mistermack wrote: ↑Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:54 am
Slow play is fucking rude, and people of any colour deserve to be kicked off the course for it.
When you are on a busy golf course, you are in a queue of up to 72 people depending on where you are. And if you play slow, you are holding up all of the people behind you.
I used to play with an Irish guy called Paddy, who had high blood pressure and heart problems. He would go absolutely mental, if the group in front were playing slow. (he has a hell of a temper).
I remember once, we were being held up constantly by the group in front, when the group behind started shouting at US for holding them up. He went so red with anger, I really thought he was going to die right there in front of us.
There have been really nasty fights on the course, over slow play, so I'm not surprised the police were called. It wouldn't be the first time, or the last.
I partly agree and partly disagree with your assessment here.
I have a suspicion why this got out of hand here - the key factor in the news articles about it, I think, is that this is occurring at hole 2, and they skipped hole 3 to try to speed up. This is very telling as to what this grouping was doing on the golf course, which is not playing golf. They had a tee time, and presumably teed off on time when the previous group was on the first green, right? So, somehow, between teeing off on the very first hole, and teeing off on the second hole, they took a break. A break on hole 2? Seems strange. How long was the break? How long did it take them to from the tee box of hole one to the tee box of hole 2?
Usually, slow play does not materialize until a few holes into the course, as slower players start to drag the play back.
So, you have these regular golfers teeing off behind the group of ladies. They are politically connected people in the area, and also well-connected in the club, because the parents of the one guy doing a lot of the yelling are co-owners of the club. So, this young guy doing the scolding of the ladies is the kid of the owners. They probably approached the first tee box and saw the group of fat ladies in front of them, and were immediately reacting like, "oh, Jesus .... it's gonna be a loooooonggg day..." (and that's not racist, necessarily, it's more sexist if anything because anyone who regularly golfs knows women tend to play slower - it's a common complaint). So, then the ladies take a break before hole 2 and that probably set these guys off. They then walked up to them, according to the articles I read, twice, to ask them to speed up. It's not uncommon for guys to get all grouchy about slow players in front of them, especially chicks, who have the reputation of playing super-slow. I can definitely see the guys going "oh, fucking no, I'm not playing behind these fat ladies all day..."
I doubt they approached them politely, and if they didn't that probably caused a reaction in the ladies, who probably also did not react politely. Only we apparently don't have any video of that.
Anyway, that's speculation, but I have a feeling this is ego from the guys playing behind these ladies, who got themselves all worked up when they saw what the 18 holes had in store for them - waiting behind these chattering folks who don't really care enough about their game to worry about skipping hole 3. That doesn't justify their behavior, though, because....
...in my view calling the police was ridiculous and unnecessary. What should have happened is that the guys should have asked to play through. If the ladies refused, they should have been patient as they got an employee of the course to ask a manager to address the situation and compel the ladies to let the guys play through. But, I bet if they asked politely to play through, the ladies would have said o.k. It's not a big deal to play through.
I don't know if it's racism. This one strikes me as possibly indirectly racist -- but, I bet it's the pot boiling over of a few alpha male guys getting their egos involved and allowing themselves to get overly upset about a group of fat ladies playing lazy golf.
EDIT - I read some other material, and it appears I may be wrong about the slow play being right when they first teed off. Apparently, this occurred after the 9th hole, which makes sense. I also read where the ladies were playing within the estimated time for completing the course, and the issue seems to be that they took a longer than allowed break. If that's the main issue, then the complaining party should have just asked to play through, or dealt with it. The more I read about this, the guys complaining seem to be more clearly in the wrong here, based on what's been written.
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