Fights on a Golf Course

[Ghostwedge]

2 hours ago, RSinSG said:

When I was a working LEO I got called to a couple of "fights" on our local muni. Unless you are a violent person, or a boxer or MMA you are probably not used to actually getting hit in the face. Most fights are more akin to something you'd see on Seinfeld, and once someone does get popped hard for the first time, the bloody nose or blood in their mouth usually ends the fight.  We also had some stabbings and a homicide on a golf course so I think it's best to not puff out your chest at someone you don't know.

 

That being said I was have a great old man fight story that happened last week after league play. We have a couple of guys who are notorious cheaters. They've been called on it in the past, had winnings forfeited  and you would think they would would be shamed enough to stop. Nope - they keep rolling putts back not making each other finish, get creative in finding lost balls etc. This is the retired guys league and they are both mid-70's and not in the best of shape. Well, last week another retired guy was on an adjacent hole and saw them not putting out. He went to the pro and asked to see their scorecard and sure enough the one guy took a par, and as a team they tied for 1st net. The guy who saw them is a retired contractor and former HS football coach and is is good shape and health for his age. He confronted one of the guys and told him he told the pro and their score was DQ's. The cheater got all hot and got in his face calling him all kinds of F-bomb names. His mistake was when he flipped the hat off the other guy, because the next thing he knew he was lifted up and dropped on to his back. It was hilarious and all the cheater could do was threaten to sue. I figure he knew he wouldn't have any corroborating witnesses if he were to file a battery report. 

 

Again, my advice is to not try to prove your manhood to someone you have no idea of what his capabilities are or his mental stability is. 

Man, I had no idea St George UT was such a rowdy place.

I'll ad this to your PSA, I was paired up with a guy once in OKC at a public course, as we were getting balls, tee's, markers, etc. out of our bags a Glock tumbles out of his bag on to the ground beside me. I handed it back to him and said " I won't play for more than $10 and you can have all the strokes you want ! " he cracked up.

 

[rodders]

Geez, I need to play more golf. In 36 years of playing, have come across a few morons but never seen it go to handbags at ten paces. Must be an American thing!

 

As for single players, no standing at all at my club but only play comps so they would never be allowed on course at that time anyway.

 

[larrybud]

15 hours ago, caeye0710 said:

I get why they were ticked off. They wanted to do something special for the guy the tournament was made for, but I personally think it was a bit out of line. The guy who won the money had no idea, nor was anyone who would've won it required to give it back. 

 

This is just ridiculous. If you're "required" to give it back, then just take up a donation pot. 

[fastswinger]

8 hours ago, EmperorPenguin said:

None of these compare to this one.  This was a melee that happened nine years ago in Fort Worth, and it made national news.  I will copy and paste.

 

 

A man who was allegedly stabbed during a fight at a Texas golf club over being allowed to play through could lose the use of a leg as a result, The Star-Telegram of Fort Worth reported.

The 48-year-old man, whose name was withheld by the newspaper over his fear of retribution, suffered a punctured femoral artery when he was stabbed in the leg with the shaft of a broken golf club, a Tarrant County Sheriff's Department spokesman said, according to the report.

The attack happened on Jan. 27 at a golf course at a resort near Eagle Mountain Lake, after the alleged victim's group asked to play through, believing the group ahead of them was playing too slowly, according to the report.

A club official had instructed the golfers in the group ahead to let the alleged victim's group play through, the alleged victim said.

But an argument broke out and became physical, and in the process a golf club was broken, said Terry Grisham, a spokesman for the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department, according to the report.

The alleged victim said the attacker stuck the broken shaft of the golf club through his leg and pulled it out, puncturing his femoral artery twice, the newspaper reported.

Muscles in the injured leg have atrophied from lack of blood flow, the alleged victim said, according to the report.

"If it does not regenerate, it will be no good to me," he said, the Star-Telegram reported.

A criminal investigation is ongoing, Grisham told the newspaper.

Broken shaft puncturing femoral artery twice?!?!  Could loose a leg from playing though?  That's nuts!

[MikeW2]

Broken shafts can be pretty sharp. Was playing once with a friend’s older brother. A real hot head with no self awareness and less ability on a golf course. However, he was a member at an exclusive private club and invited me to play. One of my good friends was the AP and a friend of my younger brother was the caddy master. When I arrived they were like you’re playing with who??? Seventh hole is a par 3 over water. Splash, reload, splash, goes to reload but no ball in his pocket, snaps his finger at the poor 12 year old kid carrying his bag. Kid had no idea what that meant. Yells “BALL!” Kid tosses him a ball. Splash. Snap goes the club over his knee like he’s Bo Jackson or something. Big exception here was the half of the club with the head had rebounded or did something weird and was stuck in his leg. He didn’t make a sound but was bleeding profusely. I called into the shop and said “Bobby it’s Mike, we need a cart sent to 7 tee and an ambulance called to the course ASAP.” Without missing a beat he says “It was just a f****** matter of time.” We wrapped him up after cutting some rope off one of those yellow rope fences you see on courses. His membership was revoked but we got to finish our round. 

[Dannyboy44]

I play with older guys and the day i didnt go one of them got into a fist fight with the group ahead of them bc his ball landed 20 yards short of the green. It seems that the fights usually happen with older people. If someone hits into me the first time i say nice shot. The second time Ill step on the ball as hard as I can so they get the point. The third time its getting teed up and hit back at them. 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Dannyboy44

[RSinSG]

9 hours ago, Ghostwedge said:

Man, I had no idea St George UT was such a rowdy place.

I'll ad this to your PSA, I was paired up with a guy once in OKC at a public course, as we were getting balls, tee's, markers, etc. out of our bags a Glock tumbles out of his bag on to the ground beside me. I handed it back to him and said " I won't play for more than $10 and you can have all the strokes you want ! " he cracked up.

 

This was in Palm Springs. I’m a refugee from SoCal. I escaped to Utah to get away from that kind of stuff- old man dust ups not considered..

[ohioglfr]

Years ago I'd hit into a foursome as they were executing their approach shots to the hole.  I felt comfortable with my club choice and was confident the ball would fall at least 20-25 yards short of the group.  I struck it well . . . too well, and I remember the ball seeming to hang in the air forever.  It actually landed on the top of one of their carts making a very loud bang.  They all turned around immediately and made insulting gestures.  One of them marched off to where my ball rested and threw it over into the adjacent fairway.  I felt terrible about it, but all I could do was make animated shrug gestures, as they were far off.

 

 I let the group behind me play through.

[Loki]

All this "single has no status on the course" is from a different era. People in the know let faster groups play through no matter how many players are in it.

 

A couple years ago I played through 7 or 8 groups in a 11 hole span as a single. EVERY SINGLE group waved me through immediately when they saw me.

 

Never seen a fight on a course. Seen a few heated arguments.

[Guyoneolder]

A guy was shot on my home course. I live on course close to where it happened. A guy hit his ball into a guys yard asked if he could toss him the ball.

Guy ignored him when golfer arrived at the green the home owner was waiting for him and shot him then went home and killed himself. Golfer survived. I also had a guy I almost hit with a sripped 4wood who was around 255 out. I was about 16 yo guy picked my ball up hopped into cart to bring me my ball. We shared some heated words. I thought He was leaving then sucker punched me. 

[caeye0710]

6 hours ago, larrybud said:

 

This is just ridiculous. If you're "required" to give it back, then just take up a donation pot. 

Exactly my thoughts. It was never an actual "requirement", but the look that people got when they didn't hand the winnings back was just unbelievable. 

 

At the time, I was a 23 yr old making $960 a month as the asst. pro. (plus about $400/mo in lessons) while paying $500 in rent and $300 in a car payment. I have zero idea who I survived, but I was too young to notice how little I was making because I got 3 free meals and my cell phone paid for as well as free golf. 

 

I always wondered what I would have done had I won the money. Would have been tough for me to hand it back.

[TomRUtah]

I mentioned in another thread about a close call that happened about 25 years ago.  The group behind started hitting into us because they wrongly assumed we were holding them up.  The entire course was backed up that day.  Anyway, a guy in our group asked them to stop hitting into us.  That's when Mr. Belligerent in the other group lost control.  He raised his club and threatened to mess up the guy in our group.  Nothing physical happened and the incident was swept under the rug.

[sittingbull]

Last year playing with a buddy who pull hooked a 3 wood off the deck and it was like a Patriot heat-seeking missile right towards another dude's golf cart left of our fairway. Well we yelled FOUR but the the jack azzs never heard us because there blaring music. Well it hit one of them in the shoulder and he was pissed and wanted some intill my buddy gets out of the cart.. 6.5 and around 300lbs played tackle at MSU football some years back. 

[me05501]

On 8/5/2021 at 9:51 AM, RainShadow said:

Along with the continued disintegration of society.

 

Considering that started toward the end of the Roman Empire you’d think it would be over by now. 

[Gsea]

6 hours ago, Loki said:

People in the know let faster groups play through no matter how many players are in it.

lol, in the know

[miamistomp]

4 hours ago, sittingbull said:

Last year playing with a buddy who pull hooked a 3 wood off the deck and it was like a Patriot heat-seeking missile right towards another dude's golf cart left of our fairway. Well we yelled FOUR but the the jack azzs never heard us because there blaring music. Well it hit one of them in the shoulder and he was pissed and wanted some intill my buddy gets out of the cart.. 6.5 and around 300lbs played tackle at MSU football some years back. 

 Me and Sam Colt never been scairt of no fat pigskin peckerhead 🤡

[MikeW2]

4 hours ago, TomRUtah said:

I mentioned in another thread about a close call that happened about 25 years ago.  The group behind started hitting into us because they wrongly assumed we were holding them up.  The entire course was backed up that day.  Anyway, a guy in our group asked them to stop hitting into us.  That's when Mr. Belligerent in the other group lost control.  He raised his club and threatened to mess up the guy in our group.  Nothing physical happened and the incident was swept under the rug.

I will never understand the idiots that purposely hit into the groups in front of them. My friend and I got paired up with a random twosome and it was kinda slow that day. One of the random guys teed his ball up and said “maybe it’s time to drop a message on them to speed them up.” My friend said What?!?! And I said you are an Word not allowed Hat, they aren’t the reason it’s slow, they are waiting too. He replied who cares we’re bigger than they are. My friend is 6’5 and I’m 6’ but this guy is 5’6” max so my friend said Don’t do it but if you do we’re with them. He stormed over to his cart. Nothing said for like two holes and his buddy says to us that the guy was fooling around, he thinks. My impression was he was actually going to hit a golf ball at people less than 200 yards from us. Total bafoon.

[JohnnyCashForever]

On 8/5/2021 at 2:07 PM, Blaiser said:

I came pretty close to a fight a few years ago.

 

Was out playing some twilight golf with my buddy from college and the group ahead of us was a foursome of guys in their early 20's. One of the guys was noticeably heated the entire round as we saw a few club throws. We mostly just thought it was really funny and didn't mind because they were actually keeping up a good pace of play.

 

Later on a short par 4 I was in the fairway probably 50 yards away from the green waiting for them to putt out. The heated guy missed a short putt, and then did the unthinkable -- took a full swing with his putter right into the green taking a massive divot right next to the hole. Swung so hard I think it actually broke his putter. Couldn't believe what I just saw.

 

The golfer in me was so mad, that I just picked up my ball from the fairway and made a beeline to catch up to them on the next tee box to confront him. To no surprise, he didn't take kindly to me calling him out for being a d***head and within seconds we were face to face insulting each other. He did the whole "what the f**k you gonna do about it?" while being an inch away from my face. Thought it was inevitable that hands would be thrown, but luckily that didn't happen.

 

I may have been in the wrong for going out of my way to call the guy out, but just couldn't help myself after seeing him blatantly destroy the green.

 

 

 

I can sympathize with your reaction, and I think it was right to let the guy know that you disapproved of his behavior.  Methodology could be debated, but no harm, no foul.

 

Last year, when we had those Covid ball-retrievers on every flagstick at our course, I was part of a similar incident.  The twosome we were behind was playing very methodically.  It looked like they had a big bet riding on the match.  One guy was obviously much better than his playing partner.  Towards the end of the back nine, the worse player missed a short putt, tapped in the comebacker, and tried to lift the handle for the ball retriever.  It got stuck.  So instead of picking the ball out of the cup with his hand or trying to fix the handle, he started whacking the handle and the flagstick like his putter was a machete and he was blazing a path through the Amazon.  I mean he was using both hands and arms trying to inflict as much damage as possible.  His partner looked back our way and sheepishly slinked to their cart as the guy kept whacking away.  All the while, we were about 80 yards away in the fairway.  Finally, I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Stop screwing around with the flagstick!"  He looked up, lifted his ball from the cup, and lumbered to their cart.  Thankfully, that was the end of it.

 

Like you, although no long-lasting harm was done, I was physically upset seeing someone intentionally trying to damage my course.  It was shocking.     

 

[Nels55]

I have seen a few incidents over my 55 years of playing golf but there was one really odd one 10 years ago.  A friend and I were playing along in a nice Sunday round when we got the the 8th tee and the group in front of us were waiting on the tee for a twosome who were in the middle of the fairway and appeared to be having a lesson.  The green was open and had been so for quite a while.   My friend yelled at them that there were two groups on the tee and one guy drove his cart back to the tee.  When he got there he said that he had not played for 6 months and that his wife had passed away 3 days ago and asked what we wanted him to do.  My friend said he was very sorry to hear that and maybe they could finish the hole and then let us play through.  After they holed out that came driving back to the tee and the second guy apparently wanted to fight my friend but the first guy said he did not want to go to jail.  They ended up waiting for the group behind to play through also. 

[me05501]

This is why I hate those golf social media accounts that cater to younger players (ziregolf, Barstool, etc). They’re always posting fights, guys too drunk to swing, or those insane over-the-top celebrations with twenty guys jumping up and down on the green. I’ve rarely seen anything like that on a real course. There’s no need to try to make all that junk seem routine. 

[Baitkiller]

Was just finishing my round several years ago when two cruisers and an ambulance came flying into the course actually driving ON the course headed to the back section.  We later learned it was an alcohol fueled brawl that ended in a broken arm. Seems one of the participants enlisted an iron in his battle plan.

[JimmyC59]

4 minutes ago, Baitkiller said:

Was just finishing my round several years ago when two cruisers and an ambulance came flying into the course actually driving ON the course headed to the back section.  We later learned it was an alcohol fueled brawl that ended in a broken arm. Seems one of the participants enlisted an iron in his battle plan.

Your SW should be your goto "weapon" from your bag

[Whereismydivot]

This is "The fight that never happened" story.

A nice fellow I used to play with in the 80's was about as friendly as anyone you would ever meet.  What no one knew on the golf course except me was he was a Golden Gloves middleweight champ and also a former world middleweight boxing champ.   I was with him when guys (a** hats) would insult him stupidly over idiotic things including his heritage. He would only smile and ignore them.  He was always in control. But, when I saw his smile disappear was when I would worry that someone could really get hurt, but it never happened.   One day our head pro (a large guy about 6'3" and 225 lbs) was needling him and playfully hit him on the shoulder.  My friend, laughingly tapped HIM on the shoulder.  The pro couldn't raise his arm for a week, and he was barley touched by this guy.  When you shook hands with him it was like shaking a block of concrete.  In his 60's he was still solid as a rock. 

You really never know who you could be provoking.

[Paddy_2_Iron]

2 times in my life both times pressed charges.  Hit in the right jaw with an iron, took me down to the ground.  Pressed charges on this drunk 18 years, two felon counts.  Attorney called and asked if I was okay pleading down to two misdemeanors I said yes, although as I type this post I still rage and wish I would of stuck him with felonies.  

 

The other time my Dad and I were playing.  Two guys came up to us and wanted to fight I got hit in the face my dad did too.  I hit back with my fist in his face, it hit him hard.  We both realize this was crazy or they saw I was going to fight back and they moved on, some of their not so wasted buddies talked them into it.  We called the cops immediately and later on found out they were beating up other golfers on the course.  

 

I've been in several shouting matches over 10 of them.  I'd like to think it was never because of me, personally.  But sometimes you play with hot heads or encounter them.  I always bring a high end police baton with serious voltage 12,000,000 volts.   It'll make a 6 ft 5 monster piss his pants.  

[Paddy_2_Iron]

3 hours ago, JimmyC59 said:

Your SW should be your goto "weapon" from your bag

 

I bring a high voltage police baton, 12,000,000 volts.  

[me05501]

51 minutes ago, Paddy_2_Iron said:

2 times in my life both times pressed charges.  Hit in the right jaw with an iron, took me down to the ground.  Pressed charges on this drunk 18 years, two felon counts.  Attorney called and asked if I was okay pleading down to two misdemeanors I said yes, although as I type this post I still rage and wish I would of stuck him with felonies.  

 

The other time my Dad and I were playing.  Two guys came up to us and wanted to fight I got hit in the face my dad did too.  I hit back with my fist in his face, it hit him hard.  We both realize this was crazy or they saw I was going to fight back and they moved on, some of their not so wasted buddies talked them into it.  We called the cops immediately and later on found out they were beating up other golfers on the course.  

 

I've been in several shouting matches over 10 of them.  I'd like to think it was never because of me, personally.  But sometimes you play with hot heads or encounter them.  I always bring a high end police baton with serious voltage 12,000,000 volts.   It'll make a 6 ft 5 monster piss his pants.  

It sounds like you might be a maniac. 

[betoj]

6 hours ago, Paddy_2_Iron said:

2 times in my life both times pressed charges.  

------

I always bring a high end police baton with serious voltage 12,000,000 volts.

------

I've been in several shouting matches over 10 of them.  I'd like to think it was never because of me, personally

There is no WAY any of these were because of you. 

[Paddy_2_Iron]

17 hours ago, betoj said:

There is no WAY any of these were because of you. 

 

That makes no sense, I was the victim on the course.  What shouldn't I protect myself?  If you play 3 18's a week on public courses it will happen.  I'm not a coward but I don't instigate it, usually it's the company you keep or run into.  Trust me those guys have been removed from the play list.  

 

Now that I have ratched back my playing due to other obligations it doesn't happen as often.  

 

What do you do if people hit in you?  Or worse yet want to fight?!  Do trust falls? 

 

Edited August 8, 2021 by Paddy_2_Iron

[Paddy_2_Iron]

22 hours ago, me05501 said:

It sounds like you might be a maniac. 

Why would you make such random claims?  I was hit in the face by an iron and lost the use of my right side of my face due to the plexus of nerves being damaged.  I didn't even hit back that time.  I pressed charges at the time both felonies, battery and another, which I allowed them to plea down agreeing with the public attorney. 

 

The time my dad and I were playing and the group came up and hit my 55 year old father in the face ( at the time ) and hit me I blasted that a** hat in his face.  He wanted nothing to do us after that.  It was dumb luck but my guess is I hammered the alpha and he realized time to move on and pick on some other group, which he and his band of merry drunk idiots ended up doing.  

Edited August 8, 2021 by Paddy_2_Iron

[Carl Spackler3]

On 8/5/2021 at 5:36 AM, rooski said:

 

Agree with this -- I think a lot could have to do with geographical locations. I've played most of my golf in Oregon throughout my life where people are just generally quite friendly.

 

I've accidentally snuck a good few balls up on groups throughout the years after some bad distance judging and the worst I've ever heard is "nice shot man you piped that!" after I apologize

 

Perhaps it is because im 6'4" 240lb and people just don't want beef? Hard to say 😂 

Isn’t Portland in Oregon 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂