Play this game long enough—and meet enough people while doing so—and you’re bound to get invited to some nice places. It might be through work, it might be through a buddy’s new buddy who knows a guy or it might be through the husband of the woman your wife is now friends with because your children are friends in school. You never really know where they are going to come from, but you’re never mad when they do.
Being America’s Guest, though, can certainly lead to some issues. First-world problems, to be clear, but problems nonetheless.
Take, for example, the tale of my The Loop podcast co-host Stephen Hennessey, who quite literally is America’s Guest, for good reason. Steve oversees Golf Digest’s America’s 100 Greatest course panel, so you can imagine how easy it is for him to get on some of the best courses in the country with a simple email. I am often a beneficiary of this, as I always firmly place myself in Steve’s orbit. I guess I could call him a friend, too.
Last week, Steve’s brother, who lives in California, was retiring, so Steve made the trip out west and set up one of the all-time golf weeks you could ever scheme up. They played LACC, Riviera, Bel-Air, Newport Beach Country Club and Sherwood, which is where the “better invite” dilemma kicks in.
Steve had reached out to a friend of ours, let’s call him Dan Rapaport, months in advance of the trip. Rapaport is a member at Brentwood Country Club, which is a stone’s throw from Riviera and an extremely fun golf course I’ve had the pleasure of playing (three times, to be exact, as Dan likes to remind me while I continue to fail to reciprocate). Dan set up a tee time with Steve and his brother that Dan would be apart of, obviously, up until he had to cancel for a work-related reason. But Dan still reached out to the head pro at Brentwood and made sure Steve and his brother could still play unaccompanied. What a guy.
Welp, Steve, being the golf planner he is, had put several feelers out to some other courses in the L.A. area, Sherwood among them, before Dan had fully locked in the Brentwood date. Sherwood, one of the 200 Greatest Courses in America according to Golf Digest, got back to Steve and locked him in for the same day he was supposed to play Brentwood. Oh boy.
We fully dove into this hilarious golf conundrum on The Loop pod this week (which can be heard below), and Steve also tucked his tail between his legs on Dan’s show Monday. The sparknotes version: Steve and his brother played Sherwood, and he never even told Dan about bailing on Brentwood. Dan found out via a Hennessey tweet, which did not include a shoutout to Brentwood in it. You can imagine the chaos in our dumb little group chat when this all went down.
While Steve’s dilemma was quite unique, it’s one we’ve all faced at some point before – receiving the perceived “better invitation.” Who among us has not locked in a tee time with a few of your oldest pals at the fun public muni you’ve played 100 times, only to be invited by that guy from work to his Top 100 club on the same day? We all go through the same mental exercise: Do you bail on the boys and risk being lightly ridiculed about it for the rest of eternity? Or do you say thanks but no thanks to the Top 100 invite, knowing full well this could be the only time this opportunity ever presents itself?
There are, of course, levels to this. If it’s a round with the boys from high school that you barely see anymore because you’re 35, have a few kids,and the party is over vs. a round with a fringe work friend at the 97th-ranked course in America, I’m leaning heavily toward the round with the boys. If it’s that same round with the boys vs. the elusive Pine Valley invitation, sorry, lads, but I’m already halfway to PV. Enjoy the five-hour round at Bug Bite GC, though!
If your buddies are serious golfers, or even have a faint interest in golf and some of the better courses in the world, they will 100 percent understand you pulling the plug for a place like Pine Valley or [insert whatever club produces “ooooo”s and “ahhhhs” from middle-aged men in your neck of the woods]. That said, you should absolutely expect some ribbing about it forever and be able to take it. You’re now the bail-for-the-cooler-thing guy, which everybody has to be at some point in life. Ultimately it will come back around and someone will do it to you, too. So don’t feel bad.
My best piece of advice on this matter: Be up front and honest about it. Do not not say anything and then tweet about how much fun you had doing the other thing and then come clean afterward. Not that I know anyone who did that …
Do you have a “stupid” golf problem? A question you’re too ashamed to ask your close friends? A conundrum that needs to be talked out in a public forum? We’re here to help. If you have etiquette-related inquiries or just want to know how to handle some of the unique on- or off-course situations we all find ourselves in, please let us know. You can email me ([email protected]) or send me a DM on Twitter/X (@Cpowers14) or on Instagram (@cpthreeve).
