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Dan from Maine asks:

As a guest at a high-end private course, should I feel obligated to let the clubhouse attendant clean my shoes? On the one hand, I don’t want to add to their workload. But I also don’t want to offend them by not allowing them to do their job. Personally, I’d be fine not having my shoes cleaned. But I want to make sure I’m not, um, stepping on any toes.

Dear Dan:

Just as great power comes with great responsibility, playing as a guest at a fancy private club comes with all kinds of pesky questions, such as how you should dress (psst, skip the cargo shorts!); what kind of thank-you gift you should get your host (how about a nice bottle of wine?); and whether you shoulder order the club sandwich or the crab bisque (hint: the club sandwich is the safer bet). 

Fortunately, your shoe-cleaning question shouldn’t add to your stress.

Before we get to the answer, a bit of context. Most private clubs offer an array of an extras, from club storage and comfort stations to valet parking, and, yes, shoe shines. Very often, the costs of these services are folded into monthly membership dues. At many of these same clubs, tipping for these services is forbidden. The perks are part of the swanky package, there to be enjoyed by members and their guests.

Should you feel obligated to use them?

Obligated is a funny word. The Etiquetteist wouldn’t go so far as to say that you’re required to get your shoes cleaned. But he’d recommend it. You might as well. After all, what’s the harm? The worst that could happen is that you’ll leave the club looking spiffier than you did when you arrived. In the best case scenario, you’ll be allowed to tip the attendant for their effort. Handing out a nice gratuity creates good feelings all around. 

As for feeling bad about adding to their workload, that’s ridiculous. It is, as you note, their job, and there’s nothing undignified about it.

If you still find yourself waffling over the decision, a good rule of thumb is to follow your host’s lead. To clean or not to clean? Whatever they opt for, you can comfortably do the same.

Beyond that, there’s no need to give your shoes a second thought.

To be safe, though, you probably shouldn’t change them in the parking lot.

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The post 13 egregious golf-etiquette violations our readers witnessed on the course appeared first on Golf.

The post 13 egregious golf-etiquette violations our readers witnessed on the course appeared first on Golf.

In golf, we learn to take the good with the bad. But sometimes the bad becomes more than we can bear. Not the wretched shots. The execrable behavior.

In a recent survey, we asked our audience to share memories of the most egregious on-course conduct they have ever witnessed. Thousands responded. 

Because the replies are too numerous to reprint in full, we’ve sorted them into categories and offered examples that represent the worst of the worst. Here they are, our 13 inductees into the Golf Etiquette Hall of Shame. 

CHECK OUT THE FULL RESULTS OF OUR GOLF-ETIQUETTE SURVEY HERE

1. Poor course maintenance

Failing to fix ball marks and fill divots is bad enough. But next-level negligence also seems common. One respondent described “a dude” who climbed “out of the steepest side of a bunker, leaving cavernous gouges in the side of the bunker and never even glanced at the rake.” Another told of a player “tomahawking a putter into a green in frustration, imbedding it several inches down.” And then there was the guy who, after missing a putt, “swung at his ball to knock it away but missed and took a six-inch divot on the green, right next to the hole. It was unrepairable.”

2. Reckless driving

Anyone who calls golf a good walk spoiled hasn’t paid attention to what people do in buggies. Flipping them, for instance. Four-wheeling them through bunkers. Also: Doing donuts in the fairways. Bashing into other carts. Riding roughshod over greens.  And no, one reader wrote, “I wasn’t with Trump.”

3. Fisticuffs 

Joe Louis was a golfer. So is Sugar Ray Leonard. Oscar de la Hoya is big on the game. A lot of other players seem to think they’re pugilists, based on the number of stories we heard of fights breaking out (“right there on the green,” one reader wrote), often in the aftermath of one group hitting into another.

4. Music on the course

Music is okay, most respondents said. But not when it’s played at Metallica concert-level decibels. And not when it’s pumped from multiple sources that aren’t playing the same tune. “We had three speakers in one foursome,” one respondent wrote, “all set to different hip-hop music loudly.”

5. Dress-code violations

The rules around attire are getting looser all the time. Hoodies are in. Shorts are allowed where they used to be forbidden. But some of our respondents are still trying to hold the line. One reported being miffed at the sight of someone playing in a V-neck undershirt. At least they weren’t playing in the raw. “Naked swings on a golf trip,” one respondent wrote before acknowledging that the offending golfer was, in fact, “me.”

6. Taking, um, relief

And not just behind trees or deep in the woods. In our survey, anecdotes abounded of golfers letting fly on tee boxes, cart paths, fairways and greens. One reader reported seeing a fellow player going — how to put this? — number two directly in the cup. Another told this story: “Club championship. Second hole. A member of our threesome has a raging hangover and IBS. In terrible discomfort, he grabs his golf towel and bolts for the deep fescue. Disgusting.”

7. Cheating

Foot wedges. Hand wedges. Un-granted gimmes. The list goes on. “My opponent hit five provisional balls off of a tee and didn’t declare what ball was what number and how it was marked,” one respondent wrote. “He then said he found his first ball.” And: “A player in one of my buddy trips would hit tee shots way into the woods but somehow it was always in the clear. He was never invited back to subsequent trips.” Dubious recoveries were a recurring theme. “A player suddenly ‘finding’ their ball in the rough and it’s sitting up so well it can be seen from 20 yards away aft real members of the foursome tramped all through the area where the ball now sits and not one saw the ball.”

Lifestyle

8. Public endangerment

Bad shots happen. But no point adding injury to insult. “No fore call,” one respondent wrote. “Hit me with a drive from about 100 yards away and broke a bone in my foot.”

9. Drunk and disorderly

Nothing wrong with a cocktail or two. But “getting so wasted you fall over getting out of the cart is beyond the realm of acceptable,” one reader wrote. So is the conduct another respondent reported of a boozy golfer “driving a cart in circles on the green.”

10. Slow play

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, no wonder slow play drives so many people batty. Most irritating of all, one respondent wrote, was the golfer with the habit of “taking 20 practice swing and hitting it two feet and then doing it again.”

11. Excessive phone use

Discreet texting? Fine. But many readers told of fellow golfers yacking like traders on the stock-market floor. “Standing on the tee talking on the phone for several minutes,” one wrote. “When called on it, the person swung with the phone tucked under their chin. Hit about five feet.”

12. Gum chewing

Tiger Woods chewed gum at Augusta National en route to winning the 2019 Masters. Other Tour pros have embraced the practice. If you’re going to copy them, though, please, keep it quiet. “Played Pinehurst No. 2 with my dad years ago and we were paired with another older gent,” one respondent wrote. “His wife was allowed to walk the course with us and was constantly snapping a piece of gum in her mouth the whole round.” And a green jacket wasn’t even at stake.

13. Temper tantrums

Snapped putters. Splintered drivers. Broken axels on carts. To hear our respondents tell it, you’d swear that the game is wildly popular among toddlers. To wit: “A person I was playing with was playing awful. On about the 5th hole he took his entire bag and threw it into a pond and stomped off the course. Thinking he had come to his senses when I saw him coming back down the fairway, I had to laugh when he walked into he pond, picked up his bag, retrieved his car keys and then drop his bag back in the water.” 

That’s the upside of bad etiquette: Now and then, it offers comic relief. 

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We had questions. You had answers. 

Two weeks ago, in a column ordinarily given over to our own views on golf etiquette, we turned the tables and asked for yours. Our goal was to take your temperature on everything from dress-code violations and rules breaches to club-throwing and slow play. The questions we posed in our reader survey were mostly multiple-choice, but because that format can be limiting, we also invited you to share stories about the worst on-course conduct you have witnessed.

You did not disappoint. More than 3,800 of you answered our questions and/or submitted anecdotes. The least we could do was compile your feedback into an easy-to-digest form. 

In the coming weeks, we’ll be diving deeper into your answers and what they tell us about the game. Meantime, you can check out the survey results here. (Percentages have been rounded off.)  

Your biggest golf etiquette pet peeve is:

Slow play: 65.1%

Poor course maintenance (unraked bunkers, un-repaired ball marks, etc.): 17.5%

Music on the course: 7.9%

Club throwing: 6.4%

Untucked shirts and other dress-code violations: 1.3%

Other: 1.5%

No peeves!: 0.3%

Which best describes your feelings about music on the course? 

Fine with it if kept at low volume: 60%

No place for it: 30%

Love it. Let it rip: 9.7%

You’ve been appointed golf czar for the day. Which dress code would you ban first?

No denim: 14.1%

No t-shirts: 9.7%

No backward caps: 7.6%

No cargo shorts: 4%

All of them: 38.7%

None of them: 25.8%

When playing as a guest at a private club, you should always:

Offer to cover all costs, including lunch: 30.2%

Offer to cover only your host’s caddie fee and your guest fee: 28%

Offer to cover only your host’s caddie fee: 12%

Enjoy the day as a guest without worrying about fees: 29.4%

A reasonable pace for a foursome playing 18 holes is:

3:30-4 hours: 55.1%

4-4:30 hours: 37.6%

3-3:30 hours: 5.2%

4:30-5 hours: 1.5%

Whatever time it takes: 0.6%

You consider yourself a:

Fast player: 63.1%

Slow player: 0.7%

Somewhere in between: 36.1%

If you think your opponent just cheated, the best response is to:

Ask them if they are aware that they have just violated the rules: 58.4%

Ignore it: 29.9%

Call them out immediately: 11.6%

Storm off the course and vow never to play with them again: 0.1%

What is your own approach to the rules?

Take small liberties (first-tee mulligan, roll ball over in bad lies, etc.): 57.8%

Follow the rules to a tee: 34.7%

Anything goes. I’m just playing for fun: 7.5%

If a player from another group hits into yours, your response is to:

Raise your hands in frustration: 52.2%

Ignore it: 35.3%

Tee the ball up to send a message: 6.2%

Step on the ball: 4.25%

Hit the ball back to them: 2.1%

How often do you throw clubs in frustration?

Never: 73.4%

Once in my life. I was so embarrassed, I never did it again: 20.6%

Once per round: 5.9%

Multiple times per round: 0.2%

Which best describes your feeling about phone usage on the course?

Emails and calls are fine. Just be discreet: 51.9%

Leave it in your bag. Golf is supposed to be an escape: 41%

C’mon, it’s 2024. You should be able to use your phone how and when you please: 7.1%

What’s the worst etiquette breach you’ve ever witnessed?

I saw a guy throw his putter after missing a putt and nearly hitting a playing partner. That really strained the relationship, and he never played with us again.

Spitting sunflower seeds on the greens around the hole.

A player ahead took 5-6 practice swings, taking a divot after each one, and didn’t replace any of them, nor did he replace the divot when he hit the shot. Couldn’t let that go without calling him on it.

Raking in 3-footers as gimmes.

Six players in six separate carts.

A guy driving a golf cart on the green. Like, he did not know you couldn’t do it. Lots of money and time goes into green maintenance, and I can only imagine if the super had witnessed it. Dude got an earful from us after.

Waiting for green to clear 300 yards out.

Cigar ashes on green.

Group in front of us playing really slow. When we approached par-3 9th hole tee box next to clubhouse, one player sat on tee box to “hold” their place while the other three went into clubhouse to get hot dogs.

Member filling her bag with range balls.

Much more to come in future installments of The Etiquetteist!

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The post Which golfer behaviors most irritate you? Sound off in our golf-etiquette survey! appeared first on Golf.

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What constitutes good — or bad — golfer behavior? The answer is often a matter of opinion, and we want yours. The questions in the survey below cover a range of etiquette topics. Answering them will take less time than it does for your (slow-playing) partner to line up a putt.

Thank you for participating! The results will be shared in future installments of The Etiquetteist.

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The post How much pro shop merch is okay to buy? The Etiquetteist has thoughts appeared first on Golf.

The post How much pro shop merch is okay to buy? The Etiquetteist has thoughts appeared first on Golf.

Pete from Memphis writes: A friend and I recently played as guests at a famously exclusive and prestigious club. After the round, my friend bought more than two thousand dollars in pro shop merchandise. I didn’t buy anything. I’m not a logo guy. I’m also on a budget. My friend told me I was being cheap. I thought he was being tacky. What’s the deal? Is there a minimum or maximum you should spend in a pro shop when you’re playing as a guest?

Dear Pete: Like you, the Etiquetteist is cheap, but for self-branding purposes, he favors the term “frugal,” which sounds more mature and fiscally responsible. It’s a good label if you’re running for political office, or trying to justify why you failed to shell out a single cent in the pro shop. You should try it on for size sometime. 

As to your question, though. The short answer is, no. There is no hard-set limit on either end, but there are some variables worth weighing.

If, for instance, you’re playing at a remote club that gets few visitors, or at a modest club in town where the pro owns the shop and draws proceeds from merchandise sales, common courtesy suggests that you should buy something, anything. It needn’t be extravagant. A cap. A shirt. A towel and a commemorative ball marker. Even a modest purchase will go a long way as a gesture of support. The same applies if you’re playing for free through some connection at the club; a pro shop purchase is a nice way to show your gratitude.

But that doesn’t sound like the kind of place you’re describing. “Famously exclusive and prestigious” clubs — the Shinnecocks and Cypress Points of the world — no more need your financial backing than Tiger Woods needs PIP money. You’re under no obligation to buy anything unless you accidentally knock over something precious in the clubhouse and it shatters on the floor.

Lifestyle

As for the flip side — loading up on pro shop merch — no one is going to quibble with you about that either. If anything, the club is likely to be thrilled that a sucker, er, shopper, opted to spend a mortgage payment on logo-ed apparel and accessories. Your host might even receive a quiet thank-you from club management for bringing a big spender onto the grounds, just as a casino would be grateful to a private jet operator for sending them a whale.

The only question worth examining has less to do with etiquette than it does with psychology? What, exactly, is your motivation for acquiring so much merch? If you’re buying gifts for friends, okay, fine. That’s nice of you. If, on the other hand, you’re buying stuff to resell, that’s bad form. You should find another way to supplement your income.  

And if you’re buying that motherlode of merchandise all for yourself? That’s another ball of wax. The urge to amass large amounts of logo-ed memorabilia is a complicated impulse, and the Etiquetteist can’t claim to understand it any better than he understands why anyone over the age of 12 not named Tom Brady would wear a Tom Brady jersey. If you want a memento of your special day, or a conversation starter the next time you play at your local muni, fair enough. But if that’s the case, one or two items should suffice.

Why you purchased so much more is a matter too tangled for the Etiquetteist, who would simply suggest that all that money shelled out in the pro shop would probably better be spent on a shrink. 

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Jonathan K. from Virginia writes: One of my buddies plays golf at Mach 3, flying off tee boxes before everyone has hit, hustling off greens before everyone has putt out, etc. My other friends and I appreciate his commitment to swift play, but at the same time, seems like bad etiquette to me if you’re rushing around so quickly that it potentially bothers others in your group or players up ahead. Your thoughts, please!

Dear Jonathan, 

As someone who believes that three-and-a-half hours on a golf course is more than plenty, the Etiquetteist is not the personification of patience, so he’ll say this quickly: Yes, it’s possible to play too fast.

Like all etiquette, considerations around pace of play are rooted in showing respect for others, even if that comes at the expense of your individual goals. You want to play in jeans and a tank top? That’s nice. But you don’t get to do it if the dress code forbids it. Something similar applies to pace. Just because you want to whip around the course doesn’t mean you necessarily have the right to — not if your behavior has a negative effect on others, i.e., if it makes them feel rushed or dissed.

How can you tell if you’ve crossed that line? 

To borrow from a famous quote about pornography: You should know it when you see it.

But just in case, the Etiquetteist will offer a few examples. Playing ready golf isn’t just fair game. It is recommended (assuming you’re not competing in a tournament). That means grabbing the tee if your buddy with the honors is not prepared to hit. It means walking ahead of your partners once the hole is in progress to get in position, provided you’re not walking in anybody’s line of fire.

Around the green is where matters get more sensitive. Something about the close quarters of the putting surface brings impolite behavior into starker relief. It’s a no-no, for instance, to putt out while your partner is lining up a chip or playing from the bunker (unless he’s been hacking it around haplessly in the sand and shows no sign of picking up). It is also poor form to move to the next tee box before your partners have finished putting out.

The Etiquetteist has a fast-playing friend who likes to pull that move, which he justifies it by saying he’s trying set a good example. Being a fast-play role model is not a bad idea. Lou Riccio is in favor of it. Riccio is the chief analytics officer for Fairway IQ, which consults with courses on pace of play, and the author of “Golf’s Pace of Play Bible.” He believes that most of us learn about pace in the same way we learn about the rules: from those we play with. So, he says, “why not be that ‘fast’ player? Maybe others will take notice.”

Instruction

But jumping to the next tee while others are still putting isn’t setting a good example. It is simply being rude. You owe your playing partners more respect than that.

What’s frustrating for fast players is that respect isn’t often a two-way street. Slow players rarely show it in return. They are, almost by definition, either too oblivious to notice their effect on others. Or too self-consumed to care. Otherwise, they’d pick up the pace.

If you wind up paired with such a slug, modeling good behavior won’t likely make a difference. You are better off using your words. You might say something like, “I think we’re falling behind and should pick up the pace a bit.” If the course is open in front of you, you might even trot out the old line about needing to get to get to the office or (insert favorite excuse here), “so if you don’t mind, I’m going to play ahead.”

That’s not a great way to make friends. But if these were people you were destined to be friends with, you wouldn’t mind slowing down your pace for them. In such cases, amicably parting ways is a perfectly acceptable solution. You’ll be happier as you hustle off. And they’ll be glad to see you go.

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The post What ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ can teach you about golf etiquette, technique appeared first on Golf.

The post What ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ can teach you about golf etiquette, technique appeared first on Golf.

This past week in Los Angeles golf offered us a big batch of teachable moments. From Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Hideki Matsuyama, respectively, we learned to (1) always double-check your scorecard, (2) never strike a drive until the group ahead has cleared the fairway and (3) take care when grounding the club behind your ball.

But perhaps the most memorable lesson came not from a competitor in the Genesis Invitational but from famed comedy writer and Riviera member Larry David.

If you follow David’s work, you know that golf often features in “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the comedy of manners on HBO in which David plays a close facsimile of himself. In the most recent episode, which aired Sunday night, David is back at his home course (a loosely fictionalized version of Riviera), this time sitting on a bench behind the driving range, watching and listening as the club pro gives a private lesson. Whatever David does tends to irritate someone, and, in this case, his actions irritate the pro, who asks David to stop eavesdropping (“If you want to book a lesson, call the pro shop,” he says) but not before David has picked up what turns out to be a game-changing tip about the downswing and the move through impact: “vertical drop, horizontal tug.”

With those key words as his cue, David goes out and has the best ball-striking round of his life, ruffling more feathers along the way. 

Funny guy, David. But golf is serious business, and for those of us tuning in at home, the scene brought two questions to mind:

Is it really bad form to eavesdrop on a lesson? And what about that tip? Vertical drop, horizontal pull. Does it translate into anything meaningful at all?

First, the etiquette question. According to GOLF Magazine 100 Teacher Tony Ruggiero, drafting on a lesson is a fairly common practice and it is indeed bad form — though not for the reason the “Curb” episode suggests. The real issue isn’t that you’re stealing info that you should be paying for. It’s that you risk making the student uneasy.

“Novice recreational golfers get anxious in front of people anyway,” Ruggiero says. Spying on their lessons only makes matters worse. 

In addition to being bad etiquette, Ruggiero says, eavesdropping is also a bad way to learn, as the problem being addressed might not be your problem. 

“I equate it to going into a drug store and taking one of everything off the shelves,” he says. “Everything in there can help you if it’s for what is wrong with you. But taking one thing or all of them can make you really sick.”

But what about the tip in the “Curb” episode: Vertical drop, horizontal tug. What, if anything, might it cure?

Possibly a slice-inducing over-the-top move, Ruggiero says. What the pro on “Curb” appears to be addressing is the sequence of the downswing.

“My guess he’s trying to get the student to get the arms to fall from the top and allow the club to shallow” so he can attack the ball from the inside. “If right from the top you rotate your upper body or turn before you shift or get on to the lead leg, the club goes too far outside.”

Starting the downswing instead with that vertical drop puts the club on a shallower path, Ruggiero says, “which gives the player time to shift onto the lead foot.” From that position, “they can then turn horizontally” toward the target. In all likelihood, Ruggiero says, that last part is the horizontal tug.

So, there you have it. While imitating Larry David’s on-course conduct is a bad idea, emulating his new action might not hurt. The results could be pretty, pretty good. 

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The post Is ‘hats off in the clubhouse’ still a hard golf rule? The Etiquetteist weighs in appeared first on Golf.

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Tyler from Austin writes: 

Millennial here. Do I really still have to wear a hat in the clubhouse? It’s such an uptight rule.

Dear Tyler:

Hats off to you (see what I did there?) for noting your generation, because age is a relevant factor in this discussion.

The custom of removing one’s hat indoors extends beyond the clubhouse and dates at least as far back as the Etiquetteist’s childhood in the Middle Ages, when knights would remove their helmets to identify themselves. Golfers have been doing the same with their headwear in the clubhouse for nearly as long, largely as a gesture of respect. 

Of course, one cohort’s “respectful” is another’s “stuffy,” and you are hardly the first whippersnapper to bridle against a practice that hardly anyone in golf would have questioned a generation or so ago. Times have changed. More than 40 years after “Caddyshack” made light of the battle between “snobs” and “slobs,” the game is in the midst of an unprecedented boom and the divide between traditionalists and non-traditionalists has never been greater, as evidenced by everything from arguments over LIV to disagreements over dress codes and the place of music on the course. While not all the fault lines run parallel to age, a good deal of the differences are generational. Call it the Centrum Silver set vs. the Okay, Boomer crowd.

The younger you are, that is, the more likely you are to see the hats-off rule as silly.

You’re entitled to that opinion, but you’re not always at liberty to do exactly as you please. In other major golf markets, including the UK, Ireland and Australia, you wouldn’t make it five steps inside most clubhouses with a lid on without someone slapping it off you. Or at least taking you to task. Here in the U.S., where don’t-tread-on-me individualism is the closest thing we have to a universal religion, the conformity isn’t as rigid. But a good rule of thumb is: If you’re at a private club, remove your hat inside. (The exception being those willfully casual, new-fangled private clubs where no one blinks at golfers playing shirtless and shoeless, with wireless speakers cranked to 11.) 

At a public course, you have more wiggle room. And unless the written rules explicitly forbid it, you’re within your rights to leave your hat on. 

Which doesn’t mean that everyone is guaranteed to like it.

There’s always the chance that some silver-haired Judge Smails-type will approach and ask you kindly to remove your headwear. In that case, the Etiquetteist suggests that you oblige. It’s just as easy to be polite. Someday, when you’re older, you can make the rules. Meantime, show some hat head. It won’t hurt your image. Since phones aren’t allowed either, no one’s going to post it on Instagram.

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@GrumpyNBAWatcher asks: Members at a club near me expect guests to pick up caddie and cart fees for themselves and their hosts. I hear that many guests also pick up the entire cost of rounds and pay for everything at member-guest events. What’s the common practice?

Dear Grumpy:

In the Etiquetteist’s egalitarian utopia, there would be no such thing as a private golf club. Tee times at Cypress Point and Augusta National would be available online, putting players of all stripes on the same footing, and eliminating any awkward dynamics between “host” and “guest.”

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Meantime, in the real world, you pose a reasonable question.

As in so much of etiquette, the answer depends in part on the relationship between the parties. If host and guest are close friends, for instance, with a history of generous back and forth, the expectation is that no one is keeping score, and the likelihood is that the host will cover fees, with the implicit understanding that everything evens out in the long run. There might be a conversation about costs, but it would be brief. “You can pick up dinner sometime,” would be the gist. It’s called “friendship” for a reason.

When the host-guest relationship is different, other nuances come into play. Let’s say the parties aren’t friends but colleagues or loose acquaintances. As a guest in such situations, etiquette suggests that you find a quiet moment with your host and offer to cover all your fees. Take nothing for granted. It is possible that your offer will be accepted.

But the odds are better that your host will wave you off and tell you not to worry about the costs. Should that happen, your next polite move is to propose a compromise and offer to pick up the caddie fees for both of you. While this offer is more likely to be accepted, there is still a good chance that your host will stand firm and insist on covering everything. That’s your cue to let matters lie. No need to push the issue any further. 

Which doesn’t mean there’s nothing else that you can do.

If this is a member-guest event, with, say, side bets and closest-to-the-pin prizes, you could — and should — pick up any associated costs. Same if there are pay-to-play hole-in-one giveaways or other competitions that are sometimes part of private club events. As a guest, covering fees for those little extras is least you can do.

There are also ways to express your gratitude later. With a thank-you card, for instance and a nice bottle of wine or a box of golf balls. If you’re a member of a club yourself, a reciprocal invitation makes perfect sense (unless, of course, the two of you have come to a mutual understanding, after one round together, that you never want to play in each other’s company again). To quote Hannibal Lecter, quid pro quo.

The best way to play golf, of course, is with people whose company you enjoy, and without strings attached. More often than not, that’s how things work out. Most members of clubs who are generous enough to have you as a guest aren’t operating with a hidden agenda. Their expectation is that you dress appropriately, behave like an adult and enjoy yourself.
Now there’s an ideal well within reach.

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The post Is there a ‘right’ way to break a golf club? The Etiquetteist has thoughts appeared first on Golf.

The post Is there a ‘right’ way to break a golf club? The Etiquetteist has thoughts appeared first on Golf.

Jason from San Francisco writes:

During a recent round, I snapped a wedge in frustration. I wasn’t proud of my action, but I gotta say, it felt pretty good. It also got me thinking: Is there a right and wrong way to break a club?

Dear Jason, 

As a longtime supporter of junior golf, the Etiquetteist is thrilled to learn of your participation in it. We need all the toddlers we can get. If that means putting up with the occasional comic tantrum, well, such is the cost of “growing the game.”

At some point in the coming years, as you mature, you may discover that golf’s many challenges can actually have a positive impact on one’s character and behavior. They can, for instance, teach patience and persistence while instilling a healthy sense of humility. For now, though, if all they inspire in you is the urge to destroy your own property, the Etiquetteist says, knock yourself out!

Hold the club horizontally, raise your dominant knee to waist-height and drive the club downward so the mid-point of the shaft strikes your leg about three to four inches above your knee cap — just take care not to hurt yourself or anyone else. A broken shaft, after all, can turn into a shiv, just as a violently severed club head can become a dangerous projectile. (For more on proper technique, here’s some guidance from seven-time PGA Tour winner Billy Horschel.) For this reason, some might recommend that club-breaking should only happen when you’re playing as a single, or discretely, in the woods, if you’re playing in a group. 

The Etiquetteist believes otherwise. Because golf is a game of honesty, it is best to be transparent. The next time you feel compelled to snap your driver across your knee, don’t wait until you’re alone, or hide behind a tree. Go full Vesuvius in plain view. Whether your playing partners find your conduct funny, pathetic or off-putting, you’ll have done them a favor by providing them with an unvarnished demonstration of who you really are.

What you draw from the experience is another matter. You might find that it feels good to break another club — a satisfying way to let off steam. Then again, over time, you might also grow embarrassed by your juvenile behavior, or regretful that you ruined a perfectly good piece of equipment. Golf clubs are expensive, and now you’ve got to beg your parents to buy you a new one.

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