Dealing with Playing Partners - weekly article by Colin Byrne (Tom Lewis' Caddie)

Interesting read this week...................

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/1023/1224325578229.html

That's a good read.

wonder who the players were in portugal!

you may have seen this clip before but worth another look!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eDTLapiIoc

Must admit I do enjoy reading his articles, wonder who the 2 players were that 'had it out'

Putting into our own golf, Got to say its something that I've never had a problem with.
If a partner is jovial company...great, relax and enjoy.
If he's a good golfer in the zone, great watch and learn.
If he's a good golfer having bad day and losing it, content yourself that your on course behaviour is better.
If he's a chopper, just play steady and be helpful
If he's a miserable sod...all the incentive you need to focus, concentrate and make sure you beat him/shoot lower.

Mr Snead was clearly a lovely bloke.....

must say i relate to it a lot.
i often get too involved in the on course chatting and banter rather than actually concentrating when im with higher HC.
my pet peeve is when players move sides on the teebox when im mid routine. im a lefty and hate when i hear "oh sorry im on the wrong side again, one sec."

If he is a she, make sure you are not hitting your 2nd shot before she is hitting her first!!

What a coincidence, in more ways than one!, that this appeared in the same week as Padraig Harrington's comments following yesterday's Grand Slam round:

From pga.com:

"The quartet joked their way round Port Royal Golf Course, and Harrington said he always plays better in a chatty group.
'You know what, every day I play, I always try to make an effort to enjoy the day, talk to my playing partners,' he said. 'Today it was better than ever. We were all very relaxed out there.
Everybody was up for a chat,' he added. 'Some days you can play with a guy who maybe doesn't want to talk back so you can keep talking. Today, everybody was enjoying it, and you know, selfishly, I play better when the whole group enjoys it. If the guys have any sense, they shouldn't talk to me tomorrow.'"


What Byrne doesn't say is that it makes a difference for the spectators, too. Sometimes the least likely blokes seem to have a lot of fun together and that rubs off on those watching.
Have to say the funnest group I ever followed was a threesome of Adam Scott, Allenby and Charlie Howell with Tony Navarro thrown in to the mix. They were having a great laugh and were terrific with the crowd on a bitterly cold day.

The worst threesome were Frank Lickliter, Bob Tway and Nathan Green. Absolutely bloody awful, three miserable sods although I'm not sure Green is as bad as he was that day - he and his caddie just separated themselves from the other two miserable gits. Ken Brown used to be awful to follow, also.

One guy who lightens up any group is Baddeley, always seems to be having fun; this year we also got to see the lighter side of Sabbatini, though whether he was trying to be nice to everyone or he just fancied one particular girl in the crowd was difficult to tell.

must have been a brutal event Kwini if that was your 3some of choice!

I once played in a proam at Moor Park with a group including Nick Faldo.

He didn't say a SINGLE word - not one - to any of the three of us during the round. He didn't say hello at the start, or anything on the way round, and at the end he shook hands and went home.

I appreciate he was busy work out where he was going to hit it, and distances and stuff like that, but to say nothing at all - it was strange.

My gross score was only 2 more than his, and I had about 5 birdies. Our team won (easily). I never heard anything from him afterwards either. There was someone watching who said to me at the end that he'd have punched his lights out if he'd been treated like that.

I didn't think that, I just remember thinking I was glad I wasn't a pro golfer, because it seemed you had to have your happy glands removed when you renounced your amateur status.

Wolstenhome.He'd get on well with Faldo by the sound.
Never had anything other than thoroughly good day with a pro in the team but to be fair mostly low level county proam stuff

hend0,
We were hopscotching from one group to another but lingered with Green as he was having a good run. Were glad to be rid of them though.

One lesser known player who I've followed a couple of times is Chris Riley, plays quickly and always seems to have a good word.
Another miserable sod has been David Toms.

George,
I've seen both sides of Faldo in his prime, a couple of US Opens when he was borderline fun! And Kiawah in 1991 when he was the most solitary figure in South Carolina.

Reminded of an old story involving Tony Jacklin and Lee Trevino. Jacklin, at the time struggling with his game was drawn with Trevino, and not wanting to be distracted during the round told Trevino he didn't want to talk. Trevino's response along the lines of - Tony, understand completely and you don't have to talk, just listen!! If I don't talk for a whole round would end up with bad breath!!!

In his interview after the round Snead said: “When you get drawn with crap, you play like crap.”

Can you imagine the fall out if Tiger said anything like that!

George1507 wrote:I once played in a proam at Moor Park with a group including Nick Faldo.

He didn't say a SINGLE word - not one - to any of the three of us during the round. He didn't say hello at the start, or anything on the way round, and at the end he shook hands and went home.

maybe he just didnt like you

George1507 wrote:I once played in a proam at Moor Park with a group including Nick Faldo.

He didn't say a SINGLE word - not one - to any of the three of us during the round. He didn't say hello at the start, or anything on the way round, and at the end he shook hands and went home.

I appreciate he was busy work out where he was going to hit it, and distances and stuff like that, but to say nothing at all - it was strange.

My gross score was only 2 more than his, and I had about 5 birdies. Our team won (easily). I never heard anything from him afterwards either. There was someone watching who said to me at the end that he'd have punched his lights out if he'd been treated like that.

I didn't think that, I just remember thinking I was glad I wasn't a pro golfer, because it seemed you had to have your happy glands removed when you renounced your amateur status.

Hmmm. Why am I not surprised by that? I'm sure he has some positives (not sure I'd class being self-centred as one!) but that sounds remarkably like his treatment of Gilford in that Ryder Cup. You'd think it would be pretty much required to at least pretend to want to talk to his amateur partners in a pro-am? He's lucky his career isn't now - he'd never get away with it.

He knows what he was like and makes light of it now.

He was commentating about a player withdrawing from a tournament. He said if that was his playing partner back in the day, he probably wouldn't have noticed - only to ask after the round "Eh? Where's the guy who signs my scorecard?".

Slowride wrote:

George1507 wrote:I once played in a proam at Moor Park with a group including Nick Faldo.

He didn't say a SINGLE word - not one - to any of the three of us during the round. He didn't say hello at the start, or anything on the way round, and at the end he shook hands and went home.

maybe he just didnt like you

Yes, that'll be it. I hadn't thought of that.

Funny you should mention that about Faldo George, I've had a story told to me by an ex-poster on these boards who knew a guy (forget whether it was a pro-am or an Am who'd qualified for a pro event). Anyway he got paired with Faldo who never uttered a word. At the end tho the guy shook Faldo's hand and said "Nick, it was a pleasure" to which Faldo replied "Glad it was for somebody then" and walked off. I appreciate the need to be focussed, single minded & ruthless but that I found just downright rude. Had it been me "glad it was for somebody then" would not have been the end of the conversation that's for sure.

I've mentioned this to a few people over the years. One of Nick Faldo's peers said "success hasn't changed him at all. He's always been a miserable bast***".

Faldo is indeed just one of life's horrid people................i think DJ Spoony likes him though...........