Do you pick up a club someone has left behind?

[Buckeyebowman]

We always pick up left clubs and look for people traveling backwards. But, sometimes you have to look for people traveling forwards! A couple years ago I left an 8 iron laying by a green, and  a few holes later, here come a couple of guys roaring up with it.

They nearly ran over my left leg and crippled me! I'm hanging onto my cart, with their tire on my left foot and their bumper pressing against the back of my left knee. I yell, "Reverse, reverse!", and the guy backed off of me.

And if we don't find the owner on the course, we turn it in.

[CCC]

31 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

IMO - leaving it there is kind of a dick move

Yes, it is, rehmwa.

See my original post that started this thread.

Anyway...

I was playing earlier this week, late in the day, and found a putter on the fringe of the 10th green.

I know he started on 10. I picked up his old Anser putter - with a well worn grip and put it in my bag. I was tooling around on the par 3 11th green, practicing my putts. I kept looking for him to backtrack - looking for his putter. I didn't think it would be very long.

Finally, he drives up in his cart. I'm still hitting practice putts, and I told him that his putter was in my bag. He thanked me, very much, and continued back on his way to 13.

No way, would I leave his putter lying beside the green. I was the last player on the course that day.

The sun was setting. I love playing in the twilight on a Saturday. When I, practically, have the course to myself. :)

[Kalnoky]

14 hours ago, rehmwa said:

One wonders how on earth a person even makes this equivalency at all.

Well, if you read the thread @mcanadiens openly marveled how somebody stole his $10 pitching wedge. I've met more than a couple guys who collect wayward ProV1's ("that's a $4 ball!") for resale on eBay. Just because you don't need the money it doesn't mean others don't. 

Edited September 11, 2017 by Kalnoky

[Jeremie Boop]

I have always picked up a club if I see it, put it in the cart and watch for someone coming looking for it. Same with head covers. If nobody comes around I drop them off in the clubhouse. I lost 2 new wedges one night because I was practicing different shots around a green and got distracted by a text leaving them on the ground. Once I noticed they were missing I went back to every hole I had played and checked the clubhouse but nobody had turned them in. Thankfully they weren't expensive by any means, but it still angered me a little that someone just kept them.

[Lihu]

14 hours ago, rehmwa said:

IMO - leaving it there is kind of a dick move

 

13 hours ago, CCC said:

Yes, it is, rehmwa.

See my original post that started this thread.

Yeah, ordinarily, I would agree with this sentiment, but after having seen many a lost club and discussing this topic with other folks on the course because this happens a lot at my three home course(s), it was more or less the consensus to just make the club more prominent where it was laying.

There are many reasons some of which are: you need to use the bathroom; get food; perform some other errand; the player losing the club ends the round earlier than you or the folks could just outright pass your group up when looking for the club(s). . .etc.

Having left a club or two myself, I always felt it better to just simply find it where it was left.

Of course, your reasoning is sound and the player will eventually get it back when he/she goes back to the starter looking for it on a subsequent trip.

[Mr. Desmond]

I pick it up and turn it in, whether headcover, towel, rangefinger, club. If someone on the way back asks, then one can say, "Here it is."

[NM Golf]

Unfortunately, many times wedges are not turned in when people lose them. We get calls in the pro shop all the time for missing clubs and I bet we don't get 25% of them turned in. If its a something other than a wedge you have a better chance of seeing it again, but if you leave your Vokey on the side of the green its gone 9 out of 10 times.

Back on topic, I always pick up anything I see laying around and I give it to the marshall when I see him. Hopefully he can track down whoever it belongs to.

[todgot]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's called common courtesy.  It seems to be a dying custom in this country. 

 

[Hacker James]

26 minutes ago, todgot said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's called common courtesy.  It seems to be a dying custom in this country. 

 

one of many it would seem.

[todgot]

The only thing I don't pick up on a golf course is a ball.  garbage... pick it up.  Club, glove, head cover, range finder, etc... pick it up.  Ball?... unless it's pitch black in the morning or night and no one else is on the course... leave it there. 

 

[Slice of Life]

Always. If they're in front of me...they're either gonna realize it and run into me on their way back, or they forget and I can turn it into the clubhouse.

[rehmwa]

15 hours ago, Kalnoky said:

Well, if you read the thread @mcanadiens openly marveled how somebody stole his $10 pitching wedge. I've met more than a couple guys who collect wayward ProV1's ("that's a $4 ball!") for resale on eBay. Just because you don't need the money it doesn't mean others don't. 

So you're talking about balls in play.  I agree with you on that then.  Leave them be.

9 hours ago, todgot said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's called common courtesy.  It seems to be a dying custom in this country. 

 

just this country then?

 

 

I am surprised at how often I do find a club or headcover or so on the course.  Normally they come looking for the club.  The other stuff seems like I always end up giving to the club house.

Edited September 12, 2017 by rehmwa

[golfingfiend]

I always pick up a club that has clearly been left behind in error with the view to reunite it with the owner during the round, or at worst, hand it in to the pro shop so the owner can reclaim it from there. 

Can't really see the point in ignoring it and leaving the club out in the course. 

[RussUK]

I would always pick one up, unless its a lefty then there is no point!

In all seriousness its just good manners to pick a club up and try and re-unite with its owner either on course or handing in to the pro shop.

I would like to think others would do the same for me. Like my mum always said "treat others how you wish to be treated"

[colin007]

21 hours ago, Lihu said:

 

Yeah, ordinarily, I would agree with this sentiment, but after having seen many a lost club and discussing this topic with other folks on the course because this happens a lot at my three home course(s), it was more or less the consensus to just make the club more prominent where it was laying.

There are many reasons some of which are: you need to use the bathroom; get food; perform some other errand; the player losing the club ends the round earlier than you or the folks could just outright pass your group up when looking for the club(s). . .etc.

Having left a club or two myself, I always felt it better to just simply find it where it was left.

Of course, your reasoning is sound and the player will eventually get it back when he/she goes back to the starter looking for it on a subsequent trip.

Again, as has been mentioned, there are people who will find a club and keep it. Your picking up said club ensures that it'll either make its way back to the owner, or at worst to the clubhouse.

If you leave it there, there's a chance it might get stolen.

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, colin007 said:

Again, as has been mentioned, there are people who will find a club and keep it. Your picking up said club ensures that it'll either make its way back to the owner, or at worst to the clubhouse.

If you leave it there, there's a chance it might get stolen.

I totally hear you, but I've done that before and took it home with me by accident (what's a right handed wedge going to do for me anyway ). Boy did I feel bad about that! I did return it to the starter 2 days later. However, other's that I've talked to did the same thing in the past. At the end of a round it's usually pretty busy at my course(s), and it's easy to forget something like that. On top of that we have two regulation courses with one starter location and two windows. So, there are literally hundreds of "found clubs" at the starters desk. Why are they still there? Because people gave up on them thinking someone stole it, and yet they're there waiting for the owners to come back and claim them. What's worse is those are from only a couple months. Even more of them are in a storage location, because the course can't legally do anything with them other than hold them.

There are a lot of "left clubs" on my home courses. I find at least one per round. The reason is there are a lot of beginners playing our courses. Don't ask me why a beginner is playing 7200 and 6000 yard courses, but nevertheless they're out there in droves.

At this point people coming back for clubs ask, and I tell them that it's on hole so and so leaning against the oak tree at the next tee box or something like that. If they don't find it, they know roughly who did take it, and can usually recover it pretty readily.

Ironically, there are probably hundreds of golfers who come to my home course(s) thinking there are hundreds of dishonest people at the course while the clubs they lost are stored somewhere because nothing can be done with them other than store them. . .

Edited September 12, 2017 by Lihu

[krupa]

One more voice for the "pick it up and give it to the pro shop if no one claims it sooner."

We have one guy in my area who went farther than that:

A buddy of mine left a Mizuno iron in a tree (he didn't intentionally throw it there, for whatever reason he let go of the club during his swing).  This was before the season officially started (during a couple unseasonably warm days in Feb) so the pro shop wasn't open yet.  He went back the next day with a friend and a ladder but couldn't find the club in the tree.  So he asked me to swing by the course to see if I could see it.  When I got there the club wasn't in the tree and it wasn't on the ground.  I had to pass the pro-shop building to get back to my car and there, laying on the deck, was his club. 

 

[Midpack]

I always pick up clubs, headcovers or anything a foursome ahead might have left behind. More often than not someone comes back looking for whatever they left behind within a hole or two. If not, we leave it at the clubhouse and hope it gets back to the owner.

The only exception of course is lost balls. It's rare, but occasionally I've found balls that seem to have been lost in plain sight, with absolutely no one near enough to have lost it.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Midpack