The 50 giveaways that you think you’re an actual tour pro
The Dufner waggle, the Matsuyama pause, the Spieth forward press – thousands of us are mimicking our heroes every week in a vain attempt to have some of their magic rub off on us.
Golf’s a strange sport in that the vast majority of it is spent just walking, talking and posturing about the place which leaves us open to all sorts of affectations.
The following isn’t a criticism. I’ll happily hold my hands up to 90% of the below. So how many of the 50 are you guilty of doing? Tick them off as you go along…
1. You sign a glove for the group in front when you hit through them.
2. You calculate yardages as ‘That’s 154 to the front and 16 on’ instead of just ‘170 yards’.
3. You recount your round in the clubhouse by going through your birdies and bogeys.
4. You repair your pitchmarks with a maximum of three twists.
5. You wear Adidas clothing because you use TaylorMade clubs.
6. You occasionally catch yourself jogging when exiting the green.
7. You walk around your golf club with a foam roller under your arm.
8. You inject some self-deprecating humour into things by signalling a wide when knocking your putt six feet away.
9. You crank your 5-wood to a 4-wood and you tell yourself that there is a noticeable difference in your ball flight.
10. You turn up to the weekly Scramble in a motor home.
11. You threaten, in a terribly affected manner, to smash the sand with your wedge after blading one into the face of the bunker.
12. You have your initials on the heel of your shoes and/or wedges.
13. You leave your hands out at waist-height for non-existent high-fives as you exit the green.
14. You have tape on your right middle finger and an arthritic band, neither of which are necessary at all.
15. You own a Harley Davidson quad bike.
16. On the rare occasion when you tee off with a fairway wood or hybrid, you build a tee by slamming your club into the ground.
17. You have piping on your trousers.
18. You talk about things like spin rate and offset with a little bit too much ease.
19. You jabber on about ‘knock-down 3-irons’ and ‘just a quiet 5-iron’.
20. You have piss-yellow highlights in your hair.
21. You keep your own stats and talk about them far too much. You’d like everyone else at the club so you can approximate your Strokes Gained in Driving Accuracy.
22. You wear charity golf day shirts because, from a distance, it looks like you might have a few sponsors.
23. You have your glove perfectly arranged in your back pocket, with fingers protruding, when putting.
24. You shout ‘be right’ when you hit a good shot, ‘hit a brick’ following a fat and ‘take a chair’ when you’ve thinned one.
25. You say things like you ‘I left a few out there’ and ‘the course didn’t fit my eye’ and think others are listening.
How many are you guilty of so far? Article continues on the next page…
Mark Townsend
Been watching and playing golf since the early 80s and generally still stuck in this period. Huge fan of all things Robert Rock, less so white belts. Handicap of 8, fragile mind and short game
