I was back and forth between posting this in this thread or the golf thread, but this was higher on the board.
My 14 yo was playing at our course (it's a mid-tier/somewhat casual equity private course), and they were backed up with a foursome waiting on the tee box on the par 3 9th with no one behind them. He went and took 7-8 practice shots from the greenside bunker, not high enough to hit any pitch marks and raking each time and some guy from a home on the course came out and said "son, this is not a practice green." My kid said "Sorry sir, we were waiting on the groups in front of us and I was...", and he cut him off and said "Do not talk back to me kid, I am calling the pro shop" and another adult was on his porch and said "Thanks Greg!".
My kid is a 7 handicap, and pretty respectful of course etiquette. I suppose he was probably breaking some rule about practicing on course. If the guy really had a problem with practice like that, then he could have talked to him with a little more finesse.
My son is pretty tight with the guy in the pro shop. At the turn, he told him that the guy called and told him a kid was hitting multiple shots out of the bunker and was very cocky when he talked to him about it, and amusingly followed it up by saying at least he raked it up nicely behind him. The pro told him he would have done the same as my son if he was waiting, but probably best to not practice in that part of the course again (and that was a perfectly appropriate response).
The point is maybe we need an "adults today" thread. Why act that way to a kid who's spending so much time genuinely working on his golf game? Why go so quickly to "Don't talk back to me..."? Does a kid who is a member at a course have obey a random adult yelling at him from a house?
Our course is generally very friendly to the kids into golf and getting into golf, this just really took me aback and made me try to think what was going through his head.
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