Shrinks refer to it as “overcompensation” — an excessive, awkward effort to prove that you belong. It happens in the bedroom and the boardroom. It also happens on the tee box. Are you trying too hard to flex your golf cred? Here are 29 signs that you might be that guy or gal.
1. You’ve Instagrammed a photo of yourself in a hide-bound club chair, flipping through a Bernard Shaw book while sipping a rare Scotch.
2. You have a groove-cleaning brush dangling from your bag.
3. NASCAR drivers wear fewer logos.
4. You wear spikes to Topgolf.
5. You have no less than two dozen bag tags clipped to your bag, all from Top 100 courses.
6. You employ a rangefinder for greenside pitches.
7. What’s with the white pants? And the white belt?
8. You ask your caddie to read the grain.
9. You name-drop famous clubs that you don’t belong to, using their nicknames. As in, “PV was cool but I preferred Shinny.”
10. You bark “Be the right club today!” at your ball, without irony.
11. You swear you never play this badly. Ever.
12. You rarely repair a ballmark without saying, “Always leave the course in better condition than when you found it.”
13. You use the phrase, “the great game of golf.”
14. You pressure playing partners into gambling when they don’t want to.
15. You distinguish between a “hard seven” and a “stock seven.”
16. You don’t play competitively but still carry alignment sticks.
17. You are fond of informing people that golf is an entirely different game in Scotland.
18. You own a golf cart with a vanity plate.
19. You own iron covers.
20. You ask, “This good?” when nothing is at stake.
21. What’s with the plus-fours?
22. You ask the starter what the greens are stimping at.
23. You have an instructor on speed-dial, and you call him mid-round.
24. You don’t just know your launch angle, spin rate and smash factor; you speak of them. Often.
25. You charge to the back tees with no regard for yardage.
26. After missing a consequential putt, you won’t talk to your playing partners for nine holes.
27. You’re on record saying, “Pine Valley is the better design, but Cypress Point is more fun.”
28. You regularly quote lines from “Golf in the Kingdom.”
29. You refer to him as “Mr. Hogan.”
[bc_video video_id=”6007531884001″ account_id=”416418725″ player_id=”B1lrmWbebQ” embed=”in-page” padding_top=”56%” autoplay=”” min_width=”0px” max_width=”640px” mute=”” width=”100%” height=”100%” ]
