Something I very much enjoy. But Stina Sternberg thinks she has some problems with me. See her video where she lectures us men on how not to act like we’re self-centered five-year-olds. Then continue reading.
1. What’s with the cart? If you’re under 75, and not lame or injured, what are you doing in a cart anyway? Are you too delicate to walk, or out too of condition? Forget the cart. Enjoy the outdoors! That’s one of the reasons we play golf instead of going bowling.
2. No, Stina, I am not guilty of this. I have never given unsolicited advice to a playing partner I have just met, or a friend who knows how to play the game, and it’s rather sexist of you to imply that all men do. But when my wife, who is just learning the game, lays up sod for the fourth time in a row because her weight is so far back on her right foot that she’s almost falling down and she is getting more upset each time, I think I am qualified to remind her to get her weight over to her left side, which she does the next time and she starts hitting good shots again.
3. Are you kidding? Someone would intentionally stop another player’s ball? Nothing to say about that one, but as for giving putts, I’m not going to give you anything. Golf is played from the tee to the hole. And as for taking excessive shots, if a woman is taking so long to get up to the green that there are now two empty holes ahead of us (this has happened to me), I will suggest that she take four swings, then pick up. I said this fifteen minutes before the marshall caught up with our group and told her the same thing.
4. Expressions of anger. Right on, but women don’t own this issue. It doesn’t cut it with us guys, either. Make a habit of this and you’ll find yourself playing solo.
5. Good point on the gambling. I take what I win with pleasure from whomever owes it to me.
Now here are a few rules based on my exeriences, regarding things that I see women do, but not men.
1. Don’t step in the line of my putt. And when your female partner you came to the course with reminds you not to do that, don’t keep doing it.
2. If you’re going to call a rules violation on me, you’d better know what the rule is. I carry a rule book in my bag, and I’ll ask you to show me, right there and now, and I won’t care if you’re embarassed when what you said isn’t in the book or you’re wrong. Same thing goes for procedures. Even around the green, the person farthest from the hole plays first, regardless of whose ball is on or off the green.
3. If we’re playing for money, and you’re hitting short irons or wedges into the green on all the par fours while playing from the red tees, I will suggest that you move back. The red tees are to equalize play, not to provide an advantage.
4. When you have holed out, get off the green! We’re in the fairway waiting to hit. Save your chatting and score-keeping for the next tee. Leave your pull cart on the side of the hole closest to the next tee you don’t have to go all the way across the green to get it and go all the way back across.
5. Extra one for Stina: When we get sent off together, don’t think that I am likely to be an idiot like the guy in the video and I won’t think you’re likely to be a prima donna. All I want to do is have fun and enjoy your company for four hours. Until then, keep your head down and your left arm straight.