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I've often wondered this. I watched a show on the golf channel some months (years) back and they interviewed greg norman. There was mention in passing about the attitudes of the great players and how they were kinda.... well... dicks to put not too fine a point on it. Abrasive, pompus, just kinda not approachable. Now there are exceptions to the rule - Arnold Palmer for one - especially today but i find that they are just that. EXCEPTIONS. I feel like since i've gotten better, i haven't met a player better than me that's been as personable. Not tooting my own horn but i'm a generally easygoing person. When i was a 15 handicapper, i met 10s and 8s that were generally nice people. I'd talk to someone and have a good time of it. Still do. As I get down there, though, and the low singles are the ones i get paired with more often, i see a totally different group of people. it's not just what they say either, it's the tone of voice like "i could say this but there's no way you could possibly imagine what i mean with your game the way it is". I was on the range last night, and there were some presumably good players down at the other end and they were just talking loudly, bashing other golfers i guess they knew (they were not present), just talking in general about how bad some people suck or whatever. It just got me thinking. It's just rude of people. It's one thing to reminisce about "that time bill took a 10 on a hole" or "when i 4 putted a hole" and have a laugh but to act so high in front of an entire driving range of average or worse golfers it was really kind of unnerving and i didn't get a whole lot accomplished.

Turns out - included with these guys was someone i played a tournament with previously. He was on the 2nd hole and he snap hooked 2 OOB off the tee. He let loose with some serious expletives (with mine and his girlfriend present in the carts) and snapped his Mizuno driver in two and left it there, storming off down the fairway. I guess that generally speaks to his character, but i'm wondering if anyone else has found this to be true when you meet someone scratch or better.

I can honestly say that everyone i've met on oob has been nothing but a pleasure to golf with, so it's definitely not universal. There have been pros (teaching and otherwise) that do fit the mold though but they seem like they're really really good players. Just wondering if there's a correlation. If there is -- i may never be as good as i want to be because i just don't have that attitude in me.

Back when I played poker, I think I became a little snobbish when it became clear to me that I could take 99% of my opponents' money. The problem was simply the fact that I got sick and tired of all of the bad beat stories. Look, I played enough poker hands in my life so I've seen everything that there could possibly be seen.

I think that golf might be the same way. Once a player plays thousands of rounds, there really isn't that much that could happen that hasn't happened before.

Most of the scratch golfers I've played with tend to be more aloof than anything. They don't really like to talk about the game as much, and I see their point. When I play with new golfers, I hear all of the same old things that I used to say when I would duff a lot of shots. It does get old after a while, but I still try to be nice because golf needs all kinds of new players.

And I've also learned to not make judgments of people. I played with a handicapped gentleman earlier this week who could barely walk and used a wheelchair. He turned out to be a pretty good player with a handicap right around where mine is. If he could get his chipping down, which is almost impossible with the impediment that he has, he would be in the single digits easily.

I haven't yet run into anyone, as far as I know, that plays to a low single/scratch handicap.

Most of the arrogant ones I've met are the ones that know exactly what they did wrong everytime, but never do anything to correct it.

I have always enjoyed playing with better golfers. It has been my experience that on a whole most of them are very focused and that gives you the feeling that they are aloof. In every sport the exceptional athlete has grown up with a feeling of entitlement.Age mellows some of them and others become bigger jerks as they get older.Every body that I have ever met at some time in their life realizes that they are not as good as they thought they were.How they respond to this realization is a true mark of their personality.

I think you could almost relate this to Charles Barkley's golf life. At one time, he was a decent golfer with a normal looking swing. He said he was about an 8, but he wanted to get better. Between tinkering with his swing and grinding, he developed his hitch. But he had gotten so obsessed with getting better, that he really did not have fun with the game for a long time. So what you may be seeing are people obsessed with just getting better, they are losing sight of the fun.

I don`t even know what pompus means!

even at my old age!

I can see why you dont know what that means. Pompus is not a word.

merlin3driver wrote:

I can see why you dont know what that means. Pompus is not a word.

Yea i couldnt fix it. Typos are right at home here on oob tho.

player wrote:

even at my old age!

Nobody's buying it, dude.

I'm a 4.5 hc. I hope I dont have a ego. I love to play. I enjoy playing with most. I dont care if your a better golfer than I or not as good.

I have played with some jackasses, and I have played with some that it took a couple of holes to realize how good they are. By that I mean no ego.

I only know a couple of low single digit players and they are a bit older. One is a little arrogant and pushy and offers too much advice and the other is very jovial and self-deprecating and great to play golf with.

I'm not even close to scratch but I have my dick moments. I can get downright rude and confrontational when someone tries to violate the basic order of the golf course. If someone has a really grotesque swing or painful pre-shot, I turn away when they are hitting, that is a quietly arrogant move IMO. In private I have ridiculed people for their inability to play golf. If I decide I don't like someone on a personal level I don't go out of my way to mask it. I won't hesitate to give the cold shoulder for an entire round. All this is mostly restricted to the New York area; put me in any other civilized milieu and I'm more like any other normal nice person.

legitimatebeef wrote:

If someone has a really grotesque swing or painful pre-shot, I turn away when they are hitting

that's hilarious


the only near scratch players I've met was an extremely arrogant 18yo high school player and a very humble 60 year old 5'5" Vietnamese dude. The arrogant scratch player doesn't annoy me nearly as much as the douches that are actually a 22 hcp and think they're a 10, talk about how they were striping it on the range, etc etc. we've covered those guys in previous posts.

legitimatebeef wrote:

If someone has a really grotesque swing or painful pre-shot, I turn away when they are hitting,

Wow...yeah. I honestly don't know what to do when I get paired up with someone who looks like they are doing some kind of chicken dance when they swing the club.

I have always enjoyed playing with better players. I have run into jerks once in awhile but they are in a minority. I have been fortunate to play with a number of pro's over the years and I find they are fine if you allow them to st the tone as to conversation. The one exception was Sam Snead who was an absolute asshole. He was the most uncouth person I have ever met and I have met some pips. He told the dirtiest jokes with women he never met in the room. One husband threatened to flatten him. He continued until several couples left the room.