[Photo: Boston Globe]

Over the weekend, during a round with two buddies, we cruised through the front nine in just under two hours. When we reached the 10th tee, we could finally see the foursome up ahead on the green, but they were playing at a perfectly normal pace. Then we saw a single taking a practice swing in what appeared to be our fairway. Confusing, as there was so single in front of us the entire front nine.

This was a private club, so it was entirely possible that this single was told to sneak out on the back if he liked. But it was also a rather busy day thanks to the perfect weather, so it seemed strange that would be allowed. Didn’t think too much of it.

Then we arrived at our balls in the right rough, which sits adjacent to the 11th fairway, which doglegs left. As you can imagine, though, it’s a hotspot for drives coming from the 11th tee. As I stood over my ball, my buddy in the cart shouts “what the F—??” I never even saw it, but the single on the 11th tee had hit his tee shot right at us, the ball bouncing directly at my buddy. Thankfully, he saw it, and put his hand up just in time to block it from hitting him in the torso.

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Surely, this single yelled “FORE!!”, right? He did not.

Does anybody anymore? I’ve played golf for 20-plus years, so I feel confident in saying this: “FORE” etiquette has never been worse, and while it seems too easy to chalk it up to the COVID boom of new golfers who don’t understand etiquette, I think we all know that’s precisely the reason. Nobody taught these people the very, very simple concept of the “FORE” yell. My simple advice – when in doubt, just yell it.

This single didn’t even whisper it, and my buddy was pissed. He started yelling back at the guy, “Nothing??? Nothing??” Unfortunately, for me, a person who shudders at confrontation, the single made his way over to his ball. “You don’t yell fore?” my buddy asked. The guy was practically mute. “How about ‘sorry’?” The single finally obliged, but in a “hey man, calm down, I’m sorry, OK?” manner, which is more loathsome than the non-FORE call. And which brings me to the question posed in the headline of this piece. How mad should you be at a non-FORE call?

I don’t condone fighting on the course (big-time #shrink), and, like I said, I hate confrontation, but you have every right to be raging mad, especially if the ball actually hits you, like it hit my buddy. And he was raging mad. I usually tell friends to just chill out over stuff like this, but I let him go at the guy. Not physically. Just verbal berating. I enjoyed it, even. A non-FORE call just cannot happen. It’s the simplest thing to do, and something you should err on the side of doing TOO much. We’ve all hit one in the general direction of another group and had the brief thought of “oh, that has no chance of hitting them.” You should STILL yell it in this case. You should always yell it.

We should have known it was going to happen again based off the single’s reaction to my buddy’s anger. It did … on the very next hole. Now, this time it did not hit my buddy, and we were probably 50 yards away from it entirely. But the single, who clearly has a case of the driver yips, literally shanked a drive onto the green of the hole we were playing, and we were not that far back in the fairway hitting chips / wedge shots. No call. Nothing. Again my buddy went at him, only for my other buddy, his twin brother, to diffuse the situation. And he’s not a situation-diffuser. He prefers escalation. Which gives you an idea of how pissed my one friend was.

He was right to be. The guy was clueless. Very likely a “COVID” golfer. The type who joined after 2020 and thought he was going to bounce around the back 9 as a single on one of the most beautiful days of the summer to date. I have no idea if that’s true or if he’s a longtime golfer who has a case of the driver shanks, but it’s fair to assume given he jumped in on the 10th hole in between a foursome and a threesome and went 0-for-2 on “FORE” yells, one of which hit a member of our group.

So when in doubt, scream it at the top of your lungs. Nobody will be mad that you did. And when someone doesn’t do it, everything but physically attacking them is on the table … and honestly if it happens more than twice in the same round from the same person, all bets are off.