Just the other day Ruth was telling me about a strange happening that had occurred with golfers she had played with. Exiting the course  because they were not playing their usual game! Usual in their mind anyway. They are upset and before the game is over they walk off the course.

I said it had never happened to me.

Low and behold it happened to me the next day.. I was golfing at Sun City South course at 6:07 a. m. Ruth was playing in the Club Championship at her club so I booked as a single to golf with two others. It turned out to be two men, each driving their own golf cart.  There we were, looking like a caravan, three carts for three people.

It was just after daybreak and we were the first people to tee off that morning on Hole #1. I asked the two men, Bill and Jim, if they would watch my ball when I teed off as I was playing the red tees and they were sometimes quite far behind me on the white tees. They were quite willing to do what I asked. There wasn’t much light the first few holes and we were all very carefully watching each other’s shots.

With each of us on a cart we had little conversation except on the tee boxes and the greens. I did, however, overhear Jim telling Bill that the last time he was mis-hitting his shots left and right he had been standing too close to the ball.  I noticed that Jim was spending most of his time off the fairways in the rough and in the bunkers close to the greens. He was still very considerate to watch both Bill and my balls and would drive right to where the balls ended up, fairway or rough!

On the sixth hole, a par four, my second second shot was in the bunker left of the green. This hole is from west to east and it was directly into the sun. Jim drove up beside the bunker and showed me where my ball was. He then proceeded to drive back and forth behind the green in a valiant attempt to find his own ball. Bill and I waited on the green and finally Jim waved us to finish the hole without him. He then parked his cart thirty feet from the green on the path to the seventh hole.

 

I drove my cart beside him and stopped. Jim announced in no uncertain terms, “I’M OUT OF HERE”.  I said”OK”.

Bill and I proceed to the next hole and I asked Bill if he knew why Jim was quitting. He said that he had only golfed with Jim once before and he quit after 16 holes that time. He said that Jim lives on the 16th fairway and that time he announced that breakfast would be ready so he was going home.

What a strange coincidence that Ruth and I had talked about people walking off the golf course just the night before AND then it happened to me.

No matter how badly I am playing I would never walk off the course.  That is downright rude.