Cellphones Calls on the Golf Course and How They Can Improve Your Lie

Posted on 03 October 2008
Tags: Golf

One of the things I like about being an author is the questions I get asked about things that are not in my book. Here are some of the questions that an entire book could be written about…or could be in a book I write one day.

Why do some people feel they have to use their cellphones on the golf course and when they do they talk at the top of their voice?

I see this a lot. I show up at the first tee with my group of clients and we watch everyone in the group in front of us talking on their cellphones like they were using a tin can and a string…..talking as loud as they can, not because the person they are talking to can’t hear them, but they want everyone to know they are talking about something important. And in most of these cases they were doing this while they had a foot long cigar in their other hand. Not a great start to a round of business golf.

Unfortunately, same golfers feel talking as loud as possible on the cellphone in a public area heightens their importance in the business world. I am not sure why they feel this way. I can only think it is due to them seeing someone else of high stature getting away with it and then it becomes part of their behavior.

How to take Relief from Cellphone Calls on the Golf Course

I was playing in a Pro-AM a couple of years ago as a guest of one of my PGA friends and I was placed in his group consisting of a SR VP of Sales, a Talent Agent and an executive of a Repair Service. The format was best ball of the group..including the Pro’s score so the feeling amongst the other three amateurs was it was a show of who could look the most important to the crowd instead of enjoying the day of golf with a golf professional.

Being the important executives they felt they were each of my playing partners had more electronic devices attached to them than golf tees in their pocket and none of them knew where the power switch or volume control lever was on their cellphones.

I found myself standing on the tee with my PGA friend listening to our group being announced off the tee while the three other guys were at the four corners of the teebox with their backs to each other all talking at the top of their voices to someone on their cellphones.

One of the executives was even texting someone on his Blackberry while he was talking to someone thru his wireless headset that was connected to the phone he had mounted to a holder that was clamped onto the dashboard of the golf cart.

My friend and I looked at each other shaking our heads while one of these guys, still talking on his phone, took to the back tees in a PGA PRO-AM in front of a few hundred spectators, and attempted to hit his first tee shots after asking the person on the phone if they could hold the line for minute. His shot just made it to the fairway about 175 yards away….where after making his shot he continued his conversation with the person on the phone by saying..

"OK, I am back.Yaw, I just teed off out here the PRO-AM and I am in the middle of the fairway.."

These cellphone calls these guys were on went on for a few holes until about the forth hole where my friend placed a tee shot off to the left near a pond making him have a real risky long 2nd shot to hit the green of the par 5. As the group walking up to his ball the SR VP got a call which he loudly answered…

Hey, Fred..I have been meaning to call you…..

Right after that the best thing that happened that entire day took place when my friend found that his ball was sitting in a tire track. He knew he got relief, but also knew that our playing parents probably did not know he got relief..so as the guy who was loudly finishing his cellphone call came back into the group my friend asked if he could use his phone to get some assistance on the relief drop he was going to have to made.

They guy eagerly handed the phone to him which my friend immediately threw the phone in the pond. As the executive gasped in shock my friend said…

OK, now that I have taken my drop I think I have a much better chances of hitting the green in two.

While that phoneless executive’s mouth was stuck wide open my friend striped a 240 yd 3 iron out of the tire track to place his shot about 10 feet away for eagle.

As he handed his club to his caddy he remarked that

I look forward to taking another drop like that the next time any of you get on the cellphone but next time I will be placing the drop in another place where the sun don’t shine.

I have always wanted to do that, but I think I will keep practicing my golf game to be able make a shot like he did before I take that kind of relief from a man made hazard.

Keep the cellphones out of golf.