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The Best and Worst Excuses Uttered by Golfers

By: | Tue 04 Jul 2017


GOLFERS will always find an excuse when things go wrong and the common theme is that it is almost never their fault. But Austria's Bernd Wiesberger surely came up with the best of the lot at the Open de France at Le Golf National. He claims that after hitting a duck hook during the second round he examined his driver and discovered that it had been "tampered with". Like most players, he carries an adjustable driver and he suggested that somebody must have got hold of it and had changed the settings.

Bear in mind that this is one of the key tools to his trade and only the golfer and his caddie should ever have access to it. Bear in mind, too, that he had been hitting the ball arrow straight before that duck hook. Oh yes, and don't forget that he completed a round of 69 on one of the toughest courses on the European Tour. It was his best score of the week.

For the record, Wiesberger was not allowed to readjust the settings during the round because, in theory at least, doing so would fundamentally change the characteristics of his driver.

He posted the following on Facebook: "Struggle at the end but happy to have scored in the 60s. Found out during the round that the settings on my Titleist Driver have been changed by somebody (this also happens to other Players today apparently). Never happend to me before.”

A couple of hours later, he said: "Just for clarification: apparently a few clubs have been altered with this week. One of them looks to have been mine. Also, I do not think that it had any affect on the outcome of my round or score and I just hope this doesn’t happen to any other players this week or in the future.” Scotland’s Duncan Stewart added a comment on Wiesberger’s Twitter page that the same had happened to his driver.

It got us thinking about some of the best (and worst) excuses golfers use.

"I've got a new set of clubs..."

So, they have just forked out hundreds and hundreds of pounds on a new gear and arrive on the first tee with the words: "I've just bought these guys and am not expecting too much." Sorry, run that by us again. You've bought a new set of clubs, you've been custom-fitted for them and you are not expecting too much? And, of course, this is the guy who smashes his opening drive 250 yards straight down the middle of the fairway and then goes on to thrash you.

"My back/knee/elbow/shoulder is playing up"

"I've been having twinges in my back and I haven't been able to play for weeks. You will have to bear with me." Yeah, right! You know what they say - beware the injured golfer and if anybody tells you before the start of a round that they are struggling with back pain, a sore knee, golfer's elbow - or any other sort of injury - you can be fairly certain that the pain will miraculously disappear for the duration of the 18 holes you are about to play. Unless, of course, he or she has a stinker, it which case they have already given you a ready-made excuse!

"Oh no, we are not playing behind them, are we?"

This is the golfer who only enjoys rounds of golf that last three hours, who mutters with impatience at every opportunity and spends the entire round complaining about the pace of play. Worse than that, they will stand on a tee watching the people in front playing their second shots and say something along the lines of: "I can't reach them, can I?" And knows perfectly well that he can, and then proceeds to prove the point, failing to shout "Fore!", raising his hand to wave when they looked round. He later apologises to them: "Sorry about that. I don't know where that drive came from." He stands on the tee leaning on his driver, and he stands in the fairway leaning on his iron. "I can't believe how slow that round was," he says afterwards. You look at your watch. It has taken four of you three-and-a-half hours to play 18 holes. Hardly what you describe as slow, is it?

"No, I didn't mishit that shot"

He stands in the middle of the fairway at a par five, hauls out a three wood, almost swings himself off his feet and hits a wild slice into the rough on the right. Without hesitation, he puts the club back in his bag with the words: "I took a little off that one so I wouldn't hit the group in front of us. Every time I do that I slice the ball."

"How did I miss that fairway?"

This is our personal favourite. He stands on the tee with his driver in his hands and tells everybody in the group that he loves this hole - and then carves the ball into the trees, never to be seen again. One of the following statements will then be made. "The club slipped in my hands." "The wind caught that one [there is no wind]." "Who'said trees are 90% air?" "That's as good as I can hit the ball. It would have a cracker if it had been straight."

"I haven't had time to practice"

You have arranged to tee off at 9am, just as you do every Saturday. His car comes skidding into the car park two minutes before you are due to start, just as he does every Saturday. "Sorry guys, the traffic was terrible...." "Sorry guys, the children were playing up..." "Sorry guys, I had a puncture." "Sorry guys, I really wanted to get here in time to hit a few shots on the practice ground." He arrives on the first tee, still tying the laces on his golf shoes. He is dishevelled and he is out of breath. In other words, he is totally unprepared. He takes one practice swing - and creams the ball 25 yards past everybody else. How does he do that?

"How does our greenkeeper hold down his job?"

We all know one of these people. The greens at your course are perfect, the best they have ever been, but this guy cannot putt to save his life. His practice stroke is beautiful, but then he gets over the ball and produces a horrible, jabby stroke. The ball seldom reaches the hole. "Good grief, these greens are so slow." Or it races six feet beyond the hole. "Can you believe the speed of these greens? They are like glass." And he cannot hole a three-foot putt to save his life, but every time he misses one of them he taps the green to "repair" a spikemark that doesn't actually exist.

"I can't believe my handicap has been cut again - I have no chance"

He has won his fourth monthly medal in succession, has reached the last four of the singles knockout and the final of the pairs knockout and his handicap has been cut from 21 to 15, and he moans constantly about it, telling anybody who will listen that he can't play to 15 if his life depends upon it. And he then goes round in 11 over par, with a quadruple bogey at the eighth!

"Why do I always get the bad bounces?"

We all know one of these too. This is the guy who complains that when he hits the ball into the trees it always stays there, and never rebounds into the fairway. There is a lake guarding the 15th - he tops the ball and it trundles into the water. His shoulders slump, his club is dropped to the ground. "Why can I never get over that water in two shots?" Well, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that you are trying to pull off a 200-yard carry with a five iron and have a 23 handicap. Just saying...

"Our pro could not teach a dog to fetch a stick..."

This golfer arrives on the first tee and announces that he has finally taken your advice and been to the club pro for a lesson. "Well done, John," you say. "You will definitely feel the benefit." He then proceeds to hack the ball left, hack the ball right, take three shots to get out of the bunker. "John, I thought you had been for a lesson." "I have," he replies. "Didn't agree with a word he said. I went to the practice ground and hit hundreds of shots but nothing he said worked." What he actually means is that he got a bucket of balls and hit three or four shots while trying to apply what the professional told him, didn't like what he saw, so abandoned it and returned to his own, unique method. Oh dear!

"I had a mud ball on the fifth and again on the 17th"

OK, so we all find mud attached to our golf balls from time to time. But not on a glorious summer day when there has been no rain for a month. So when he hits a stinker and cries "mud ball", the truth is fairly simple - he hit a stinker!

"I can't believe you didn't give me that..."

He is a dodgy putter, so when he has a 30-inch putt there is no way that you are going to concede it to him. He duly misses it, looks up and says: "I can't believe you didn't give me that putt. That's why I missed it." No, the reason you missed it is because you just can't putt

"That was nearly an amazing round"

He has been in and out of the trees, has hit a couple of balls in the water, lost another at the 14th and struggled in the bunker at the last, but when you walk off the course and add up your scores, he says: "You know guys, apart from those double bogeys at the fifth, 10th and 14th, and the triple on the last, I actually played pretty well today."


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