If you’ve come here in anger, I get it. This is the exact type of headline I’d normally roll my eyes at in disgust. I’d probably look up a picture of the author and concoct a story in my head about how much of a wet blanket they must be a parties. You and I are not so different.
We’re all hypocrites, too. I’ve written columns this year on ditching my phone on the golf course and turning off the bluetooth speaker. Be more present, I wrote. Enjoy nature, I proclaimed. The last round I played, I noticed I had no idea where a playing partner’s ball was because I had my head buried in my phone while they hit. In the other cart, my uncle had music playing from his speaker. I complimented the playlist.
That’s why I feel like I should preface this by saying that I’ll probably have a mixed drink on the golf course before the calendar turns to 2027. Someone will order a transfusion, and I won’t be able to resist. Sure, make it a double. AI is apparently going to eradicate the human race within the decade. I’ll be damned if I don’t catch a buzz on the course once or twice before then.
Still, a recent reader email on the subject of mixed drinks on the course stopped me in my tracks. The email itself featured a word document of “pace of play guidelines,” a response to my most recent column on golf cart management. The reader in question was once referred to as “the human rain delay” by some buddies. Rather than getting defensive, he adopted a series of traits to speed himself up. Imagine the world was full of people willing to admit their own mistakes and better themselves instantly? Perhaps robots wouldn’t be coming to kill us all expeditiously.
As the reader outlined all of his new pace-of-play traits, he did make a fair point about the fast play-stopper that is the beverage cart, and how courses, particularly public ones where the pace of play can already be snail-like, expect you to purchase beverage from said cart. When that purchase is four double transfusions, or the hot new item, a “water hazard,” that is 100 percent bringing everything to a screeching halt. Add in the iPad payment, the “would you like to tip?” prompt, the fumbling for a few singles in your wallet, and you’re really starting to set things back.
Beer Carts – They definitely do not speed up play. If you want me to patronize your cart girl, then add those minutes to the expected round time. And no mixed drinks. Nothing that she has to pour. The nineteenth hole can accommodate those potions.
The reader’s point: wanting to enforce “time par” and expecting your customers to make purchases from the beverage cart or halfway house—sometimes elaborate ones—do seem like opposing ideas.
But I’ll take it one further – do we really need to be drinking hard liquor on the golf course?
Believe me, I’m no prude. I’ve consumed everything from vodka to hallucinogens on the golf course in my lifetime, all to varying results. I’ve always been a big believer in time and place. Playing a Top 100 with a member? Probably going to lock in for golf and enjoy the hell out of a beer or two in the men’s grill afterward. Public course with three groups of moronic early-to-mid 20s bros back in the day? Pretty good chance you’d see me stumbling out of the cart on the 18th tee while stuffing a bunch of empties into the trash can to hide the fact that we BYO’d before reaching the clubhouse.
Now, at the age of 34 with an active two-year-old son at home, the thought of a midday mixed drink sends a shiver down my spine. The feeling of anxiety that courses through my body when someone orders four of them while a group waits behind us is unmatched. On the rare occasion I do even stay for a drink after the round, I’ve come to thoroughly enjoy the earned 19th hole adult bev. When the beverage cart or halfway house does arrive, I’ve become drawn to a regular-old seltzer. Filling. Zero cal. Lime-flavored ideal.
But, again, there will come a point this fall when it’s a crisp 58 degrees out. My wife has taken my son to his great grandmother’s for the day. Someone will have a quad box of college football games streaming from their cart. I will succumb to the suggestion of a double transfusion. I may have a second. Have you ever flushed a 7-iron to a back left pin after the first sip of your second double transfusion? Sublime.
Inevitably, though, things will go haywire after downing the second. I’ll come home with a splitting headache to a son who wants to play outside and a pissed-off wife who knows exactly what I look like when I’ve had a couple and will now punish me for those sins. In that moment, I’ll tell myself that mixed drinks on the golf course are the devil’s work. They slow down play, they inhibit you in ways you shouldn’t be inhibited when you’re simply trying to enjoy a golf round. Instead, we should all have one beer afterward, savor every sip, and come home clear-minded and ready to attack the late afternoon hours with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind … but that’s a lot easier said than done.
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 (chris.powers@wbd.com) or send me a DM on Twitter/X (@Cpowers14) or on Instagram (@cpthreeve).
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
