Golf People

Golf is my one things. I really like it. When I'm playing well, I get way too happy. Now, unless you've got a very regular foursome, you almost always end up playing with people you don't know. The Muse has always wondered how you can spend four or five hours with people you don't know. Other non-golfers have asked me the same question. Based on these questions, I thought that it might be a useful guide for non-golfers to categorize some of the people with whom you frequently play golf. Here it goes:

THE GAMBLING GUYS. Lots of guys (not women so much) like to bet on golf. They like the competition, I guess. (I like the Zen aspect of golf myself and betting can mess with that.) The impact of this on me, not a participant in the betting, is that you basically hear four hours of on-and-off talk about these other guys' bets. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing. As a guy, it is pretty funny to hear other guys rip each other, which almost always goes on between the betting guys. But you do have to hear stuff like: "That's greenie. No, it's not a greenie unless you make the par. B---sh--, I get a dot for the greenie. Don't give me that, a--h---, you have to make the par." "Oh, man, this is a three-hole carryover. If I win this hole, you're f----d." Gentlemanly stuff like that.

THE TALKER. Some guys with whom you play golf want to talk to you. The whole round. Sometimes, this can be entertaining. Sometimes, you get like a guy from Australia and you learn all about Australia. That's cool. One time I played with a very nice guy from Scotland. He was pretty cool, but he wanted to talk a lot. In a Scottish brogue. I think I caught every third word. Sometimes, though, you get the guy who just wants to talk about every single shot. Eeee, that is not so fun. Dude, there are things other than golf in the world. Yes, thank you for saying I hit a nice shot (just like you said after the last three). Yes, this green is really fast (just like the last four). I hate trees too. Yes, the rough is really thick at this course. Dude, have a beer and calm down.

THE COUPLE. Golf, for whatever reason, still seems to be a very heavily male game. You just don't see -- or I don't see at least -- a lot of women out playing with other women or by themselves. Accordingly, most women with whom I have played golf tend to be playing with a man. Frequently, the situation is the man is pretty serious about golf and the woman is "learning," which sometimes means actually learning and sometimes means tagging along. The man is almost always instructing, which, I don't know, may be is a male thing along with tyrannical sightseeing. It can be very pleasant to play golf with The Couple. Sometimes, however, the man feels the need to instruct you on life, like the time one guy in a couple with whom I was playing golf asked me if I thought I could keep my marriage together like I was in law school. Yeah, I do, a--h--- (14 years and counting).

THE MAD GUY. This is the guy who gets freakin' mad when he hits a bad shot. This guy almost always has over-developed sense of how good he is. He'll sometimes yell lots of swear words at himself if he misses the green. This ire is never directed at you, thankfully. It just makes the round rather unpleasant. Sometimes, this gets really extreme and the guy will break a club. This is almost always occurs after the guy misses a putt, decides it's the putter's fault, snaps the putter's staff over his knee and then flings the putter into the next fairway. I have seen this two or three times. It's really something.

THE OLD GUY. The Old Guy doesn't have to be all that old. Just older than you. In addition, the Old Guy has the following characteristics: (1) he is usually wearing at least one piece of odd clothing (one of these guys I played with one time seemed to have rubber wraps that snapped just above his ankles on top of his golf shoes -- I have never seen anything like that); (2) when you first see him swinging, you think "man, that is a goofy swing, I wonder if he has arthritis;" (3) his short game is unreal, every time he misses a green, he chips the ball to about three feet; and (4) he ends up kicking your butt. The Old Guy is frequently very good to have in your foursome. He doesn't usually feel compelled to talk a whole lot, but is particularly willing to talk to you if you want to talk.

THE PROFESSIONAL JUNIOR GOLFER. This person is usually not encountered during a regular round of golf (for reasons to be explained below), but more often in tournaments. Basically, this is a kid who usually plays on country clubs who spends the whole round talking about how he just played some exclusive course or just got the new hot clubs or will only play the hottest, most expensive golf ball. One time, I played with one of these kids who was talking about how one of his dreams was not to play the Olympic Club -- the country club in San Francisco that has hosted several U.S. Opens -- but rather the San Francisco Country Club "because it is way more exclusive than the Olympic Club." Wow, love that perspective.

THE FRIEND. You pretty much know you have a good friend after that first time that you go play golf with someone and enjoy spending four or five straight hours with him or her. It's a little like helping someone move. It's kind of an acid test.