Crossing the Line

DEAR MOLLY: Is stepping on someone’s line so bad? 

One player in my regular group always announces "Please don't step on my putting line" early in every round and gets upset when someone forgets. Shouldn't we be over that now that almost no one wears spikes

You must not have seen the YouTube videos where a contraption rolls a ball to show the line of a putt on a purportedly pristine green, then someone with big feet tramples the entire line and the redropped ball now meanders all over the place.

On municipal golf courses, most likely any player’s putting line might meander depending on how many players walked there before you arrived, how much they weighed, how hard they stomped and what shoes they were wearing. In light of all that, an accidental and soft step by a lightweight player wearing spikeless shoes may hardly matter.

But it matters to your companion. And here’s the real problem: What I’m reading between the lines of your question is, “Can I just write off this player’s request as irrelevant and ignore it?,” just as you might want to write off another’s request to turn off the music, and another’s request to stop moving during putts, and another’s request not to rev your cart when someone is teeing off. And on and on and on.

Golf is hard for most people, and some players are distracted more easily than others or by different sounds or movements than others. If a player asks politely for you to refrain from their pet peeve, it is good manners for you to acquiesce and rude for you to shrug off their request. Unless perhaps it costs you money or puts you in danger.

It does not even take extra time to avoid another’s line of putt, just an awareness of what that is – including the through line, a few feet beyond the hole. So learn to do it routinely and without fail. It’s easy, it’s polite and it’s nice.

Do you have a question about golf etiquette, golf relationships or the culture of golf in Colorado? Email it to Molly McMulligan, the CGA’s on-the-course advisor on how to have more fun on the golf course, and follow @MollyMcMulligan on Instagram. Her creator, researcher and writer is golf journalist and CGA member Susan Fornoff.