As usual, I’m going to leave the Augusta 2012 writings to professional writers. I’m sure they will be doing a much better job writing about how Bubba carved out that ridiculous hook from deep forest on the 10th to slamdunk Louis Whatisname and win the title. It was seriously the most ridiculous shot we’ve seen in a long long time.
But what caught the viewers attention was not so much of the big swinging pink driver player winning his first green, ugly jacket, but the shenanigans of Tiger Woods’ soccer kicking his 9 iron on the 16th after a bad shot.He got flamed for that. But seriously, why all the fuss?
Golfers have themselves to blame for every bad shot they make. Unlike football, tennis, basketball, squash, badminton, snooker…heck every game, even freaking Scrabble and Chess….your opponent would do something to you that would influence how you play your game. Golf is the only known game in the history of mankind where you are playing your own ball, with your own consequences of your own decision. Plus, you don’t have a shot clock…you are freaking standing over your ball for 30 seconds and you still can’t make a decent shot? Of course people would go ballistic!
Golf temper is part of the game. We won’t be human unless we go crazy now and then. The trick here is not when, or where…it is HOW. Here’s a list of how to professionally go Happy Gilmore over your shot.
1. The Curse
Power rating: 1. Let’s start off with the foul mouthed curse. Usually aimed at the offending ball, the offending club, the offending bird, the offending leaves, and at times, the offending caddie, or the offending best friend. It’s not effective, it just makes you look like a contractor playing the game. Anyone can do it. Even a homeless hobo.
Simplicity: 1. At times, people get creative with their curses and can do transitional curses in multiple language and in one breath. It sounds technical, but still, it’s quite simple once you get the hang of it.
Consequences: 1. You might get strange stares, but that’s about it. Most people don’t like to cross a multiple language cursing golfer with a driver in hand, and blood shot eyes and face as red as a lobster.
2. The Drop Club
Power rating: 2. The Drop Club is an intermediate tantrum technique, and is universally acceptable in all genres of golf. It has a better “power rating”, because many golf pros use this, thus it makes whoever who employs this technique look pretty professional. This is the unhappy cousin of the happier ‘Twirl Club’.
Simplicity: 3. There’s a slight complexity to this. It wouldn’t do to hit the ball, follow through, hold the club, then allow it to drop. That just makes you look stupid. The drop club must be done in one single movement, conveying the all important message that you know you “hit it wrong the moment the clubhead contacted the ball.” Obviously we know that as much as a chimp knows about thermodynamics. But you need to immediately let it go at two positions: Right at the end of your follow through (club dropsbackwards) or after your follow through, when uncoiling, dropping the club forward. Sometimes this technique is accompanied by the “Football Kick”, as demonstrated by Tiger Woods on Friday at Augusta 2012.
Consequences: 2. Generally this is a safe technique, since the ground absorbs the brunt of your fury….and it’s a ‘dropped’ club, so technically it won’t bounce back up to stab you in the artery. We recommend this as the starting tantrum to employ, since if people scold you or the marshal warns you, just tell him, the club slipped out of your hands.
3. The Slam
Power rating: 3. This is a more powerful demonstration of your temper, utilising the head (usually a driver) and slamming it to the ground, scattering pieces of dead bugs all over the place. Sometimes, this is done multiple times, usually to a 4/4 rhythm. This is known as the Multi-Slam technique.
Simplicity: 3. The slam is usually initiated after a bad drive, where on a retarded follow through that threatens every sinew of your already stretched spine, you uncoil from this unnatural stance and bring back your club downwards, slamming the head onto the ground. This is usually accompanied by The Curse.
Consequences: 5. The slam has unusually high consequence, especially when utilised with a graphite shaft driver. Sometimes, due to the ferocity of the slam, the head might loosen or worse, snap off. This can cause injury to self and others around (Like Henrik Stenson), or at severe times, even death (like CSI episode).
4. The Tomahawk
Power rating: 5. This is one of the big guns. Tomahawking is using your entire arm action with the single intent to bury the club (usually an iron’s toe) into the ground as deeply as you can. This is where the term, “Bury the hatchet” is derived from, since most golfers employing this technique are ‘hackers’.
Simplicity: 2. This is a lot easier than the Slam. This is where after hitting a bad iron shot, you turn around to ensure no one is within 10 meters of your explosive range, and using your entire arm and shoulders as if chopping a large piece of wood, you axe down your club with all the power you can muster. By and large, the favourite move of new players.
Consequences: 8. The Tomahawk is usually quite safe, because the iron usually buries deep into the dirt, and the only issue is that you need a crane to extract it out later. However, I’ve witnessed some tomahawks done in deep rough, and honestly this is VERY DANGEROUS. If the tomahawk lands on a root of a tree, broken wrist, bone and untimely death might be the consequences. Please do this with care.
5. The Furious Grass Cutter
Power rating: 6. The furious grass cutter is made famous by Sergio Garcia, when he hit a bad shot on a slope and then proceeded to continuously whack the slope and beat the slope into submission. This is a very potent tantrum and should be employed with care.
Simplicity: 5. This is complex, due to the balance required when you are hacking away at the slope. It must be done with enough ferocity to punish the offending slope, but not so much as to completely lose your balance. Those practicing pilates and yoga will appreciate this and are usually the best people to try this tantrum.
Consequences: 5. It’s a thing of beauty to see a golfer using this move. It’s probably not dangerous, since you’re swiping – not chopping…but if you lose balance, you might tumble back down the slope and end up looking like a true idiot.
6. The Club Snap
Power rating: 7. This is tantrum at its finest. Usually done with a driver, it demonstrates your herculean ability to snap things that displeases you. It’s like when you were a kid and snapping a pencil to show your power. Bad drive. Snap it, because I am strong and filthy rich. It’s a social statement of your immense strength and capacity to purchase more clubs. There is a very powerful variant to the club snap, which is called the Club-beating-the-head. This should NEVER BE DONE BY ANYONE EXCEPT WOODY AUSTIN, whose brains are the size of a peanut, thus allowing to have a very very tough exterior skull, something like Homer Simpson.
Simplicity: 4. It’s quite simple, but requires balance and strength. Just use your thighs as a levarage, and snap your club with both hands.
Consequences: 8. It’s a high risk tantrum, because not only you lose this club, you also might risk injuring your wrist or thighs. Also, if you happen to TRY this and fail, you will be viewed as one of the most idiotic failure golf has ever seen. Better to do some tests first, usually with some spare shafts and rods back home. Again, the variant of the Club Snap, the Club-Beating-The-Head has dire consequences if you are NOT Woody Austin.
7. The Club Fling
Power rating: 7. Like the club snap, this conveys to the world that your clubs are the 100% reason behind why you suck so badly. So throw ’em away. Buy new ones.
Simplicity: 1. This is a very powerful and simple move in your tantrum arsenal. Just fling the club forward as far as you can. Generally, you should throw your club forward so you can pick it up again on the way to your newly shanked ball.
Consequences: 6. A lot of things can happen when a club flies out of your hands. It could kill a wildlife, like a duck, hence the phrase “Dead Duck” is derived from here. It could maim a spectator or a maintenance worker. It could even cause your club to be lost. Either way, you need to be careful of your surroundings. This is a mandatory precaution for all “OUT OF HANDS” Tantrums maneuvers.
8. The Advanced Club Fling
Power rating: 9. This is by far the most powerful and simplest move you can make. Like the club fling, but with a destination: The WATER. Practitioners of this tantrum arts are well stocked with extra clubs, and well-off enough to sacrifice the club FOREVER. You just throw it away and never look back. The message you send here is, “Forget the past, move on to the future.” It is the singlemost powerful and positive statement one can make in golf.
Simplicity: 1. Find a body of water (not mud, mind you) and fling your useless, treacherous golf club as far as you can into the water! Usually accompanied by the ball as well, especially if you have missed a 1 foot putt to win RM500. Henrik Stenson does this best, when he simply shrugs and chucks the wedge over his shoulder into the pond without even looking at it again. Ultra coolness.
Consequences: 5. The only consequence here is that you lose the club. It usually won’t cause anyone pain since you have been so considerate as to deposit your club into the water.
9. The Hammer of Justice
Power rating: 10. The hammer of Justice is one of the special moves for tantrum throwing. It turns your relatively benign club into a weapon of mass destruction. The HoJ does not seek to destroy the club, like other methods do, but the surrounding environment within striking distance of its bloody rage.
Simplicity: 9. This is NOT simple. HoJ practitioners spend years honing their dark arts. They know which are the items that can be destroyed, and the amount of required strength to destroy it. For instance, Henrik Stenson (again, the Sith Lord of Tantrum arts), decapitated the tee box on the British Open with such accuracy that everyone was at awe at his master skill.
Consequences: 9. Very painful if you attack an Item, like a TREE, with the HoJ move. The club might rebound, snap and break your wrist or murder someone nearby. Always be aware of items, such as tee boxes that are not solid, nearby saplings, underbrush, and golf buggy.
10 The Complete, Psychological Meltdown
Power rating: 10+. This is the worst tantrum, because its a pyschological destruction of everything known to golf. Instead of a sudden flare of temper, this is possibly the most grevious of tempers and should only be done very very selectively, in fear of losing your friends, family members and being outcast as a leper to the society. You can view a whole montage of meltdowns here:
Simplicity: 10. Simply put, your entire mental health is washed away once you use this method. You will 6 putt, laugh at yourself crazily, walk slumped all around, refuse to talk to your friends, drive the buggy maniacally, purposely hit 5 golf balls into the pond or directed at a nearby house overlooking the golf course, chop up divots the size of Brazil and refusing to clean it, build sandcastles in the bunker, play Angry Birds as your friend prepare to drive/ or putt etc. The complexity of it is very high, since this is what we term as “The complete absence of the mind.”.
Consequences: Infinity. Once this happens, your golf career is likely over. You will never play again. It’s a lobotomy of golf. You will be golf’s vilest enemy, cursing this day as you lay at your death bed years from now. You will join one of those environmental hippie groups lobbying for the shutdown of all golf courses and turning it into a green lung. It is not just a retardation of your love for golf, it is the complete and utter devastation of it. It will be replaced by a magnificent, bottomless hatred of everything related to golf, except perhaps the possibility of sexy LPGA girls in short skirts. From here, there is no return, only prayers of existing golfers for one who has succumbed completely to the dark side.