Golfing Etiquette and how not to kill people.

Golf is arguably the most etiquette and rule-heavy game in the world. There are rules from who gets to tee off first to who gets to putt last, and all points in between. If you somehow manage to hit your ball off your golf cart, off a tree, and hitting your flightmate's ball into the water hazard, you can rest assured the Royal & Ancient has a rule for THAT too. (Just to be safe, everybody gets a two-stroke penalty :)) So this is why it's just so annoying when in this most august and polite of games, you encounter boorish and inconsiderate behavior. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is what happened..

Just came back from our usual Sunday morning round. It was a nice day, and since today it was just three of us, the starter asked if it's ok for a nice Japanese gentleman to join us to make a foursome. We agreed and generally was having a lovely time, until during the 3rd hole while we were chatting waiting to tee off, a ball went PLOP a mere two metres away from where our new friend was standing. Turns out it was a sliced tee shot from two flights ahead of us. (We were approaching the turn, and their fairway is parallel to ours in running in opposite directions). When the guy who who hit the megaslice arrived at his ball, we told him "You should be careful, your ball almost hit us, and we didn't hear you said Fore". Now, at this point, had the person said "Yes, sorry, I really should have warned you" the matter would have been closed.. But he said what's got to be the worst possible thing to say at this situation : "Yes, I was watching".

At  this point I must admit I lost my composure a little bit. It's one thing to be almost boinked on the head without warning but it's another thing to find out the person doing it didn't see that he needed to warn us in the first place, and since we could see he can hit a ball well enough to nearly kill us, he really should be more aware of the rules before he steps on a course.

Things escalated a little bit, heated words which I'm sure both parties regretted were exchanged, and we walked off in a huff. But you know what happens after something like this occurs. You brood over the incident, replaying it over and over again in your mind, your brain belatedly producing rebuttals to everything the other party said but since the other party is not there anymore, you just steam and simmer yourself. Your temples start to pound, your blood pressure increases. Not in the best frame of mind for golf, I must say.

But we decided to do it a little differently. Yes, there are jerks everywhere, even on the golf course, so we decided to use humor to lighten our mood and anger issues: we blamed him for everything. My next ball sliced into the water: blame the guy for messing up your brain. Missed 1 meter putts: blame the guy for ruining your focus. Overshot the green into the rough: hit too hard, must still be angry with the guy. It got to the point where in a longish hole, before teeing off one of us said "Oh I gotta be angry at that guy again, this needs power". So at the end we were able to channel our anger to positive energy and laughter. When we realized we can blame him for pretty much every hole even before the incident (they were pretty slow, and they were holding us up), that really lightens the mood of the day.

So, while today ended on a positive note, folks, golf is a social game, in that it's played with other people, and that includes people in other flights, not just your foursome. Please play at a decent speed, repair your divots and ballmarks, and observe the golf etiquette rules and for God's sake if you see your ball take a hard left turn into a tee box just scream FOORREEEE at the top of your voice even if you're not sure there are people there. Everybody slices and hooks their ball, everybody, so it's not really your fault but just be considerate of the lethal potential of the small white ball you just sent into space. There, I think I've worked out all my annoyance over the incident. Have a great day everybody...