Everybody has been to one. Either your company has a golf outing or you’ve been invited to one. For most of us, they serve only one purpose — getting a day away from the office to look foolish in front of your co-workers and clients.
While most of us don’t mind hacking away on a course we normally wouldn’t play, one of Cleveland’s most avid golfers despises outings. John Tidyman, author of the “Cleveland Golfer’s Bible,” is one such golfer. His book offers golfers the information they need to get around the area’s more than 150 public and private courses. It’s an irreverent look at the sport and those who play it.
And about those golf outings — Tidyman dedicated an entire page to why you shouldn’t have one. With express written permission of the publisher, we present this essay. Incidentally, SBN’s golf outing was last month.
Outings: Why you shouldn’t have one
Let me give you a half dozen reasons why you shouldn’t sponsor a golf outing this year.
First, you tie up a course I might want to play. Not just tie it up, but tie it up with morons, half-wits, episodic alcoholics and poseurs, all of whom would be better entertained on half-price day at Edgewater Park, where they can bob with the chunks of floating fecal matter.
Second, your guests (?) are half in the bag for the ride home. It’s difficult enough navigating through the hordes of SUVs, piloted by intensely sincere suburban mothers who need those things like Euclid Avenue needs trolleys. Adding drunks with clubs in the back seat is a recipe for trouble.
Third, do you think you’re doing someone a favor? Good golfers don’t want to be there, dodging errant tee shots from those mentioned in the second paragraph, or listening at the bar to some sun-scorched hacker brag about almost winning the Long Drive contest.
The bad golfers don’t want to be here, either. How much pleasure do you think they take in whiffing the ball in front of their colleagues? Or taking four putts to sink a three-foot putt? If they wanted to look stupid, they could pay full price to go to a Cavs game.
Fourth, if this is a way to raise money, I have two or three other, better ideas that don’t call for a committee. (Armed robbery springs to mind almost instantly.) No one ever wants to figure out just what an outing costs, but to the golf and carts and liquor and prizes, add the hours and hours of assembling lists of every sort, negotiating with club personnel, creating and mailing the invitations, and then RSVPing the whole mess.
I don’t care what your bill is, I bet it really cost you three times as much and did about as much good as the Blizzard of ’77.
Fifth, golf wasn’t designed for mobs. Lynching, voting and St. Patrick’s Day were designed for mobs. Golf was designed to be played alone or with another golfer. Four players at the most.
Sixth, there’s no good reason for it. Don’t tell me you’re having this outing because everyone else has an outing. If everyone else jumped off the Detroit-Superior Bridge, I suppose you would, too?
You want to be good to the help? Keep’em working.
From “Cleveland Golfer’s Bible,” 4th edition, copyright 1999 by John Tidyman. Reprinted with permission of Gray & Co., Publishers. The book is available at Northeast Ohio bookstores, and through Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com, Books.com and Borders.com. For more information, call (216) 431-2665.