In my humble opinion, there are two things that don’t belong on the links – Politics and Religion. Nothing ruins a good round faster than deep rooted opinions being expressed, challenged, and/or ridiculed. You’re never going to convince someone of anything within the confines of a fairway, green, golf cart, or at the 19th hole. All it does is serve to get your head out of the game and once you get out there, it’s hard to come back and concentrate on the game at hand. Course, it’s hard to keep yourself from falling prey to such tactics. Some golfers, however, go out of their way to mess with your head and if they learn what it takes to push your buttons then you best beware cause they’re going to be merciless. There doesn’t need to be anything on line … some people just love to get inside your head.
It doesn’t have to be Politics or Religion but just about anything can ruin your fun if you let it. Take the other day – I was playing a quick 9 holes with 2 of my neighbors and one of them started to discuss how baseball was the toughest sport to master cause it’s so hard to hit a ball. I began explaining that hitting a baseball is not as tough as hitting a golf ball cause hitting a baseball is a matter of timing where proper execution of a golf shot is the hardest thing to master. Proof being how many millions of golfers/Duffers would kill to hit a golf ball and get on in two. He began getting excited and citing all sorts of examples. Rather than get baited and raise my blood pressure I chose to defuse the situation cause I knew neither one of us would accomplish anything. I chose to just say that I agree to disagree cause neither one of us will convince the other otherwise and let’s get back to playing some golf.
Lesson learned: Even though the topic was not Politics or Religion it goes to show you that it doesn’t take much to mess with the old noodle. Don’t let yourself be baited. Be the man/woman and just ignore their tactics. After all, it’s just a game … Right?! What does it take to push your buttons?
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