10 different types of golf playing partners to avoid on the golf course!
Golf's worst playing partners - The Eternal Optimist, The Perpetually Late, The Nattering Nanny...
Golf playing partners bring some very different attitudes to our beautiful game. Some are an absolute joy to play with, while others - for the sake of this article at least - are to be avoided at all costs.
From The Eternal Optimist and The Perpetually Late to The Nattering Nanny and The Slow Coach, we give you our top 10 most frustrating playing partners to bump into for a round of 18 holes.
Which one of the following 10 are you and your golfing buddies?! Got any better ones? We'd love to hear them, so come and join the debate on our social media channels over on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Without further ado, let's start with No.1:
THE ETERNAL OPTIMIST
A strange one to tee off with but sometimes a bad shot is just that, and often they require a release of frustration to forget. The only thing worse than a bad shot is a playing partner who sees it as a good one. "Fantastic strike" they say as your ball arrows towards the cruellest bunker on the course. Please, just let us suffer in silence.
THE DOOM AND GLOOM MERCHANT
There are those whose glass is half full and there are others who care to smash their glass to pieces after hitting their first wayward shot of the day. Clubs are tossed with regularity, huffs and puffs are the order of every tee box, and don't dare ask what this golfer is up to this evening. Probably sulking. Enjoy the walk and don't spoil it for others. Your deluded expectations are helping no one.
THE ADOLESCENT TEEN
We've all been one of these in the past, apparently. Your weekend competition is an opportunity to integrate members and forge friendships, but the art of conversation is often lost in the company of golfing youths with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Facebook and Instagram updates can wait 'til round's end.
THE PERPETUALLY LATE
If the two-shot penalty was invoked by starters across the country, then maybe those who treat tee times as recommended rendezvous dates would acquire punctuality. It's bad enough that you lose time on the group ahead before hitting a ball, but more frustrating is the inevitable military golf that will follow as you chase those ahead in vain.
THE HIGH-HANDICAPPER TURNED PRO
I'm talking about the hopeless who take golf painfully serious. Any club member rocking a course guide with personalised notes should never be trusted. They're usually the type of pedantic rules aficionado who is put off by a plane in the distance. They will sign for a 95, but talk to you in the clubhouse after as if they left 18 shots out there.
THE NATTERING NANNY
Now we are all for a bit of on-course bantz out there - in fact we certainly recommend plenty of that - but when you're staring at a talking shadow in the line of your putt it all gets a little too much. Conversation is nice and all that, but sometimes silence is golden - especially when you're spending more time in the sand than David Hasselhoff.
THE SLOW COACH
Every club has at least one of these lurking. If it was down to me, these players would be restricted to the last slot on the tee sheet every week and in a solitary one-ball. There is nothing worse than arriving at the club to see your name down with the club's snail director. Endless practice swings followed by incessant ball marking, and probably some AimPoint putt reading thrown in there for good measure.
THE RUNAWAY TRAIN
The polar opposite to what came before, you'd wonder why these speedsters bother with golf at all. Determined to play in two hours flat, they'll abandon etiquette, avoid reading putts and certainly won't look at any yardages out there. Unless you have five hours to dedicate to golf, don't go forcing your unrealistic schedule on me. Yet if you must play, then get up at 6am and head out first because not even Moses could play through everybody.
THE CHEAT
I mean there's not really much else to say about this one. You've just watched the lad hit three off the tee, send his fourth into the reeds, chunk his sixth onto the green and take two putts. "So what did you make there then?" Six. We often find these players are also left updating their scores from the 4th hole by the time they reach the halfway hut. Cue the magic pencil.
THE SWING GURU
There's no greater setting for the blind leading the blind than your local fairway. Hackers showing duffers a conventional grip. Slicers convincing hookers how to hit it straight. If I want advice on my swing, I'll speak to a professional. Not a 22-handicapper. Dad used to drive me bananas but at least his advice of "you're doing something wrong anyway" wasn't overly technical.
