hitting. Of course, these incidents can escalate beyond F-bombs and empty threats. Gruesome headlines abound, like “Massachusetts man bites off golfer’s finger during fight” in 2018, or “Mississippi man bites off golfer’s nose over game” in 2022, both of which resulted in felony mayhem charges and lawsuits. Fortunately, most of these fights don’t end with someone going to jail or losing a body part. Less serious incidents, however, can involve physical altercations and often have the same catalysts – slow play and gambling. “We had a calcutta once and a disagreement about ownership of a team,” says one general manager of a public course. “I heard a commotion in the golf shop and looked outside to see two big guys going at it on the porch. Fortunately, they stopped when I ran out screaming, but both walked away with scrapes on their faces. We decided to hold the calcutta off-site going forward.” Lest you’re tempted to judge, incidents like these aren’t reserved to public courses. A director of operations at an exclusive club in New York, where the initiation fee is above $100 000, has stories for days. “I don’t even know where to start. Every day something happens that you have to laugh at.” These include one member chasing another while promising to kill him with his putter over what he thought was a questionable drop. Another threatened to throw a fellow member off a clubhouse balcony at a member-guest because he dared to talk to another golfer’s caddie, asking if there was anything he could do to speed up play. In one instance, just the act of complimenting someone’s outfit on the someone’s outfit on the range – “You’re looking very GQ today!” – was perceived the wrong way and led to an on-course dispute that spilled over into the locker room after the round. Sometimes the alpha traits that make people successful in their careers can’t be turned off. “It’s just hubris,” the director of operations says about the club’s membership. “They think they’re gods. They don’t think they’re going to die or anything bad is going to happen to them. They just love complaining about something, but it’s all about trying to determine who’s tougher. The next thing you know they’re having lunch together.” Tracking down details of golf-course fights is difficult. The people involved almost always want to move on or at least remain anonymous, resulting in a trail of “no comments.” Apparently, the first rule of golf fight club is that you don’t talk about golf fight club. The original Cranbourne GC video that went viral has long been scrubbed from the Internet, but if you dig, you’ll find versions and plenty more like it. ‘Dude, we could go viral!’ April 21, 2023, was a Friday afternoon like most at Cleveland Heights, a Florida municipal course that has 27 holes and does more than 80 000 rounds a year. The tee sheet was packed, the sun was out, and the weekend was starting early for Jacob Guzman, who was enjoying his day as he got to the second hole and heard some yelling. A heated argument was developing between two groups on a tee box, and so Guzman whipped out his phone. One golfer had hit into the group ahead. In retaliation, someone in that group ran over the golf ball with a cart. As the two groups met on the next tee, tempers flared. “We’ve got a fivesome in front of us! We can’t go any faster!” It’s a phrase every golfer has exclaimed in frustration at one point. As the altercation of punches and kicks began, Guzman can be heard saying, “Dude, we could go viral.” Go viral they did, with the
Have you ever seen regular people fight? Not trained boxers, actors or their stunt doubles but regular people. They look ridiculous. Dress them in pastels, golf shoes, loud belts, and put them on a golf course, and they look even sillier. A video of two guys from Cranbourne Golf Club outside Melbourne, Australia, went viral in November 2022 for such an encounter. For a moment, their foreheads briefly touched as they stared into each other’s eyes while spewing streams of profanity. The middle-aged guy wore a red polo with black shorts that revealed shins nearly as pale as his white belt. He had removed his golf glove as if readying to slap the older man, who held his ground while simultaneously holding on to the handle of his pushcart with his gloved hand. No violence occurred, unless you count the older man smashing his pushcart with his club when he duffed his next shot moments later. Why were these two fighting? Apparently, the older guy was unhappy with the movements of spectators following another group and had screamed, “This is bullshit! This is the club championship!” during a three-minute tirade. “I’m 61 years old!” he said before unleashing a flurry of expletives. In reporting this story, we heard some beauts, like the golfer who got tossed into a pond in Madrid, or the crack about someone’s wife sleeping around at a New York club that led to punches thrown and three-month suspensions, or the booze- fuelled board meeting in Minnesota regarding re-grassing the course that resulted in a male member getting kicked out for his foul-mouthed tirade towards a female member – and the fairways eventually being replanted with bentgrass. However, this isn’t some golden age of golf fights – just the product of living in the modern age. Cellphones can capture videos in an instant, and social media allows people to spread things to the masses just as quickly. Golf doesn’t have the level of trash talk that’s accepted in other sports, so these rare glimpses of “ungentlemanly” behaviour are reasons to rubberneck. A video of golfers squabbling is a guaranteed hit, even if there’s no actual
Golf is inherently frustrating, and slow play is a dangerous addition for those who already have a short fuse. The “Fistfight at Denver’s Fossil Trace” in 2016 is just one example. It’s a classic of the genre involving a golfer hitting into a group in front but with a twist. One party claims the golfer who hit the shot in question was only 12 and wasn’t trying to send a message to the group ahead. He just happened to connect for the shot of his life on the finishing hole. However, Justin Abrams, who recorded the fight, says it was the culmination of a threeball’s frustration from being stuck behind what they perceived as a slow fourball for the entire round. All we know is that someone from the threeball hit a “laser” from the fairway into the fourball on the green, and chaos ensued. Fighting and even just verbal assaults can lead to being banned from a course or losing a club membership. •••
video racking up more than one million views within a few days before TikTok took it down because of a “violence guideline violation.” It remains on multiple Instagram accounts. Cleveland Heights will celebrate its centennial in 2025, and employees lamented that a course with strong ties to the community was drawing media attention for the wrong reasons. “It ended quickly, nobody got hurt, but people felt bad,” one course employee says. As for those involved, they avoided police charges, but they didn’t finish another hole, and all have been given a lengthy ban. “We don’t want to see them, and I don’t think they want to be seen either because they’re embarrassed,” another employee says. Of course, it’s possible the pandemic golf boom has brought new people to the sport who are not as well versed in the game’s etiquette. Dr Bhrett McCabe, a sport psychologist whose clients include Jon Rahm, says the American Psychological Association has measured stress levels at all-time highs the past three years. Increased alcohol consumption and heightened political tensions during that time provide a potentially explosive combination. “Everybody’s polarised; everybody’s me against you,” McCabe says. “It’s unfortunate because we’ve lost civility to some degree.”
74 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 75
NOVEMBER 2023
NOVEMBER 2023
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