By Robert Sudha Hamilton

The weekend warrior is a prominent feature of golf clubs and courses. He or she rocks up every weekend to do battle with the elements, geography, and inner demons. Some are hung over, some uptight, some overly optimistic, and some already defeated. There are, of course, a variety of these warriors and they come in all shapes and sizes. Weekend warriors: Seven types of golfers are to be found at most clubs and courses doing battle for glory. They share hopes and fears and, usually, each bear a bag of clubs and balls. Golf is a game played against the course and the weather with a range of differing levels of talent and application displayed by the challengers. #weekendwarriors #golfers #hackers

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Find Yourself Among These Seven Types of Golfers?

These seven types of golfer represent the majority of players trying their luck and skills on course. I wonder if you will be able to find yourself among these categories and archetypes? We all start our rounds with a large volume of hope and optimism running in our veins. Some of us prepare more and some feel they deserve a good result. Whatever the situation and whatever the outcome most of us front up each weekend and give it our best shot. Golf can get you down and golf can lift us up on the back of an exceptional round and result. The weekend warriors: Seven types of golfers giving it a go.

The Minimalist Golfer

The first type of golfer I will make mention of here is, who I call, the minimalist or anti-materialistic golfer. This golfer carries or pulls a set of clubs, often rusty, that were manufactured many decades ago. He or she picked these golf clubs up from a long dead relative or family friend.

Our minimalist golfer takes a strange sort of reverse pride in playing golf without any bells or whistles. Technology rarely visits this golfer’s game, as a belief in the purity of grass, wood and iron permeates throughout. This golfer shuns fashionable golf ware whether it be clothing, equipment, or accessories of any kind. This golfer quietly goes about his or her game, secretly looking down upon all those who are slaves to fashion, technology, or any recent progress made to the game of golf. Usually, a signature feature of the minimalist golfer is a putter made during the previous century. Favourite club manufacturers Slazenger, PGF, Spalding, and Dunlop.

Sunglasses & Bright Shiny Golfers

Next, is the Bright, Shiny Shooter (BSS), this guy or gal, has all the latest stuff on body, in bag, and on wheels. Sunglasses are sometimes needed when gazing upon this individual, as brightly coloured outfits are de rigueur for this golfer.

You can recognise this fixture at golf clubs everywhere by the new clothes, frequently updated driver, putter, buggy, trolley, and irons. They look the part and brighten the fairways.  Golf would be all the poorer without this valuable member of the golfing community. Big manufacturers would struggle financially for one thing. They talk up a storm and love to strut the fairways with their gleaming warrior’s swords. Do you recognise these types of golfers?

Weekend warriors: Seven types of golfers who inhabit the challenge for golfing glory on the links. Our third character is the Young Gun, who sashays down fairways with slim figure enclosed in white belt. This youthful golfer can hit the ball a mile or vast distances in metric measurements. Our handsome or winsome golfer is dressed well in tight fitting golf wear. He or she has a well-groomed swing the result of substantial professional help. Their timing is spot on and old fat guys wonder how these whippets can strike the golf ball so far down the fairway. Our Young Gun often carries his clubs in a stand-bag slung over a slim shoulder. Technology and the latest equipment is the default position for these precise and prodigious golfers. They know their data, launch angles, clubhead speeds, and shaft properties like they are familiar with their iPhone or Galaxy. The game of golf is for them replete with GPS, golf launch monitors, scoring apps, and individualised club fitting sessions. Regular lessons or coaching with PGA professionals are all part of their golf journey.

Golfers everywhere are hooked on a game, which challenges them to do battle with a course alive with a variety of features and changing conditions. Putting green speeds differ with the seasons and the weather. Surfaces, more generally, slope up, down, left, and right. Grass gives way to sand, water, and all kinds of vegetation. Many golfers walk the fairways and a whole bunch ride in golf buggies. Older golfers must contend with how their declining physical and mental attributes deal with four plus hours of golfing battles. Weekend warriors all of them are swinging their way around eighteen holes of golf.

The fourth type of golfer regularly observed out on the fairways is the Golf Tragic. This character plays golf most days and I mean most days. He or she can be found on the links playing in every available club competition and practising on the lay days. This individual lives and breathes golf with every fibre of their being.

Family is not so important to them, but they still love their families. The Golf Tragic derives his or her self-esteem from their performance on course. Ups and downs can bubble beneath the surface of these golfing machines. This golfer is always thinking of ways to improve their golf swing and results. Tips and golf lessons are sourced from every opportunity and medium. Rain will not deter the true Golf Tragic from playing or practising the game they play in heaven (he or she hopes so anyway). Have you met these types of golfers?

Photo by David Goldsbury on Unsplash

Next, is the golfer I call the Conversationalist or have-a-chat Harry or Harriet. This individual plays golf primarily for the camaraderie and companionship. Their love of the four hour plus round centres on the experience of being surrounded by three other mates or friends.

Lonely men or women can enjoy the experience of having friends for four hours. The game of golf is but a skin stretched around the warmth of human interaction and dare I say love. You meet many of these golfers when you intrude upon a regular fourball and one of the golfers is missing. The standard of golf is often mediocre, but the banter is a work of art. This is a rich and largely unexplored aspect of golf by those outside of these tight groupings. What about these types of golfers, ring any bells?

The sixth type of golfer commonly witnessed upon the links is related in some ways to the Conversationalist. Indeed, they share a love for the social aspect of club life. A golf club is, after all, a club with a clubhouse. And in this clubhouse is a bar, where you will find the Barfly. The Links Lush is another prominent and prevalent golfing type found around the world. This golfer has alcohol consumption and golf fused together in an unbreakable bond. The game of golf lives inside their brew and they simply must keep consuming it. The Links Lush drinks prior to a round, during the round, and lots post round. Golf is experienced in an intoxicated haze punctuated by laughter and frequent trips to the urinal or up against a tree on-course.

Golf is more expensive for these folks and they piss it away. Laughter and good times are the best friends of this golfer. Golf buggies are pretty important to carry the lush around the course, as walking can be a sobering experience.

The seventh type of golfer found among weekend warriors is the Dabbler. This golfer is usually a high handicapper in C or D grade. This individual sees herself or himself as permanently new to the game of golf. No matter how many years they play the game, they never really commit to it. The Dabbler feels unworthy when playing with better golfers. They don’t like to take time on the tee or the greens.

This golfer does not want to change any part of his or her normal concept of themselves. The Dabbler keeps golf to the edges of their life and repeats the same behaviour for years. Taking a lesson is counterintuitive to their whole approach. Doing things their own way, even when it doesn’t work, is all part of their golfing personality. These golfers are very much part of the fabric of golf clubs everywhere. They can laugh at themselves and enjoy the level of golf they have defined for themselves. Dabblers are doing it their own way.

Weekend warriors wake up on these mornings and look outside to the skies. They self-assess as to their commitment and readiness to get out of bed and to go and face the elements. Golfers must put away their soft and cushy existences for four hours of furious battle with nature and an oft stationary golf ball. The man or woman who usually pushes buttons for a living in an airconditioned office must grapple with wood and iron (well fibre glass anyway). These doughty individuals must come to terms with wet grass and dirt (how disgusting). These warriors are confronted by their two hands, arms, legs, torso, lower carriage, and the need to balance all of the above, whilst standing/crouching on inclining slopes and surfaces. They must strike a small hard ball with a long-shafted club in the hope of sending it in a particular direction and distance. Blimey this sounds hard.

We live in a modern world where hard labour and discomfort have been economically and technologically removed. Why on earth would a sane person venture out onto a specifically designed piece of geography that challenges us profoundly? Well, these weekend warriors do it some fifty plus times a year. I have identified seven types of golfers who make up the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people who play this great game. Mad? Most definitely and dead keen to get back out there after a shockingly bad round.

©Robert Sudha Hamilton