One of the great things about building a community of fellow complainers in this Stupid Golf Problems space is that even people already close to you begin thinking of their own stupid golf problems that they\u2019ve encountered. Or actively seeking them out to confirm their preconceived biases. A prime example of this came last week, when a co-worker of mine, E. Michael Johnson, reached out with his own personal issue \u2013 whether or not to bring a second ball to the tee box on the hole that lives in your head, rent-free. <\/p>\n
This week, it\u2019s my boss, Sam Weinman, who reached out with a frustrating moment he had quite clearly just experienced on the course. Frankly, we\u2019ve likely all experienced it very recently, especially if you are one who likes to walk when they play: piss-poor cart management in the group ahead of you. Hell, it sometimes even happens in your own group.<\/p>\n
RELATED:\u00a0I have golf depression, and I\u2019m not handling it well<\/p>\n
Here was Sam\u2019s recent message: <\/p>\n
I like to walk golf courses, but I don\u2019t begrudge people who ride in carts, especially if they\u2019re older. But for anyone who is able-bodied, taking a cart should not absolve you of occasionally having to cover some ground with your own feet. The biggest violation looks like this: <\/p>\n
Two players tee off. Their tee shots land relatively close to one another, so they drive to the first ball, and the second guy sits in the cart, checks his phone, admires the scenery, whatever. The first guy hits and puts his club back in the cart. Then they begin their epic 20-yard journey to the second guy\u2019s ball and the second guy suddenly remembers he has to hit a golf shot. He walks to the back of the cart, pulls a club, checks the yardage. It\u2019s as if the whole idea was sprung on him right there and he is now caught off guard. This charade goes on for all 18 holes. <\/p>\n
The solution, if you haven\u2019t guessed, is for you to walk to your ball with the club you need when it\u2019s your turn to hit. Again, this is not directed at people who can\u2019t move around so well. If they need a golf cart to get from A to B, that\u2019s totally different. Everyone else, grab some clubs and get off your ass. <\/p>\n
If Sam thought I\u2019d have a different take, or that I\u2019d disagree with him entirely, he was sorely mistaken. It almost feels like I don\u2019t have to add anything at all, because he nailed it. But I will anyway. <\/p>\n
Anytime I ride in a cart, whether I\u2019m driving or passenger-ing, I make it a point to begin the process of hitting my shot before even arriving at it. I think the absolute least you should do, for example, is drop your partner off at their shot and get out of the cart and walk over to your ball to begin assessing your shot. Then, by the time they get there, you have some sort of idea of what you\u2019re going to do, even if you don\u2019t have a yardage yet. Like Sam said, the cartners that drive together from shot to shot and don\u2019t begin their process until arrival are the scourge of the earth. The even better move, if you have a cartner that actually \u201cgets it,\u201d is to drop yourself off at your shot and allow them to take the cart over to theirs. <\/p>\n
But this is hardly the only poor display of cart management. One of the other most egregious offenses is terrible parking jobs, and I don\u2019t mean when you go over the line in a tight parking garage. I mean when the next tee box is very clearly off to the back right portion of the green you\u2019re currently on, and there\u2019s a very clearly defined space of where to leave the cart. Yet somehow, people will end up parking it off the front left portion of the green, or somewhere up the left side on the cart path. They\u2019ll then putt out, mosey in the opposite direction of the next tee box, because that\u2019s where they parked the cart, get in, write their score down, take a swig of their beer and then drive off. And of course, they are still in the danger zone, so you have to wait until the cart is fully out of view. Had they parked in the proper spot, they would have cut the timing of this process in half. <\/p>\n
Both of these offenders suffer from the same illness \u2013 total unawareness and complete disregard for others. As someone who normally veers toward riding myself, the thought of being lumped into that group via a sweeping generalization makes me want to lug my bag around forever (by the way, people who walk and leave their bag in terrible spots are no better, either). <\/p>\n
Thankfully, my Madden awareness rating is quite high, and I have no problem teaching others that, as Sam eloquently put it, just because you\u2019re in a cart doesn\u2019t mean your feet do not work. Go get ready for your next shot or pass off the cart to someone else to go get ready for theirs. And park as close as you can to the path of the next tee box, even if it means you have to hoof it a little further to the green. <\/p>\n
RELATED:\u00a0What\u2019s the etiquette on hitting an \u2018extra\u2019 practice shot?<\/p>\n
Do you have a \u201cstupid\u201d golf problem? A question you\u2019re too ashamed to ask your close friends? A conundrum that needs to be talked out in a public forum? We\u2019re here to help. If you have etiquette-related inquiries or just want to know how to handle some of the unique on- or off-course situations we all find ourselves in, please let us know. You can email me ([email\u00a0protected]<\/a>) or send me a DM on Twitter\/X (@Cpowers14) or on Instagram (@cpthreeve).<\/p>\n This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the great things about building a community of fellow complainers in this Stupid Golf Problems space…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,755,138747,44,85,76226],"class_list":["post-870645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-the-loop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}