Goofy Golfer

It happened to me earlier this week.. I arrived at the course for a late round knowing my regular mate was going to join me a couple of holes later. I started with 2 other players playing steady below my hcp . After hitting my teeshot at the 4th straight on the fairway in plain sight for everyone to see, Peter arrived at the course and I decided to let the group I was playing with go ahead and wait for him. There was 1 flight behind that group and I also let them go trough , politely asking them to leave my ball.. the white one on the right side of the fairway (while pointing to it) where it was ..

We chatted a bit while waiting till Peter could hit his t-shot and when I looked at the fairway again , my ball was gone, It was picked up either by the flight I let pass by, or by one on an adjoining fairway.

At first I assumed it was just out of sight because I was looking from a different angle, but when approaching the place where I should have been it became clear .. the ball was absolutely gone.

So what do the rules say here ?

Frankly I couldn't care, I dropped a ball where I was supposed to find it, hit the green and 3 putted it.

I don't get this.. yes you can pick up a ball you find in the rough, the bushes etc when you know it isn't one lost there by somebody still playing , but picking up a ball in the middle of a fairway when you see there's still people on the that fairway ?

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Are you also frustrated by slow play, by way too much pitchmarks on the greens ? So am I

What can you do about it .. you can urge your fellow players to speed up play, or you can repair the pitchmarks. But if the damage is done by another flight not that much ..

So the R&A set out to create a movie together with Open Champion Padraig Harrington to put together a guide .

Watch them here

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A couple of weeks ago while watching some people struggle with their golf carts between the bunker and the green I wondered. "Does golf Etiquette becomes irrelevant after the age of 50 ? "

If not .. then why did I see elderly people put their golfbags on the green, or use their trolly between the green and a couple of bunkers ? Just because they are local members of a club and they can ?

The most surprising thing however was one elderly man who after shanking his ball into the water on a 134 meter par 3 decided he should leave something else there too, turned away from the clubhouse and started to urinate in the water before continuing his way to the next teebox.

Needless to say I won't ever be searching for my ball if it happens to fall in there.

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