When golfing with the boss, know your course etiquette
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Many people believe that learning how to golf can help advance their career. Over the next few weeks our Word Up segment will feature golf lessons and tips from Canadian PGA teaching professional Bari Gourley. This episode features some tips on golf course etiquette.
Shelley Ridgewell: Hello, I’m Shelley Ridgewell. Welcome to the mini show Word Up, where we offer a slightly different perspective on the insurance industry. I’ve just started taking up the game of golf, partly for social reasons, and partly because I really do enjoy the game. But somebody once told me that before you can really get into the swing of things I should really learn the good habits and not the bad habits. So with that I decided to take lessons with Bari Gourley, and she made me realize that not only is it important that I do well on the course, but there is also more to it in terms of etiquette, to how to behave and the rule of the game. So today I’ve Bari to help me with my game and give me a little bit of insight into golf etiquette.
Bari Gourley: Hi. My name’s Bari Gourley and I’m a Canadian PGA teaching professional from Kingswood in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I just want to talk to you a little bit about golf etiquette. We teach a lot of beginner ladies here. We have a great ladies program where we have them come out and try the game for the first time. But then they’re scared to take it to the golf course. Many of my students say, “It’s fun taking lessons and hitting golf balls, but I’m not ready for the golf course.” But they really are. I just want to throw away that myth. Slow players aren’t the beginner golfers. They’re the people that walk too slowly . . . etc. A person who shoots 120 on the golf course can play as fast as someone who shoots 80, believe it or not.
The secret is to be ready to hit when it’s your turn. And we like to tell people don’t always follow the rules of golf (I didn’t say that Golf Canada) the person who supposed to tee off first is the person with lowest score on the last hole. But if they are fumbling around in their golf bag looking for a sandwich, that’s not going to help. We play ‘ready golf’. So if you are ready to hit, you go up and hit.
In between shots you walk straight to your golf ball. If three of you are playing, you don’t walk to one golf ball then all three of you walk to the next golf ball etc. You branch out to find your individual golf ball. Walk towards your golf ball at a good pace. The biggest time consumer is people that don’t know the golf course. Look for signs. Look for cart paths. Where will the next hole be? And when you go towards the green, even if your golf ball is on the other side, grab a club and go over. Always pull your bag over towards the next tee. So that way, after you putt, you walk off the green, grab your bag and go. Then you mark your score on the next hole. You don’t do it on the green saying, “One here. Two there . . . ” No. You don’t do it until you get to the next hole. That’s the secret to playing fast golf. It doesn’t matter how many times you hit it. Hopefully you are hitting it forward. That’s where the hole should be.
So, walk fast. Be aware where the next hole is so you can put your bag over there. Always hit when ready and add up on the next tee. Now, if the golf course does get slow, the deal is if you have a free hole in front of you that wasn’t there before, and there’s people waiting to shoot, you stand aside and you wave them through and tell them to hit. And that should be the easiest part. Don’t feel you don’t want to because they will be mad at you. Let them go through then you won’t have the pressure on you. But walking fast is the easiest part. Have fun out there, and everyone is ready to play the golf course.
