Golf: The Most Dangerous Game

As it turns out, I've been under a horribly mistaken impression.  I was always taught that golf is a gentleman's sport.  It's a sport where one both learns and demonstrates self-control, perseverance, and perhaps most of all patience.  At least in Missoula it appears that these are merely romantic notions that no golfer actually adheres to.  How do I know this?  Well, I'll tell you.

This is decidedly not the University of Montana Golf Course

I've golfed a number of times this year at the University of Montana's Golf Course.  It's a crappy little course, to be sure, but enough that one would at least expect a traditional golf experience.  One would be expecting too much if he expected this.  Each of my last two trips there I've been hit by golf balls coming off the clubs of the group immediately behind me: once in the leg on the fly from a drive (leg still hurts), and once off a bounce where I was able to swat it away.  I wouldn't blame you if your first reaction is to think that perhaps I'm just such a slow golfer that no one can possibly blame them for their impatience.  But no, in fact everyone on the course had been waiting at pretty much every hole both times.  Both times, the only reason I was within range of their balls was that I had been waiting for the group ahead of me.  I, of course, cheerily pulled out my 3-hybrid and hit their balls right back at them.  I even yelled "fore" once.

If anyone else watched The Players Championship this last weekend, you may have been as stunned as I was at the incredible impatience of the fans while waiting for Kevin Na to get past his yips.  At times he was taking a full minute to take his swing due to the immense pressure of the moment.  Fans began taunting him, singing various songs with "na, na, na" in them.  One "fan" even ran up to him and told him he better not choke because he has $2000 bet on him.  This, of course, made everything better.  Na shot a 76 on Sunday and finished out of contention.

Obviously the Na situation was an extreme, but I think it illustrates a point.  Too many people just go to the course to hack around and get done as fast as possible.  They bring their 6-pack (or worse, their Evan Williams, which some idiots we got paired with earlier this year did) and wreck their golf carts.  Where's the respect for the game?

I'm reminded of this great video that Ben Crane, the world's 50th ranked golfer, once made about learning to play fast golf:

Golf looks pretty ridiculous when played fast.  It's really sad, because golf can and should be the most relaxing and laid back sport on earth.  If you've got somewhere to be, just don't golf.  It's really that simple.  If you can't wait an extra 60 seconds to let people get out of range you have no business stepping foot on a golf course.  If a guy is struggling mentally, as in the case of Na, no one feels worse about that than him.  There's absolutely no reason for anyone else to be impatient about it.

In lieu of a good concluding salvo, I simply ask (in case I run into the situation again): what should be the etiquette if the group behind you hits you because they were too impatient to wait?  I contend that the gentelmanliness of the game can be set aside in these situations in order to take (at least) one solid attempt at returning the favor.