidsou said:

The OP alleged that the "clown's"  behavior was intentional and chronic. Implied that others also found it annoying. If so, then members may decide not to tolerate it. 

Best way to deal with that could also be to ask him to stop. I once told a guy to stop talking to my ball when it was in the air just because it was annoying as hell. 

17 hours ago, reidsou said:

I haven't had this experience. But I have experienced friction from a competitor who did not like to report his correct score or follow the rules. So much so in one case that another member of our foursome walked off the course, rather than finish the round. I finished the round, but it was a bad experience. Turned out the player had been irritating other club members for years, but no one had done anything about it. 

C'mon man, not even close to the same thing. Reporting the wrong score and cheating are totally different from commenting on someone's lie or their shot before they hit it. 

17 hours ago, reidsou said:

It's not always appropriate to "put your big boy pants on" and ignore it. Sometimes behavior that violates the spirit of the game should be addressed. 

Spirit of the game is a tough thing to prove. Talking a little shit, as far as I am concerned, IS part of the game. At least in the groups I play in it is.

[Ruler]

34 minutes ago, NM Golf said:

Spirit of the game is a tough thing to prove. Talking a little shit, as far as I am concerned, IS part of the game. At least in the groups I play in it is.

Spirit of the game may be hard to prove for a person who has not understood it, or to say it better, has not embraced it.

Talking a little s**t may be ok in your group but in a seriously taken competition among strangers that just might not be ok. The way I see this game of golf is that you let the others do their things when it is their turn to play and it is not my place to comment on how difficult situation they have at hand. Apparently you and I have a different view on this and that is just fine, it is a question of opinion. Until the referee steps in, when it is a question of his/her opinion and no longer ours...

[saevel25]

On 8/9/2021 at 11:21 AM, Ruler said:

Nor have I ran into such a person (have heard of some such individuals, though...)  but this is simply a discussion about potential need for such a Rule. I have not yet seen anything that could have been classified as serious misconduct either but here we are, there is a separate sub-rule to deal with it as well as a tool for the Committee to deal with minor misconducts as well. Apparently there has been a need for it.

There is no need to make up a rule for something that happens in less than 1% of all golf matches. Maybe less than .5% of golf matches. 

No, apparently there isn't a need for it. 

18 hours ago, reidsou said:

But I have experienced friction from a competitor who did not like to report his correct score or follow the rules. So much so in one case that another member of our foursome walked off the course, rather than finish the round.

That is more serious breach then being annoying. That is actually cheating. 

9 minutes ago, Ruler said:

The way I see this game of golf is that you let the others do their things when it is their turn to play and it is not my place to comment on how difficult situation they have at hand. Apparently you and I have a different view on this and that is just fine, it is a question of opinion. Until the referee steps in, when it is a question of his/her opinion and no longer ours...

No, but some people are chatty. Just because someone said something doesn't mean that it was in the intent to distract. I feel like of the people who are actually annoying, a VERY SMALL subset of them do it on purpose. 

There is no need for a rule because there is no major issue here. Also, the rule would be horrible to enforce or even create. 

 

[mcanadiens]

You just can't really enforce a rule about this sort of thing. 

Playing competitive golf, it is simply a hazard of the game that you might get matched up with a world-class horse's ass. Being able to cope with that guy is an important ability to your success in the competition.

For us non-competitive types, it is a lot easier. I just don't play with guys like that.

 

[Ruler]

30 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

There is no need to make up a rule for something that happens in less than 1% of all golf matches. Maybe less than .5% of golf matches. 

There are Rules that I have never even heard having been invoked/breached. Yet they have been included in the Rules of Golf. 

[iacas]

We are pretty far astray at this point. Back on topic please.

[Hardluckster]

Years ago, in a small local 2 day tourney, I was playing in the final 3-person grouping in our flight. When we get to the 16th tee, my competitor announces that “the last 3 holes are all in your head” (the two of us were even at this point and we were fairly certain the two of us are battling for first place unless someone else had had a miraculous round).

His intent was clear. Everyone there knew that he was trying to “rattle my cage”.

Long story short, I beat him by 3 strokes over the last 3 holes and won the flight.

Whenever I play with him now (whether casual or otherwise), on the 16th tee I always announce that “the last 3 holes are all in your head”. 😂

That’s how you deal with trash talk, imo. 

[boogielicious]

9 hours ago, Hardluckster said:

Years ago, in a small local 2 day tourney, I was playing in the final 3-person grouping in our flight. When we get to the 16th tee, my competitor announces that “the last 3 holes are all in your head” (the two of us were even at this point and we were fairly certain the two of us are battling for first place unless someone else had had a miraculous round).

His intent was clear. Everyone there knew that he was trying to “rattle my cage”.

Long story short, I beat him by 3 strokes over the last 3 holes and won the flight.

Whenever I play with him now (whether casual or otherwise), on the 16th tee I always announce that “the last 3 holes are all in your head”. 😂

That’s how you deal with trash talk, imo. 

The same thing happened to me in my first golf league. I was in the final group and they kept trash talking and discussing how hard certain holes were. I had my best 9 hole round of the year and won first place. They didn’t talk after that!

[Ruler]

16 hours ago, Hardluckster said:

Years ago, in a small local 2 day tourney, I was playing in the final 3-person grouping in our flight. When we get to the 16th tee, my competitor announces that “the last 3 holes are all in your head” (the two of us were even at this point and we were fairly certain the two of us are battling for first place unless someone else had had a miraculous round).

His intent was clear. Everyone there knew that he was trying to “rattle my cage”.

Long story short, I beat him by 3 strokes over the last 3 holes and won the flight.

Whenever I play with him now (whether casual or otherwise), on the 16th tee I always announce that “the last 3 holes are all in your head”. 😂

That’s how you deal with trash talk, imo. 

By talking trash yourself? That is certainly one way but is it the right way?

[Hardluckster]

4 hours ago, Ruler said:

By talking trash yourself? That is certainly one way but is it the right way?

You get what you give, usually.

 Seriously, though, it isn’t so much trash talking as it is a reminder to him of that day  years ago. He almost always laughs when I bring it up and, since he’s a talker, he almost always recounts the event to the others in our playing group.

We are friends, you see. He was just trying to rattle my cage that day and it didn’t work. I refuse to give others power over me that they don’t deserve.