I only worked as a part-time golf course marshal for less than a year, and yet I saw so many crazy things in that time that I can only guess at the stories longtime marshals must have to spin.
It was Fallbrook Golf Club, working for my friend Blair and her father, Larry.
But I hardly ever saw them.
When you’re marshal, you belong on the course. I’d check in with the starter in the pro shop, copy down the start times of each group, and how many were in the group. The pro shop was up on a hill next to the first tee box, and above the driving range, with the 10th tee — the first hole on the back nine — across the parking lot by the far side of the driving range.
The biggest “theft” we had was locals walking on to the 11th tee, out of sight of the pro shop, and playing the rest of the back nine without paying.
The bigger risk was that if they were injured without checking in at the pro shop first, our insurance company might try to weasel out of reimbursement.
So I would take my list of all the groups on the course, start at the ninth or 18th green, then work my way back. As I drove my cart against the flow of play, I’d check to make sure a twosome only had two, a threesome only had three. I was also looking to make sure there were no large gaps between groups — nothing annoys golfers more than slow play.
Nowadays, with cheap cameras and drones, course security is probably a much more efficient proposition. But this was 30-some years ago, when course security meant getting in your cart and patrolling the course.
So I generally interacted with the starter, and any groundskeepers on the course.
And, of course, the golfers.
Most of the regulars got to recognize me, and vice versa.
And if something out of turn came up, they had no problem waving me over.
It might be a big branch coming off one of the giant oak trees on the course. A broken sprinkler head leaking onto the green. A club left behind by a previous group.
But sometimes it was a bit more.
One afternoon, a foursome of regulars I recognized were waiting to hit their approach shots on the signature hole six — a beautiful, wide 490-yard par 5 with a giant oak about two-thirds of the way down the fairway placed so that it required some smart decision making.
The group ahead of them was still finishing up on the green when I drove over to find out what was up. One of them pointed back behind them a couple hundred yards where a single was waiting for them to hit onto the green so he could hit his second shot.
Only apparently he wasn’t actually waiting.
They pointed to three or four balls laying around us in a random pattern, and said the single was hitting into them.
That is incredibly dangerous. The insurance company the course worked with sent out a newsletter every couple of months with actuarial tables about dangerous accidents on golf courses. There are lightning strikes, drunks crashing golf carts, fights — all kinds of mayhem that comes with the territory when your customers are human beings. But every year around the world, a half-dozen or so people were killed by being struck in the head by a golf ball. And, of course, tens of thousands of others are injured by being hit in the head by a golf ball.
Okay, admittedly it’s not as dangerous as lawn darts, but you do not intentionally hit a ball at other people. That will get you banned from most courses.
I told the foursome that I’d stick around and watch. I also radioed back to the pro shop and asked Blair what to do. She said she trusted me to handle it.
I drove over to the tee box at 5, putting some trees between me and the single, and parked my cart. After about 30 seconds, sure enough he hit a ball into the foursome. I drove right over to him and asked what he thought he was doing.
“They’re playing slow — you need to get them speed up!” he told me angrily.
I explained that they were waiting on the group ahead of them, which was behind another group, and that there were no gaps — everyone was playing to a three and a half hour round, right where they should be.
Then I said, you can’t be hitting balls into the group ahead of you regardless.
“You act like this is some fancy country club,” was his reply. “It’s a little trash course.” (It wasn’t — we hosted high school matches, a stop on a minor league pro tour, and occasionally qualifiers for larger tournaments.)
At that point I told him to throw his bag in the back of my cart, he was done, I’d take him to the pro shop for a refund.
“F— this and f— you,” he said, “You just lost a customer — I’ll never play here again!”
Which I thought to myself the owner was probably going to make official anyway when he got to the pro shop.
He refused the ride, hoisted his bag over his shoulder and began walking back toward the clubhouse and parking lot. I followed at a distance to make sure he didn’t interact with the foursome, and when he got up to the clubhouse, he never went in — he just got in his car and left.
Another day, I was patrolling the back nine, and I saw that what should have been a twosome on 12 was now a threesome — two in a cart (which I showed) and a single walking, which I did not have.
The two in the cart were regulars I recognized, so I asked them about the single.
Don’t know, they said. He just showed up at the 11th tee box and asked if he could join them.
I drove across the fairway to where he was getting ready to hit his second shot. He looked to be in his late 30s, well dressed, with expensive clubs. He saw me come up in my red cart with “MARSHAL” stenciled across the top of the windscreen, and pulled his club back down.
“Hey there,” I said. “I’m not showing you on the starting sheet — can I see your receipt from the pro shop real quick?”
“Oh sure,” he said. “Let me get that.” He walked over to his bag, made a great show of unzipping each pouch and poking around. Finally, he stood up and and said, “I think I left it in my car.”
No worries, I told him. Let me drive you over there and then I’ll bring you back here — you won’t miss a hole. But our insurance policy requires that only folks who had registered were on the course.
We put his bag in the back, and I drove him back to the parking lot. He couldn’t remember which car was his as we drove around the lot — and at that point I’m really struggling to stay professional and not laugh at him. I stopped the cart so he could remember which car was his. Suddenly he jumped out of my cart, grabbed his bag, and sprinted to an older BMW, threw his clubs in, and raced out of there as if I was going to chase him down in my cart!
As a meme on social media put it not too long ago, “I used to be a people person, but people ruined it for me.”
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