Withdrew during a club championship tournament ...

[Golfingdad]

9 minutes ago, 14ledo81 said:

While I agree the analogy does not 100% work for the winning side, I do believe it works to match the mindset of the loser.

Gotcha.  Yes, I would agree with that.

[Lihu]

On 10/9/2016 at 1:07 PM, rkim291968 said:

I was in the year ending two day club championship tournament.  One of the foursome since hole #1 has been talking loud about anything and everything.  He'd only stop talking just before someone/he takes a swing.    It bothered me and my partner a bit but we played on.   Then, after 5th or 6th hole, he started talking about politics as if we all had same view as he has (about Obama, Trump, Hilary).   My cart partner finally told him that his body gets tighten up if people are talking politics.   The guy didn't get the hint.   He kept on talking.   On that same hole, I hit an OB.   A friend who was waiting behind my group asked me how things are going and I made a joke about the guy talking about politics ("I was doing fine until XYZ start talking about politics").   As soon as I told the joke, the guy got really upset and told me that it was my fault that I hit an OB and he can talk about anything he can.   What?   It was a joke, dude.   I wasn't even upset as I have no realistic chance at winning the tournament.  He was joking, and talking all this time and all of sudden, he got upset at me for a joke?  On the next hole, I hit another OB and called it a day.   It was too awkward for me to continue playing with this guy.   As I walked away from the field, the other two golfers shook hands with me but the guy in question was walking away to hit his 2nd ball.   Oh, well.   

One of my yearly partners has an annoying deep voice that spouts out all kinds of subjects, and has this annoying habit of driving the cart around in a hapless manner taking a really long time to find balls. I just let him do his thing and pretty much ignore what he says. At any given point, he might ask me a question, and I never hear anything leading up to the question. I just ask him "I didn't get the part..." from something like 5 minutes ago, and ask him to repeat it. That's generally when my other partners whack me with their clubs.

So, I think you should partner up randomly with lots of people on different courses at least twice a week then play with your wife and regulars the other two days in order to build up some "immunity" to obnoxious partners. Seriously, you're retired, why do you care if someone talks about Trump or Clinton? Just laugh it off. It's not worth ruining a tournament round much less any other round.

[Pretzel]

2 hours ago, 14ledo81 said:

To those who are fine with the quitting, would you be fine with the PGA pros quitting as soon as they realize they are not going to make the cut?

I couldn't care less if the people at the bottom of the leaderboard decided to quit after day one. In fact, you see it happen in many tournaments at the upper amateur level, where a player had a bad day one and decides to withdraw rather than post their score or play a second day. I don't think less of them because of it, because I know it means they played poorly and want to spend their time more productively than grinding out a second day of the tournament. 

 

16 hours ago, Fourputt said:

No, but I can express my low opinion of their failing to live up to their commitment.  It's bad sportsmanship, pure and simple.

I wholeheartedly disagree, simply because neither you nor I know exactly what happened. You may express your opinion, I grant you that, but it isn't poor sportsmanship.

I have withdrawn from a tournament before due to harassment, but it was from a fellow competitor's caddy rather than a fellow competitor himself. The caddy was rather obnoxious through the entire round, telling his player to "listen to the pro here", "don't be a f***ing idiot", and going ballistic when you would dare to step over (not on) the line of his player rather than walk far out of the way to go around. I drew the line after two incidents, however.

The first incident came up on the 17th hole when his player hit his golf ball into an area marked as an "environmentally sensitive area". Anyone familiar with ESA local rules knows that they are typically marked with green-tipped red stakes and you cannot enter them to play or retrieve your golf ball under any circumstances. As I'm walking towards the green I see the caddy telling his player, "I see the ball, go over and play it so you don't have to go back around and drop." Upon both the third player in the group and I reminding him that he isn't allowed to enter the ESA or play out of it, this guy absolutely loses it. He starts swearing heavily at both the third player and I about how, "It's a f***ing hazard, you can play out of a f***ing hazard you little s***s! What the f*** are you trying to pull here?" and so on. His player, meanwhile, has already began to walk back around to take his drop (turns out he was actually arguing with the caddy over it while walking up to his ball, because the player knew he had to go back and drop). It takes at least fifteen minutes to get this guy to calm down and accept that the paper handed out at the first tee, which clearly states that you cannot play out of an ESA, really does contain the local rule and that the local rule itself is valid. Wasn't the first time he got ridiculously upset, but it was definitely the worst of the round.

What crossed the line for me happened on the 18th tee box, after we thought we had gotten this caddy to cool off. To provide some background, on the 15th hole I had hit a ball near a transition from hazard to OB on the hole. After consulting both fellow competitors, we had determined that the trajectory of my golf ball would have placed it in the hazard when it came to rest, so I took a drop accordingly and proceeded with the rest of the hole. On the 18th tee box this caddy, dragging his player (my marker) behind him, marches up to me and announces that I will be disqualified for incorrectly taking the penalty for an OB ball on hole 15. Upon mentioning that the group had agreed my ball was in the hazard the caddy just tells me that both he and the player agreed (the player looks like he's trying to hide at this point) that it was definitely out of bounds, and that I wasn't entitled to a drop where it crossed the line as a result and would be disqualified for improper procedure. Nevermind the fact that it's actually only a 2 stroke penalty if that had, indeed, been a case of improper procedure.

That was where I drew the line. I knew that I was set to shoot a near identical score to the player who had this caddy, and all signs were pointing to me playing with him and his caddy from hell again the next day (his parents had paid to fly the caddy up from Florida according to the guy's boasting, so it seemed apparent the kid couldn't choose not to use him as a caddy). I wasn't going to deal with this guy for another round, and I didn't want to deal with him and the rules officials at the scoring tent later. When I had brought up his inappropriate behavior with a rules official earlier in the round it was waved off because a "licensed PGA professional would never do something like that". It was clear the tournament was going to take his word over the third player's and mine, and that the guy would take up a good chunk of my time complaining to the tournament committee and trying to get me disqualified or penalized when I shouldn't have been. When he did that I just walked straight from the 18th tee back to my car. I readily admit that I pettily walked right down the middle of the fairway to prevent them from teeing off until I was clear, but I honestly didn't care at that point.

Was I displaying poor sportsmanship for walking off in the middle of the round like that? You seem to think so, but I honestly don't care what you think. That round of golf was absolutely miserable for me and it reached a breaking point when that @$$ wanted to retaliate at me for telling him his player had to drop. I would've been stuck with him for a second day in a row, assuming the rules officials didn't just take his word for it that the penalty was a DQ instead of a 2 stroke penalty, and I was more than fed up with it. I had already tried to get the rules officials involved to no avail, and I wasn't going to ruin my weekend by spending another minute with that guy. If that's poor sportmanship, than I am proudly a poor sport because I see no fault in what I did (other than holding up the third player in our group from teeing off on hole 18, that was petty). 

The silver lining in that story was that after my very long complaint to the organization hosting the tournament, which was verified by the third player in the group, that caddy was banned from their tournament grounds for life for his behavior. I feel bad for the player who he was caddying for (the player was a nice guy and apologized to me for the caddy's behavior at a later tournament), since his parents appeared to be forcing the caddy on him, and I was glad to see they didn't penalize the player and instead went directly after the problem.

TLDR: Player's caddy is a real nutcase, I walk off in the middle of the round instead of playing with them again the next day. I see zero fault with what I did and I challenge you to justify it as being poor sportsmanship.

That's why I hold the opinion on this matter that I hold. I've been there, where the company I'm with is completely unbearable to the point of being downright hostile. It's not poor sportsmanship to walk away from something like that. We don't know the details of this matter, so unless you were there I'd have a hard time believing you can make an accurate judgement of sportsmanship in that situation.

[newtogolf]

10 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

I couldn't care less if the people at the bottom of the leaderboard decided to quit after day one. In fact, you see it happen in many tournaments at the upper amateur level, where a player had a bad day one and decides to withdraw rather than post their score or play a second day. I don't think less of them because of it, because I know it means they played poorly and want to spend their time more productively than grinding out a second day of the tournament. 

I have withdrawn from a tournament before due to harassment, but it was from a fellow competitor's caddy rather than a fellow competitor himself. The caddy was rather obnoxious through the entire round, telling his player to "listen to the pro here", "don't be a f***ing idiot", and going ballistic when you would dare to step over (not on) the line of his player rather than walk far out of the way to go around. I drew the line after two incidents, however.

The first incident came up on the 17th hole when his player hit his golf ball into an area marked as an "environmentally sensitive area". Anyone familiar with ESA local rules knows that they are typically marked with green-tipped red stakes and you cannot enter them to play or retrieve your golf ball under any circumstances. As I'm walking towards the green I see the caddy telling his player, "I see the ball, go over and play it so you don't have to go back around and drop." Upon both the third player in the group and I reminding him that he isn't allowed to enter the ESA or play out of it, this guy absolutely loses it. He starts swearing heavily at both the third player and I about how, "It's a f***ing hazard, you can play out of a f***ing hazard you little s***s! What the f*** are you trying to pull here?" and so on. His player, meanwhile, has already began to walk back around to take his drop (turns out he was actually arguing with the caddy over it while walking up to his ball, because the player knew he had to go back and drop). It takes at least fifteen minutes to get this guy to calm down and accept that the paper handed out at the first tee, which clearly states that you cannot play out of an ESA, really does contain the local rule and that the local rule itself is valid. Wasn't the first time he got ridiculously upset, but it was definitely the worst of the round.

What crossed the line for me happened on the 18th tee box, after we thought we had gotten this caddy to cool off. To provide some background, on the 15th hole I had hit a ball near a transition from hazard to OB on the hole. After consulting both fellow competitors, we had determined that the trajectory of my golf ball would have placed it in the hazard when it came to rest, so I took a drop accordingly and proceeded with the rest of the hole. On the 18th tee box this caddy, dragging his player (my marker) behind him, marches up to me and announces that I will be disqualified for incorrectly taking the penalty for an OB ball on hole 15. Upon mentioning that the group had agreed my ball was in the hazard the caddy just tells me that both he and the player agreed (the player looks like he's trying to hide at this point) that it was definitely out of bounds, and that I wasn't entitled to a drop where it crossed the line as a result and would be disqualified for improper procedure. Nevermind the fact that it's actually only a 2 stroke penalty if that had, indeed, been a case of improper procedure.

That was where I drew the line. I knew that I was set to shoot a near identical score to the player who had this caddy, and all signs were pointing to me playing with him and his caddy from hell again the next day (his parents had paid to fly the caddy up from Florida according to the guy's boasting, so it seemed apparent the kid couldn't choose not to use him as a caddy). I wasn't going to deal with this guy for another round, and I didn't want to deal with him and the rules officials at the scoring tent later. When I had brought up his inappropriate behavior with a rules official earlier in the round it was waved off because a "licensed PGA professional would never do something like that". It was clear the tournament was going to take his word over the third player's and mine, and that the guy would take up a good chunk of my time complaining to the tournament committee and trying to get me disqualified or penalized when I shouldn't have been. When he did that I just walked straight from the 18th tee back to my car. I readily admit that I pettily walked right down the middle of the fairway to prevent them from teeing off until I was clear, but I honestly didn't care at that point.

Was I displaying poor sportsmanship for walking off in the middle of the round like that? You seem to think so, but I honestly don't care what you think. That round of golf was absolutely miserable for me and it reached a breaking point when that @$$ wanted to retaliate at me for telling him his player had to drop. I would've been stuck with him for a second day in a row, assuming the rules officials didn't just take his word for it that the penalty was a DQ instead of a 2 stroke penalty, and I was more than fed up with it. I had already tried to get the rules officials involved to no avail, and I wasn't going to ruin my weekend by spending another minute with that guy. If that's poor sportmanship, than I am proudly a poor sport because I see no fault in what I did (other than holding up the third player in our group from teeing off on hole 18, that was petty). 

The silver lining in that story was that after my very long complaint to the organization hosting the tournament, which was verified by the third player in the group, that caddy was banned from their tournament grounds for life for his behavior. I feel bad for the player who he was caddying for (the player was a nice guy and apologized to me for the caddy's behavior at a later tournament), since his parents appeared to be forcing the caddy on him, and I was glad to see they didn't penalize the player and instead went directly after the problem.

TLDR: Player's caddy is a real nutcase, I walk off in the middle of the round instead of playing with them again the next day. I see zero fault with what I did and I challenge you to justify it as being poor sportsmanship.

That's why I hold the opinion on this matter that I hold. I've been there, where the company I'm with is completely unbearable to the point of being downright hostile. It's not poor sportsmanship to walk away from something like that. We don't know the details of this matter, so unless you were there I'd have a hard time believing you can make an accurate judgement of sportsmanship in that situation.

You may not care, but when a pro withdraws for seemingly no reason (like Rory did, dentist-gate) people do care.  

Everyone is different, maybe it's an age thing.  We all have different tolerances for dealing with obnoxious individuals or uncomfortable situations.  

While I wasn't there, based on your description I'd have never quit and provided the caddie the satisfaction of knowing he got inside my head.  

[Pretzel]

44 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

While I wasn't there, based on your description I'd have never quit and provided the caddie the satisfaction of knowing he got inside my head.  

I dunno, it was pretty satisfying to have quit since it got the caddy banned from tournament grounds and got me my entry fee back, plus a free additional tournament for my trouble. If I had stayed I know there certainly wouldn't have been a refund, and I'd have been less likely to get the last laugh since it "couldn't have been that bad since you stayed there for two days with him". It's a personal thing though, and I just don't value the caddy's thoughts or feelings that highly since a lot of his other thoughts weren't worth the oxygen he used up talking about them, and his feelings ranged from smug to enraged. 

[Golfingdad]

56 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

I couldn't care less if the people at the bottom of the leaderboard decided to quit after day one. In fact, you see it happen in many tournaments at the upper amateur level, where a player had a bad day one and decides to withdraw rather than post their score or play a second day. I don't think less of them because of it, because I know it means they played poorly and want to spend their time more productively than grinding out a second day of the tournament. 

 

I wholeheartedly disagree, simply because neither you nor I know exactly what happened. You may express your opinion, I grant you that, but it isn't poor sportsmanship.

I have withdrawn from a tournament before due to harassment, but it was from a fellow competitor's caddy rather than a fellow competitor himself. The caddy was rather obnoxious through the entire round, telling his player to "listen to the pro here", "don't be a f***ing idiot", and going ballistic when you would dare to step over (not on) the line of his player rather than walk far out of the way to go around. I drew the line after two incidents, however.

The first incident came up on the 17th hole when his player hit his golf ball into an area marked as an "environmentally sensitive area". Anyone familiar with ESA local rules knows that they are typically marked with green-tipped red stakes and you cannot enter them to play or retrieve your golf ball under any circumstances. As I'm walking towards the green I see the caddy telling his player, "I see the ball, go over and play it so you don't have to go back around and drop." Upon both the third player in the group and I reminding him that he isn't allowed to enter the ESA or play out of it, this guy absolutely loses it. He starts swearing heavily at both the third player and I about how, "It's a f***ing hazard, you can play out of a f***ing hazard you little s***s! What the f*** are you trying to pull here?" and so on. His player, meanwhile, has already began to walk back around to take his drop (turns out he was actually arguing with the caddy over it while walking up to his ball, because the player knew he had to go back and drop). It takes at least fifteen minutes to get this guy to calm down and accept that the paper handed out at the first tee, which clearly states that you cannot play out of an ESA, really does contain the local rule and that the local rule itself is valid. Wasn't the first time he got ridiculously upset, but it was definitely the worst of the round.

What crossed the line for me happened on the 18th tee box, after we thought we had gotten this caddy to cool off. To provide some background, on the 15th hole I had hit a ball near a transition from hazard to OB on the hole. After consulting both fellow competitors, we had determined that the trajectory of my golf ball would have placed it in the hazard when it came to rest, so I took a drop accordingly and proceeded with the rest of the hole. On the 18th tee box this caddy, dragging his player (my marker) behind him, marches up to me and announces that I will be disqualified for incorrectly taking the penalty for an OB ball on hole 15. Upon mentioning that the group had agreed my ball was in the hazard the caddy just tells me that both he and the player agreed (the player looks like he's trying to hide at this point) that it was definitely out of bounds, and that I wasn't entitled to a drop where it crossed the line as a result and would be disqualified for improper procedure. Nevermind the fact that it's actually only a 2 stroke penalty if that had, indeed, been a case of improper procedure.

That was where I drew the line. I knew that I was set to shoot a near identical score to the player who had this caddy, and all signs were pointing to me playing with him and his caddy from hell again the next day (his parents had paid to fly the caddy up from Florida according to the guy's boasting, so it seemed apparent the kid couldn't choose not to use him as a caddy). I wasn't going to deal with this guy for another round, and I didn't want to deal with him and the rules officials at the scoring tent later. When I had brought up his inappropriate behavior with a rules official earlier in the round it was waved off because a "licensed PGA professional would never do something like that". It was clear the tournament was going to take his word over the third player's and mine, and that the guy would take up a good chunk of my time complaining to the tournament committee and trying to get me disqualified or penalized when I shouldn't have been. When he did that I just walked straight from the 18th tee back to my car. I readily admit that I pettily walked right down the middle of the fairway to prevent them from teeing off until I was clear, but I honestly didn't care at that point.

Was I displaying poor sportsmanship for walking off in the middle of the round like that? You seem to think so, but I honestly don't care what you think. That round of golf was absolutely miserable for me and it reached a breaking point when that @$$ wanted to retaliate at me for telling him his player had to drop. I would've been stuck with him for a second day in a row, assuming the rules officials didn't just take his word for it that the penalty was a DQ instead of a 2 stroke penalty, and I was more than fed up with it. I had already tried to get the rules officials involved to no avail, and I wasn't going to ruin my weekend by spending another minute with that guy. If that's poor sportmanship, than I am proudly a poor sport because I see no fault in what I did (other than holding up the third player in our group from teeing off on hole 18, that was petty). 

The silver lining in that story was that after my very long complaint to the organization hosting the tournament, which was verified by the third player in the group, that caddy was banned from their tournament grounds for life for his behavior. I feel bad for the player who he was caddying for (the player was a nice guy and apologized to me for the caddy's behavior at a later tournament), since his parents appeared to be forcing the caddy on him, and I was glad to see they didn't penalize the player and instead went directly after the problem.

TLDR: Player's caddy is a real nutcase, I walk off in the middle of the round instead of playing with them again the next day. I see zero fault with what I did and I challenge you to justify it as being poor sportsmanship.

That's why I hold the opinion on this matter that I hold. I've been there, where the company I'm with is completely unbearable to the point of being downright hostile. It's not poor sportsmanship to walk away from something like that. We don't know the details of this matter, so unless you were there I'd have a hard time believing you can make an accurate judgement of sportsmanship in that situation.

It's hard to justify any opinion I have here as being fair because I wasn't there and there are no emotions swirling in my head, so bearing that caveat in mind ...  I would've handled that differently.  You still had the backing of the third player, so you would have (I think easily) won the debate with the rules officials about whether or not you took an improper drop.  Just as a matter of principle, you could have finished the last hole and made sure that you didn't get DQ'd because of this bully.  Once that was settled, you could still WD and explain to the committee that he was the reason for it, and again, with player 3 there by your side, you'd have a good case.

Also, for the record, I'd say that yes, the walking down the middle of the fairway thing would be poor sportsmanship.  Although I can see what drove you to it, and lord knows I've done stuff like that too in sports; stuff that seemed justified at the time, but in retrospect was more of a "stooping to their level" or "two wrongs don't make a right" sort of thing.

[mattypane]

My buddies and I woulda just split off if we found ourselves in that kind of situation. I'm not rich enough to quit rounds of golf that I pay for.

[iacas]

5 hours ago, 14ledo81 said:

To those who are fine with the quitting, would you be fine with the PGA pros quitting as soon as they realize they are not going to make the cut?

They're playing for our entertainment, too, so the analogy fails on that level as well.

[Pretzel]

2 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

Also, for the record, I'd say that yes, the walking down the middle of the fairway thing would be poor sportsmanship.

Whoops! I thought I had added somewhere in there that I realize now, looking back, that it was quite petty. I know I made a number of edits, so that bit must've ended up getting cut along with something else.

[Golfingdad]

6 minutes ago, Pretzel said:

Whoops! I thought I had added somewhere in there that I realize now, looking back, that it was quite petty. I know I made a number of edits, so that bit must've ended up getting cut along with something else.

Actually, you're right.  I think I forgot after I read your tl:dr though. :)

[paininthenuts]

On 10/9/2016 at 9:07 PM, rkim291968 said:

I was in the year ending two day club championship tournament.  One of the foursome since hole #1 has been talking loud about anything and everything.  He'd only stop talking just before someone/he takes a swing.    It bothered me and my partner a bit but we played on.   Then, after 5th or 6th hole, he started talking about politics as if we all had same view as he has (about Obama, Trump, Hilary).   My cart partner finally told him that his body gets tighten up if people are talking politics.   The guy didn't get the hint.   He kept on talking.   On that same hole, I hit an OB.   A friend who was waiting behind my group asked me how things are going and I made a joke about the guy talking about politics ("I was doing fine until XYZ start talking about politics").   As soon as I told the joke, the guy got really upset and told me that it was my fault that I hit an OB and he can talk about anything he can.   What?   It was a joke, dude.   I wasn't even upset as I have no realistic chance at winning the tournament.  He was joking, and talking all this time and all of sudden, he got upset at me for a joke?  On the next hole, I hit another OB and called it a day.   It was too awkward for me to continue playing with this guy.   As I walked away from the field, the other two golfers shook hands with me but the guy in question was walking away to hit his 2nd ball.   Oh, well.   

That guy was a God send, but you didn't realise it. Dealing with the mental side of the game is very important, and this bloke gave you an exercise to overcome, and you blew it. I tend to play better when I am playing against players who talk a lot, but freeze when I play against serious players who spend their time focusing. Like you, I need to overcome playing against all sorts of players.