Getting plunked on the golf course: Is it better to hit or be hit?

Which is worse? Hitting someone with a golf ball or being hit?

I’ve done both in the past and I felt worse after hitting someone. When you get hit, you can play the victim. You can even take it to the limit and try to turn the situation into cash. I’m not saying that there aren’t circumstances in which the person who was hit and injured isn’t tragic, but hey, when you’re on a golf course, you need to be alert to flying projectiles. It’s understood that there is inherent danger when visiting or playing a golf course. Do we really need to make America an even more litigious society?

Striking someone with a golf ball not only means you hit it somewhere other than where you were aiming (thereby imparting to everyone that you lack skill, if not worse), you have to feel sorry for them. I hate feeling sorry for people.

I was playing a round at a public course in Ohio once and the pro had let five businessmen go ahead of us. They all had demo clubs and street shoes and were riding three in one cart and two in another. They played slowly, seemed unsure of how the game worked and failed to speak the native language, not that there’s anything wrong with that. But they wouldn’t let us play through. So my buddy encouraged me to hit into the fivesome while they were out in the middle of the eighth fairway. Figuring I’m not good enough to hit anything at which I’m aiming, I let fly with a driver. Of course, it hit one of the guys square between the shoulder blades on the fly.

Now, if that happened to me, I’d strongly consider going back to whoever did it and give whipping his butt a good try. These guys, instead, all picked up their balls, raced to the ninth tee and then quit after the hole.

Who knew doing the wrong thing would work out to give me what I wanted? It’s exactly the opposite lesson I tried to teach my six-year-old today. Violence doesn’t solve anything, and throwing a temper tantrum won’t get you your way. Perhaps that lesson’s not universal. Or being a jerk sometimes works.