Angry Club Golfer: Oh I’m sorry, did my shot interrupt your conversation?
What was it they said, careless talk costs lives? If you rumble on during my backswing again, they won’t just be words on an old poster.
Is it that hard to stop spewing your verbal diarrhoea? How long does a swing take? A second? But no, you go chuntering on. If only people’s mouths had a mute button.
This has got absolutely nothing to do with the fact my drive was topped just 65 yards. That is entirely circumstantial.
It’s the principle. Show consideration to others? Well, there’s a thought. Now how about you try it.
If I’m even in the vicinity of someone taking a shot, I go to a statue – like someone stopped the music during a game of pass the parcel.
I will barely breathe, so fearful am I of putting you off your stroke. So why is it when I’m getting ready to hit, all I can hear is you banging on in the background?
I’m sorry, did my shot interrupt your conversation? It’s not even like it’s a careful whisper, either. More like you’re trying to clear the thumping bass in a club.
No, please go on. It’s as if I’m not even there.
Your lunch, what bets you’re losing, the state of the greens because you missed one three-footer six holes ago – all the inane crap no one has any interest in.
But you keep broadcasting it in stereo right into my ear drums.
We all know etiquette’s falling off the veritable golfing cliff. I’ve got pictures of pock-marked greens and unraked bunkers to prove it.
But if we can’t even shut our gobs for the time it takes someone to line up and swish, what hope have we got?
Talking during a golf swing: Your say
Have you ever had to tell anyone to pack in the chat during your shot? Or is, and not for the first time, the Angry Club Golfer making a mountain out of a molehill? Let us know in the comments, or tweet him
Want more Angry Club Golfer rants? You can find them here.
Subscribe to NCG
Steve Carroll
A journalist for 25 years, Steve has been immersed in club golf for almost as long. A former club captain, he has passed the Level 3 Rules of Golf exam with distinction having attended the R&A's prestigious Tournament Administrators and Referees Seminar.
Steve has officiated at a host of high-profile tournaments, including Open Regional Qualifying, PGA Fourball Championship, English Men's Senior Amateur, and the North of England Amateur Championship. In 2023, he made his international debut as part of the team that refereed England vs Switzerland U16 girls.
A part of NCG's Top 100s panel, Steve has a particular love of links golf and is frantically trying to restore his single-figure handicap. He currently floats at around 11.
Steve plays at Close House, in Newcastle, and York GC, where he is a member of the club's matches and competitions committee and referees the annual 36-hole scratch York Rose Bowl.
Having studied history at Newcastle University, he became a journalist having passed his NTCJ exams at Darlington College of Technology.
What's in Steve's bag: TaylorMade Stealth 2 driver, 3-wood, and hybrids; TaylorMade Stealth 2 irons; TaylorMade Hi-Toe, Ping ChipR, Sik Putter.
