During a short work trip to Florida a few weeks ago, myself, my boss Sam Weinman and the great Keely Levins were fortunate enough to play seven holes at the newly opened Panther National following a video shoot. In classic Sam Weinman fashion, he did not bring his golf clubs (this is a man who played Augusta National with my podcast co-host Stephen Hennessey’s sticks), so he shared mine for our short but very sweet winter getaway. I had zero problem with this, of course. Sharing is caring. Even if Sam looked at me funny when he pulled out one of my MaxFli irons.
Where we did run into trouble, however, was when Sam deposited a ball into the water early in our seven-hole journey. Just to be clear, I couldn’t care less. Working at Golf Digest, you never want for golf balls, and you rarely, if ever, have to pay for them. One of the many perks of this dream job.
The problem, though, was that I hadn’t packed accordingly for this mini excursion, which included 18 holes a day prior at a different course by myself. For having not played since Thanksgiving, I hit the ball rather well, but did lose a few on my own. That’s when I realized I only had around five left.
There was zero hesitation on my end in handing him one of my few remaining pelotas because A. he’s the boss, and B. this wasn’t an 18-hole round, and if we did run out of balls we would have just stopped playing, not to mention the fact Keely would have surely done us a solid. We finished the seven holes with two to spare, and even considered playing the eighth and ninth hole (there was a shotgun outing that day, so we had no luck).
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But it called to mind a situation we’ve all found ourselves in at some point, be it a casual round or a competitive one. Your playing partner is having a woeful round, making donations into the woods and the drink left and right, and they eventually have to come clean. “Dude, I have no golf balls left.”
You may very well have been that person, too. I once arrived at the 13th tee during a first-round match of a club championship, 3 down at the time, and pulled one into the woods. When I went into my bag, I came up empty. The shame of asking my much-older opponent if I could borrow a ball is something that sticks with me to this day, despite the fact it was well within the rules. My opponent, naturally, disposed of me on the next two holes, winning 5-and-4. We shook hands and I handed him back his ProV1x with a small red dot on it.
That was a unique situation. It’s more likely this type of thing happens during your casual weekend game, with a chopper friend who simply can’t keep it on the golf course. In that circumstance, the conundrum that often arises is whether or not you are going to hand this buddy a top-of-the-line ball like a ProV1x, or do you dig deep into the bowels of your bag and fish out the scuffed up NXT Tour that serves only as an in-case-of-emergency ball or a “I’m just gonna hit another one for practice” ball.
In this case, you are well within your rights to hand over the NXT Tour. If your friend is showing zero signs of being able to keep it on the planet, they probably won’t know the difference anyway. Of course there are still some who do, and will likely find it offensive that you’re feeding them scraps. Tough luck, bud. Hit the fairway here and we’ll reassess.
As for this happening in a competition, especially against an opponent of equal playing level, it’s only right to take the sportsmanship high ground and give them the top-shelf stuff. That way, when you end up beating this person, you get to say that you not only beat them, but you beat them after literally helping them stay afloat. It’s the classic double-dagger. And you’d never want to be the stingy, gamesmanship a-hole who said no. Plus, as the rules state, that opponent could go find a ball from someone else on the course, which is just going to hold up play and make things super awkward. I’m very anti-awkward on the golf course.
What situations like this all boil down to is the Golden Rule that was plastered on the wall of every catholic middle school classroom in the early 2000s – treat others how you’d want to be treated. If you were ever the unfortunate soul who ran out, you’d want to be lent a hand. Just like I was during that shameful 5-and-4 drubbing.
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Do you have a “stupid” golf problem? A question you’re too ashamed to ask your close friends? A conundrum that needs to be talked out in a public forum? We’re here to help. If you have etiquette-related inquiries or just want to know how to handle some of the unique on- or off-course situations we all find ourselves in, please let us know. You can email me ([email protected]) or send me a DM on Twitter/X (@Cpowers14) or on Instagram (@cpthreeve).
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
