What’s more irritating – club thrower or swing fixer?

Steve Carroll: You meet all sorts when you tee it up in a medal but there’s always some that cause you to dip your head in despair when you see them hanging around the 1^st brandishing a scorecard.

These are two of my particular favourites – the club thrower and the swing fixer.

It’s not only errant golf balls you have to worry about when the club thrower is in melt down.

After one playing partner executed a particularly poor shot during a comp, I felt a whoosh round my ears and swung round to see his 4-iron going further than his ball and into a thick plantation.

We spent as much time looking for his lost club as we did for his ball (I didn’t dare tell him his 5 minutes was up) and then played the rest of the round in near silence as he repeatedly used his sticks as alternative projectiles.

That’s enough to mess up my hopes of winning but it’s the swing fixer that really takes the biscuit.

‘You’re not following through,’ he says. ‘Keep your left arm straighter’, ‘You’re lifting your head’.

Brilliantly helpful advice from a guy who’s toting double the number of shots I am and has just hooked his first out of bounds.

Listen pal, if I want advice I’ll go to a pro.

So what, or who, gets you going out on the course? Who should just concentrate on their own game and who makes you wish you’d stayed in bed?

Tom Lenton: Club throwing is very bad. Jordan told me a story about a member at Fulford that would put even the worst club throwers off.

It’s just really awkward isn’t it when someone has a head off?

Swing fixers, if it’s constructive after the round and from a good player or pro, then it’s fine with me.

The classic ‘You lifted your head up on that one’ from a 20 handicapper is awful but at least I can walk fast and get away from them most of the time and just have to block out their comments on tee shots and around the green.

SC: Reveal all, Jordan…

Helicopter horror

Jordan Elliott: One of my good friends from Fulford was playing golf some years ago when his playing partner threw his club high into the air, helicopter style.

Unfortunately, before he could even move out of the way, the club hit him straight in the face, causing some serious damage (even knocking some teeth out).

He still has dental issues now, some 20 years later.

He refuses to play golf with anyone who commits such an act!

James Savage: Club throwing is fine by me. I’d be happy for the tour pros to do it more.

I find it hilarious when my mate, who’s off 24, launches a club because he hasn’t hit a green in regulation.

I prefer it to the obscenities which come out of some tour players’ mouths just because a 10 footer didn’t break the way they thought it would.

I’m happy to take advice from pros or very good players when out on the course. Knowing what to take onboard and what to ignore is the tricky part.

You don’t want anything too technical mid-round. The best advice I have ever received on the course is to relax. You can’t play tense and angry. Throw a few clubs if that helps.

TL: Just throw your ball into the bushes.

Or hit your ball into the bushes with your putter (if you miss the ball more than 3 times put it back in your pocket and pretend it never happened).

I hit my ball with my putter the other week, dinked the shaft and now my putter doesn’t sit right. Nice one.

Club matters

Dan Murphy: Racket abuse is usually quite amusing. It also has a positive effect on me. A bit like when your sister/brother was in trouble with mum and and dad and so you behaved like an angel to show them up and look good.

Unsolicited swing fixing is not appreciated unless from someone suitably knowledgeable.

JS: I seem to remember a putter throw on the Fazio course at PGA National…

Mark Townsend: In a school foursomes match my partner threw his putter up a large conifer walking off the 5th.

Being a thickish tree the putter stuck on a limb so he had to climb his way up there before falling down, Tom and Jerry style. He still throws clubs now, aged 45.

JS: I have a tendency to throw clubs every time I play at my dad’s home course – Crookhill Park. I always play badly there and get very frustrated.

TL: I have an Taylormade RAC 8-iron still in a bramble bush at Whittlebury Hall GC, in Northamptonshire.

Jamie Millar: And a hybrid at Kilspindie?

SC: Clubs are too expensive to damage with a casual lob…