Is silence at golf tournaments an archaic practice?

sigmapete1 · July 22, 2008

The recent post about guys yelling "get in the hole" after every shot 0made me wonder, "What if the crowd was constantly cheering and yelling all the time, then no one would hear those guys." Which leads to my question, if baseball players can pitch and hit with the crowd cheering, football kickers can hit a field goal with the crowd cheering, and basketball players can hit free throws with the crowd cheering, the how come golfers need absolute silence? I can understand being distracted if it started with absolute silence and someone clicked a camera or said something, but if there was a constant level of noise from the crowd then those little annoyances would go unheard.

(I'm not saying I necessarily advocate constant cheering, just wanna see what people think)

jjj912 · July 22, 2008

In Rick Reilly's book "Who's Your Caddy" he comments that during practice rounds the pros were always talking during each others backswings. So I don't think that golfers necessarily need silence. It's noise that is much louder than the background noise that is the problem. Part of the reason for the silence in golf may come down to culture. For whatever reason, golfers and people who watch golf tournaments have historically been quite except to applaud a good shot. So I think the loud cheering and talking is something that golfers are not accustomed to dealing with. If golfers always played the game with a cheering gallery following them around all the time, they'd learn to deal with it like baseball players and basketball players have.

Brad31 · July 22, 2008

I think it has more to do with the etiquette and such of golf, rather than noise being to distracting to golfers. Talking never bothers me, so I can't imagine it would the pros. As long as people aren't yelling out tips during my swing like "keep your hips still" or something like that, because that would bother me lol. But for the most part I think it has to do with golf being a gentlemans game and not the place for drunk loudmouths with painted chests to cheer like football.

e-dog9 · July 22, 2008

Yes, in addition to more people yelling "get in the hole" we need more idiots shouting "READY TO GET POUNDED, AGAIN?" during the backswing!

GaijinGolfer · July 22, 2008

I think it has more to do with the etiquette and such of golf, rather than noise being to distracting to golfers. Talking never bothers me, so I can't imagine it would the pros. As long as people aren't yelling out tips during my swing like "keep your hips still" or something like that, because that would bother me lol. But for the most part I think it has to do with golf being a gentlemans game and not the place for drunk loudmouths with painted chests to cheer like football.

I agree. Its not so much that the players couldnt make a shot with all that loud noise, its ettiquette and its that the golf crowd has always been more of an upscale and civilized crowd than the people you see with other sports.