My favourite kind of people to play golf with

Golf is meant to be fun. You might struggle to believe that if you spend any time at all watching the dour-faced players who compete on both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.

Tyrrell Hatton may be one of the most naturally gifted players on the planet, but would you want him as your regular playing partner? Matthew Fitzpatrick is a former US Open champion and the current DP World Tour Championship winner but can you remember the last time you saw him smile? They are not alone. Jon Rahm, Keegan Bradley, Shane Lowry, Robert MacIntyre, Cameron Smith. The list goes on and on.

These men ply their trade in glorious weather on the finest courses on the planet and are handsomely rewarded for their efforts. Perhaps therein lies the problem - they are playing for too much money and have forgotten how to embrace the sheer joy of playing our wonderful sport.

Of course, there have always been bad-tempered golfers - Tom Weiskopf springs to mind. But the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Gary Player and Arnold Palmer played with smiles on their faces. You never got the feeling that it was all a matter of life and death.

And it’s not just men’s golf either. Many of the best players on the LPGA Tour appear to be completely emotionless. It doesn’t take much to acknowledge the galleries with a smile when you have hit a good shot. So why do so many of them find it so difficult to do precisely that?

The Golf Playing Partners You Want to Have

It got me thinking about what I would consider to be my favourite kind of people to play golf with, along with those I want to steer clear of.

One of the unique aspects of our sport is the spirit it is played in at club level. 

We pride ourselves on our honesty. Cheating is frowned upon. Over the years I have played with a couple of serial cheats. You know them - they always find their golf ball in thick rough, their golf balls always seem to be sitting in perfect lies in the rough, they struggle to accurately count the number of shots they have taken.

As captain of a golf club in Suffolk I was drawn to play with a fellow member who was a known cheat in a club match. The problem was that he was terrific company. Before we teed off, I took him to one side, reminded him he was representing our club and that if I caught him cheating I would call him out. He was as good as gold that day.

Anyway, I digress. What am I looking for in a regular playing partner?

First and foremost, you want to be out there with somebody who has similar interests. The top professionals might want to play their golf in silence but I certainly don’t. I want to talk.

We all have awful rounds from time to time. Yes, even me. 

I want my playing partners to know what to say and when to say it when I am having a shocker. And if he spots something I am doing wrong then I definitely want him to tell me. We can all get into bad habits and people we play with on a regular basis will often see something that we can’t. It might be tempo, it might be alignment.

When my playing partner is having an off-day, I want to know that he will not be throwing his clubs around, slamming them into the ground, cursing and swearing and going off in a sulk. I take pride in my ability to be able to laugh at myself if I am having a nightmare. Similarly, I want to be able to poke fun at my golfing buddy and know that he is not going to attack me with a sand iron.

We have all played with people who make no effort to help you look for a ball in the rough or trees but expect you to help them when the boot is on the other foot. My ideal playing partner is heading to the rough to look for my golf ball before I can. 

I want to play with people who will encourage me no matter how well or badly I am playing. And don’t you just love the people who seem to get as much pleasure from your best rounds as you do?

The people I play with know that I am something of a golf anorak. I love it when their eyes don’t glaze over when I give them my views on the latest LIV developments, who give the impression of being interested when I tell them about Justin Rose’s magnificent play in winning the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this year.

It is no coincidence that I also socialise with the guys I play golf with on a regular basis - and the subject of golf seldom comes up.

My father was a typical Scot. When we would finish our 18 holes he would tend to go missing, spending far longer than necessary in the changing rooms in order to avoid buying a round of drinks. We sussed it out pretty quickly and would order our drinks and inform the bar staff that my old man would pay. 

You really don’t want to be in the company of somebody who dithers and goes to all sorts of extreme to avoid paying their way in the bar.

For me, having a laugh in the clubhouse after you have played is just as important as anything that happens out on the course. And I definitely do not want to be sitting with somebody who goes through every shot he has just played. I was with you for four-and-a-half hours. I saw all the shots you played. I don’t need to hear about them again!