How do you overcome the 'complainer'?

[paininthenuts]

17 minutes ago, mcanadiens said:

I can admit that I am the nightmare. It's something I've worked on a lot and progress has been made, but there's a lot left to go.

 For what it's worth, I've noticed the following things. 1) I get far more angry playing alone than when I play with anyone. 2) Certain people tend to aggravate me and other people have a calming effect.

Playing with the right people is important for me.

I occasionally play with a very good player with a bad attitude when he makes mistakes. It gives me immense pleasure winding him up when things aren't going right. This in turn makes him more angry, and his golf gets worse. You see, if I have any chance of winning the game I will take it. 

[Missouri Swede]

20 hours ago, Fairway_CY said:

How would you handle a situation like that?  It happens more often than I'd like and being prepared for it may help me a little in the future.

Ask him if he inhales or exhales during his swing. 

Joke. Probably wouldn't help other than to throw fuel on the fire. 

11 minutes ago, mcanadiens said:

I can admit that I am the nightmare. It's something I've worked on a lot and progress has been made, but there's a lot left to go.

 For what it's worth, I've noticed the following things. 1) I get far more angry playing alone than when I play with anyone. 2) Certain people tend to aggravate me and other people have a calming effect.

Playing with the right people is important for me.

Trying to become one of those "right people" is the challenge, sometimes.

[mcanadiens]

3 minutes ago, Missouri Swede said:

Trying to become one of those "right people" is the challenge, sometimes.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but, who knows, maybe some day.

[tdiii]

45 minutes ago, mcanadiens said:

Rome wasn't built in a day, but, who knows, maybe some day.

You're livelihood doesn't depend on it.  Time to grow up. 

[mcanadiens]

22 minutes ago, tdiii said:

You're livelihood doesn't depend on it.  Time to grow up. 

Sure it does. You think I only get angry when I play golf?

[tdiii]

11 minutes ago, mcanadiens said:

Sure it does. You think I only get angry when I play golf?

It really doesn't matter to me when you get angry, as long as you don't do so on the golf course.  Which is childish and selfish, to the extent you act out and disrupt others' enjoyment of their game.  One is allowed to melt down.  One is not allowed to carry on. 

Edited June 15, 2016 by tdiii

[mcanadiens]

23 minutes ago, tdiii said:

It really doesn't matter to me when you get angry, as long as you don't do so on the golf course.  Which is childish and selfish, to the extent you act out and disrupt others' enjoyment of their game.  One is allowed to meltdown.  One is not allowed to carry on. 

A meltdown with no anger? Interesting concept.

Suffice to say, I'm working to avoid both melting-down and carrying on.

[tdiii]

50 minutes ago, mcanadiens said:

A meltdown with no anger? Interesting concept.

Suffice to say, I'm working to avoid both melting-down and carrying on.

I'm being hard on you with the hope the message gets through as to how miserable it is for others to be around you -- I'm assuming you act as my friend acts.  There is nothing wrong, in the veiw of almost everyone, with a loud curse (or two) followed by a laugh.  Even a club spiking, if followed with self-deprecating comments and a good nature.  It is the carrying on that gets to others. 

Kudos to you for at least acknowledging the behavior (or is it "behaviour", because your Canadian?) is poor and working to improve.  Really, I mean it. 

If you knew that at the end of a round a check for $10,000,000 was waiting for you -- but you had to behave well for the whole round -- you'd find a way to not act out.  That shows you are making a choice.  Make a better choice.

Good luck and have fun out there!!

[xcott]

The people with 100k or 1m on the line don't throw temper tantrums on the course when they struggle. Maybe there is a correlation with better play and attitude.

[Lihu]

12 minutes ago, xcott said:

The people with 100k or 1m on the line don't throw temper tantrums on the course when they struggle. Maybe there is a correlation with better play and attitude.

There's some truth to this statement. Most people get angry after hitting a bad full shot, and the better you get the more subtle the badness of the shot, I guess.

Unless, you're all wound up with having a low score. Then you're in trouble.

On 6/14/2016 at 0:48 PM, Fairway_CY said:

Within the group I play with, there is a 'crew' of 4 guys (including myself) that consider ourselves pretty good friends (at least as good of friends as you can find that you only see on the golf course).  We enjoy (for the most part) when we get paired together during our tournaments.  There is 1 guy, however, that just doesn't seem to be aware of his surroundings.  

First off... if you're on the course for 5 hours (pretty typical for a tournament round with this group) with him... his mouth is going the entire time.  He doesn't have an off switch.  That's bad enough... but can be pretty entertaining when things aren't going poorly for him.  That said, if he's having a rough go of it... he's miserable to be around.  

Because pairings are often done by last name and he and are very close on that list, I get paired with him more often than I'd like.  I've grown to accept most of his, ummmmm... intricacies, but when he goes off, it gets a little ridiculous.  

For example, we played together yesterday.  He had a stretch of 4 holes where I couldn't take it.  We were in a cart together and the only thing I could think to do was let him go off.  I stopped speaking to him by the second of the holes during this stretch.  He hit a shot into a hazard and instead of taking the drop and stroke... he decided to try and hack it out.  This resulted in the ball remaining in the hazard.  He then exploded into a tirade about how unfair that hazard is.  He flubbed his shot from there into a bunker and this set him off further.  2 holes later, he and I had similar distance pitch shots... his from the fairway and mine from the rough.  I went first and played a really good shot that hit the fringe and then rolled out to about 2 feet.  His hit the green and checked.  He complained about how unfair that was when it was obvious (to me) that he was going to get more spin on his shot simply because of the lie he had.  The last straw came on the next hole where he hit his ball from a jumpy lie in the rough and it carried beyond the green and landed in some plants.  He wanted to talk to the groundskeeper to chew him out about these plants because his ball was unplayable.  He spent the next 3 minutes around the green stomping, throwing clubs, yelling at the ground and slamming the pin into the hole... then the following 5 minutes until we were able to tee off on the next hole just being miserable.  

I walked away on that tee while we were waiting.  I checked my phone to see if my kids had messaged me and then walked down towards the pond to see if there were any turtles around.  Beyond that... I couldn't escape it.  

I'm not the type to tell someone to shut up... but I was close.  How would you handle a situation like that?  It happens more often than I'd like and being prepared for it may help me a little in the future.

CY

Did he verbally assault the Grounds Keeper? Ironically, that was likely not even the Grounds Keeper that planted the plants in question.

[taxgolf]

Poeh, when I started playing golf, I tend to get very happy when I hit a great shot. But when I hit a bad one, and certainly 2 in a row, I started to curse, got angry, might even hit the ground with the club. Then I played with a nice woman, and she adressed my behaviour afterwards. She didn't enjoy the round. told me just to except the outcome of the shot and play on. After you hit it, there is nothing you can do. Basically, I messed up her round. I felt so emberassed and ashamed and made a ton of excuses. I thank her for that lesson every time I play. But I have t admit that I sometimes forget that lesson, mostly when my game is bad. And sometimes after I hit a shot, and they say 'great shot', I answer 'mwah', because to me I felt I hit a bad shot, but the outcome was good. That is like being a bit arrogant. Need to work on that. Just accept and move on.

[mcanadiens]

13 minutes ago, xcott said:

The people with 100k or 1m on the line don't throw temper tantrums on the course when they struggle. Maybe there is a correlation with better play and attitude.

Absolutely no doubt about it. When my temper is at its worst, it's a snowballing effect. One or two bad shots might be shrugged off. When it becomes three, four and five, six is damn near guaranteed.

Hacker that I am, my calmest rounds are -5 strokes to the average. My angriest rounds are +5 or more. 

[xcott]

And the answer is to avoid playing with people like that. Life's too short to let other people ruin a good time by acting like poorly parented children.

[Lihu]

2 minutes ago, mcanadiens said:

Absolutely no doubt about it. When my temper is at its worst, it's a snowballing effect. One or two bad shots might be shrugged off. When it becomes three, four and five, six is damn near guaranteed.

Hacker that I am, my calmest rounds are -5 strokes to the average. My angriest rounds are +5 or more. 

This is kind of reasonable, but the only thing is to limit your anger so you don't make other people uncomfortable.

Let's say, Lyle Alzado, was playing golf with you and missed the ball on one shot then proceeded to take apart his golf cart ripping the wheels off one by one and tossing them into the nearby lake 100 yards away. Would you feel a little uncomfortable, and possibly a little bit nervous? Well, that's probably the effect you are having on your playing partners.

[xcott]

To be fair, the fact that Lyle Alzado came back from the dead would likely be the most uncomfortable part.

[mcanadiens]

Just now, Lihu said:

This is kind of reasonable, but the only thing is to limit your anger so you don't make other people uncomfortable.

Let's say, Lyle Alzado, was playing golf with you and missed the ball on one shot then proceeded to take apart his golf cart ripping the wheels off one by one and tossing them into the nearby lake 100 yards away. Would you feel a little uncomfortable, and possibly a little bit nervous? Well, that's probably the effect you are having on your playing partners.

Like I said previously. that' is understood.

[Lihu]

2 minutes ago, xcott said:

To be fair, the fact that Lyle Alzado came back from the dead would likely be the most uncomfortable part.

 

[Fairway_CY]

18 minutes ago, Lihu said:

There's some truth to this statement. Most people get angry after hitting a bad full shot, and the better you get the more subtle the badness of the shot, I guess.

Unless, you're all wound up with having a low score. Then you're in trouble.

Did he verbally assault the Grounds Keeper? Ironically, that was likely not even the Grounds Keeper that planted the plants in question.

LOL - No... he never saw the groundskeeper.  It was just one of those things that you could tell he was on full tilt.  

Unfortunately, it's not as easy as not playing with him or anything.  First... the pairings are made by the director.  I don't want to put a request to not play with someone and add more to his plate.  Second... I genuinely like the guy I mentioned in the initial post, it's just that he went a little overboard that day.  

There are guys like that who I've been paired with during casual rounds and I'll simply excuse myself and leave.  I'd rather not play than be around someone like that.  During tournaments, however, it makes it a little tougher because I'm there to compete.  Watching someone throw an absolute temper tantrum is obviously no fun, but I'm getting used to it because he's not the first guy I've watched go off like that in tournament play.  

I think it boils down to respect.  There's a lot of that word thrown around but I don't think it sticks to many people.  I treat every person on the course how I'd want to be treated.  I've played downright horribly (I shot 117 in my first tournament of this season) and just let it roll off my back rather than letting it snowball.  That's my personality though, and I understand that others deal with things differently.  

I was just hoping there was a magic key someone had to help me deal with it the next time it comes up... plus, I was venting a little to you guys.  So... I guess now that I've got it off my chest, I can move on.  



CY