Golf etiquette can get fussy and old-ladyish, I’ll admit. (Even though I once wrote an entire book on the subject—many a long year ago.) So, yeah, nitpicking isn’t good.
That being said, I’ve got a couple of sometime golf buddies who do a lot of driver borrowing. It’s starting to get my ass a little bit. One of them has this perfectly fine Cleveland Launcher that he paid retail for and crowed about for weeks, maybe months, and then gave up on. It’s got a 50-gram shaft and he swings out of his shoes, so the control is just not there. Man and club do not get along.
That’s how it goes sometimes, but instead of going back to the drawing board he tries to baby the Launcher for a few holes then picks somebody in the foursome to mooch off. I don’t think it’s a matter that he doesn’t want lay out the cash for a new driver, it’s more laziness about going through the demo process and getting it right this time.
Maybe I’m crotchety but I like to be in foursome where four golfers each have their own driver. The guys he borrows from seem not to mind, but you can put a scratch in the crown of your friend’s driver, or do some other damage pretty easily. And then what—you gouged it, you own it? And no matter what, there are holes where the lender forgets and walks off the tee and has to turn back. Also, when the guy who’s lending his driver hits a wild one and just wants to curse quietly for a while, there’s somebody coming up asking him to hand over the club.
Of course I’ve forgotten my putter once or twice and had to scrounge off a playing partner. But at least I own one that works and I remember it 99 percent of the time.
