Do you get mad at the golf course?

[ghalfaire]

Well when I began playing many years ago I had a bad temper and did wrap a 9 iron around a poor tree that didn't do anything wrong.  It suddenly came to me that I was golfing for fun and If not enjoying it why play?  So I quit golf for about 10 years, a significant hiatus in which I never touched a club.  When I did start playing again a few years ago I had a more realistic attitude about what my goals were and why I play.  So I still get frustrated and even angry when "I am such a stupid".  I don't however upset my foursome by losing my temper and being an A$$.  I just walk it off before I hit the next shot.  I enjoy the game, I take lessons to "be the best I can be", and recognize that "golf is not a game of perfect", and most of all I have fun even when I'm off my game.

[caniac6]

Well when I began playing many years ago I had a bad temper and did wrap a 9 iron around a poor tree that didn't do anything wrong.  It suddenly came to me that I was golfing for fun and If not enjoying it why play?  So I quit golf for about 10 years, a significant hiatus in which I never touched a club.  When I did start playing again a few years ago I had a more realistic attitude about what my goals were and why I play.  So I still get frustrated and even angry when "I am such a stupid".  I don't however upset my foursome by losing my temper and being an A$$.  I just walk it off before I hit the next shot.  I enjoy the game, I take lessons to "be the best I can be", and recognize that "golf is not a game of perfect", and most of all I have fun even when I'm off my game.

I feel about the same as you do. If I'm not having fun, I won't play. I recognize that I will play bad golf, so the occasional bad round doesn't bother me. A guy once told me"if you don't want to play bad, don't play". About the only thing that bothers me is slow play.

[WUTiger]

"Fancy" golf holes that are starting to fall apart get me riled up. ...

• Large wrap-around greenside bunkers, built on a 45* angle, that are starting to erode, and have sand washout after two days of rain. Why not just make a raised bank beside the green and have a fairly flat bunker 3 feet below the putting surface? Much easier to maintain, unless you're charging $300 a round.
• Mesh matting around fairway sideboards that comes loose and traps the ball underneath - you have to pull it up to get your ball. (I hope the greens crew isn't looking!)
• Three-tiered greens where the middle level has settled poorly, and traps casual water whenever it rains for more than 15 minutes.
• Fairway bunkers lining the shortest - and lowest elevation - landing area on the course. These fill up with water, and create a perpetual bog in bunker-land. Just skip the bunkers - then you won't have to remove them and redo fairway drainage during Year 8 of the course.

[Dave2512]

I get frustrated with the management at a few courses. Couple reasons some don't enforce the policies and it leads to customers abusing the course and some are idiotic with hole placement. Love my home course but there are two holes where the placements are always the same two areas. As a result those greens look like the moon. short par 4's that get hammered. Some of it is bad design if the holes were anywhere else it would be tougher than it is, both hole have cupcake shaped greens. Problem is it can affect score due to bouncing the ball over all the improperly repaired pitch marks. Sand would be the problem I see at most courses. It's inconsistent and poorly maintained. My wedges are thrashed in about a year. Grooves are still good but the pits from rocks destroy them. But I never get mad at the course for playing bad golf. I am the only swinging the club. The only thing that makes me mad on the course is getting there and the office blowing up my phone to the point I can't focus on golf.

[Fourputt]

Come on really? I thought all the courses in Florida were supposed to be nice and well maintened, just the fact that the great weather there year around.

Here in Denver most of the courses I play the courses are in great condition. I pay an average of around $50 + cart fees.

Shhhh!!!  We don't want all of those Floridians to come running to Colorado and clogging up our courses.  The general quality of Colorado golf seems to be a well kept secret outside of the state, and that isn't a bad thing.

[Dave2512]

Most people that come to CO to golf stick the mountain and resort courses. But I doubt most realize how many courses are here. I don't remember seeing as many courses the couple of times I was in Phoenix. I've got 6 courses within 10 minutes of my home and a few more just beyond that.

[Ernest Jones]

Is the question, "Do you get mad 'at the golf course'" or is it, "Do you get mad at the 'the golf course'"?

[Rick Martin]

Come on really? I thought all the courses in Florida were supposed to be nice and well maintened, just the fact that the great weather there year around.

Here in Denver most of the courses I play the courses are in great condition. I pay an average of around $50 + cart fees.

What happened to the days of $20-30 fees including cart?  Game is pricing players out of the sport - one reason why I took up tennis again.  Would like to find a decent course where you can walk, play year round, have decent course conditions, and enjoyable but challenging courses.

[Dave2512]

What happened to the days of $20-30 fees including cart?  Game is pricing players out of the sport - one reason why I took up tennis again.  Would like to find a decent course where you can walk, play year round, have decent course conditions, and enjoyable but challenging courses.

I live in CO, native actually, $50 is more than I ever pay. Don't even pay that as a guest at my parents private club. There are certainly courses with fees well in excess of that in the area but not necessary to pay that much. The course I am playing today was once a private club and it's very nice. With my member discount twilight rate is $20/18 with gps cart and unlimited range time for the day. Even if I buy a sixer of canned beer it will be less than $40 with tip. Thankfully they have coolers on the carts.

[MS256]

What happened to the days of $20-30 fees including cart?  Game is pricing players out of the sport - one reason why I took up tennis again.  Would like to find a decent course where you can walk, play year round, have decent course conditions, and enjoyable but challenging courses.

The same thing that happened to $1.50 gas and diesel used to run equipment and the 40% less cost for just about every product that a course needs from fertilizer to cart batteries.

If anything many courses are keeping greens fees at an artificially low rate in their effort to increase play. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

I was with a couple of course owners yesterday and it is interesting to hear them talk about costs that most of us don't even think about. They were talking about how the pro-shop used to make enough profit to help keep greens fees lower. People would pay for a round and almost always spend a few bucks in the pro-shop. Their pro-shops now are doing so much less volume that they raised the greens fees by $2 to make up for it.. One of them was also lamenting that the club companies are "coming out with the newest driver so often". He said he hated to even buy drivers to put in the pro-shop because if they don't sell right away he takes a big loss once the next driver comes out.

[Mizuno1]

I never get mad at the golf course!  Unless of course its not being maintained well and costs me strokes.  I do however get upset with myself when I play poorly.  However, I can handle a couple double bogeys and just try to make up for them.  Its the triples and back to back to back doubles that get to me.  I don't do much when I get frustrated I just usually ditch the score card and then focus on practice.  Ive never yelled, thrown a club, slammed one in the bag, smashed the ground.  None of that, I simply just get frustrated.  Usually results in a day or two break from anything related to golf, then I practice a lot to try to get better and work through whatever was causing my poor round.

[Gerald Fritz]

My biggest and only agravation factor is, the men's club at my local course. They take the best tee times, almost all day, then play little choose up's every time , and now they travel as a pack to one ball at a time standing behind it stroking each other off, then make a crap shot, then repeat again down the hole 3 more times. Saturday I play a "fun round " in a lighting quick 5 hrs. 10mins. Clubhouse response.....they are the reason the course is in business. Yeah I get mad enough to hit someone when clowns like this are ruining a good day of golf.

Were you playing by yourself when it took 5 hrs and 10 min. If so that just blows my mind that you would get held up. Jeez, just let you play through. Last time I played alone, I finished 18 holes in about 1 hr 50 min.

[Hitman]

We where a threesome and they refuse to let anyone play through, its a group of 5-6 foursomes on the course together. I guess if one thing has happened since I originally posted this reply is that all the paying players  , ones who pay top rate quit going there and that course has since closed , big over grown field  , bad for all but that bunch of clowns has broken up because most hate driving to other courses.

[rkim291968]

We where a threesome and they refuse to let anyone play through, its a group of 5-6 foursomes on the course together. I guess if one thing has happened since I originally posted this reply is that all the paying players  , ones who pay top rate quit going there and that course has since closed , big over grown field  , bad for all but that bunch of clowns has broken up because most hate driving to other courses.

It's off topic but ... if there were 5 - 6 fourssomes in front of you, a 3-some should not expect to be played through.   It will cause ripple effect and delay the game for everyone else. Hell, on a busy weekend when the course is full, even a single or two-some will not be passed through and most single & two-some understand that.   In fact, starter will wait to pair up a single with others.   Of course, if course is sparse, regardless of how many are in a group, a slower group should consider letting a faster group pass through.

To OP, I don't get mad at the course.  In general, I get what I paid for and try to play at a course where marshals and starter do their job.   I mostly get mad at myself.

[Gerald Fritz]

I used to get very angry when I was younger (early 20s), used to hit my club into the ground, etc. Now if I hit a really bad shot and get really frustrated about it, I will just tell my buddy to take the cart and I will walk to my ball (Cursing the entire time until I find my ball, and then cursing more when I see how horrible of a lie I have once I find it in the trees.) But thats about the extent of me getting angry now. I used to have a big anger problem growing up and actually think that golf has helped me keep things under control.

Have definitely had the urge to break a club over my knee though. Luckily I have regained my composure before I did it. If I broke a club I spent good money on, I would seriously start crying like a small child.

[amac]

If you don't get frustrated, you aren't trying hard enough!  Or, you score an 18 every time - perfect hole-outs on each hole.  I've come a long ways in my anger and frustration at the course.  I no longer get animated (scream out loud, throw clubs and or openly cuss myself out), but will simply comment on what a bad shot I've hit, then move on.  It's very difficult to hold in, but I've decided that my weekend golf isn't life or death.  It's just golf.  I was coming home in bad moods after  bad days on the golf course and taking my frustrations out on the rest of the family.  I realized something had to give.  What's more, bad temper leads to bad swings, which leads to bad scores, which only exasperates the problem.  I've found that letting it go opens up possibilities for salvaging a good day.

The true frustration comes from the course condition.  My course has horrible sand traps.  About 80% of the traps have little to no sand.  The typical lie is sitting up on wet-like dirt.  The club will not dig and your ball is going to shoot across the green - into another bunker.  If that's not bad enough, the bunkers seem to stop the ball up against the lip whenever a ball runs in.  Stymie every time!  It's very frustrating and I try hard to accept my fate when I've hit a ball into a bunker.  Bad lie's can be avoided by hitting better shots.  That's my message to self.

[cfritchie]

Well....I've never killed anyone....yet

[Gerald Fritz]

Well....I've never killed anyone....yet

Well tomorrow is only April 1.....and it is still a long season lol. Just make sure you hide the body well, and have an alibi.