Questions to Ask About Golf
Questions for talking with a golfer, whether they play twice a week or twice a year. They cover how the game came into their life, how they actually play it, and what it has cost in time and money, and none of them require you to know the sport yourself.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What got you into golf?
Why ask it
Almost every golfer was introduced by one specific person, often a parent or an early boss. The story is short and usually warm, and it shows whether the game arrived with an obligation attached.
How often do you actually get out?
Why ask it
Frequency explains more than a handicap does. Someone playing twice a year and someone playing twice a week have different relationships with the game and want different conversations about it.
What do you shoot on a normal day, and what do you tell people you shoot?
Why ask it
Golfers are famously loose with their own numbers, and naming the gap is a joke nearly all of them will join in with. What they claim tells you how much the score matters to them.
If you could only fix one part of your game, which would it be?
Why ask it
Forcing a single choice avoids the usual list of grievances. Most amateurs pick putting or the driver, and either answer opens into how they think about where shots are actually lost.
What is the best course you have played?
Why ask it
Easy and generous. Follow it with what they scored there, because the round they remember at a course they loved is nearly always the story worth hearing.
Which club do you trust when it matters?
Why ask it
Trust and distance are different things. The club someone reaches for under pressure is usually shorter than logic suggests, which tells you how they handle risk when there is something at stake.
Which club do you carry and hardly ever use?
Why ask it
Everyone has one they are quietly afraid of, commonly a long iron or a fairway wood. Admitting to the club is easier than admitting to a weakness, and it arrives at the same place.
What happens to your game when people are watching?
Why ask it
Golf exposes nerves more plainly than most sports, since nothing is moving except the player. The answer is often the most self-aware thing anyone says over eighteen holes.
Do you count every stroke?
Why ask it
Whether someone counts everything, takes a mulligan off the first, or picks up after a triple bogey defines the game they want to play. Far better to establish it before a round than during one.
Have you ever taken lessons? Did they help?
Why ask it
Lessons started and abandoned are common, usually because things got worse before they got better. How they describe that stretch says something about how they take instruction generally.
How do you practice, and do you enjoy it?
Why ask it
Some players love the range and others endure it. Anyone who mentions putting on a carpet at home is telling you they are more serious than their scorecard suggests.
What is the best shot you have ever hit?
Why ask it
Everybody has one and nobody minds being asked. The details they include, the wind, the lie, who happened to be watching, are the part that makes it worth listening to.
What is the worst hole you have had, and what happened after it?
Why ask it
The recovery matters more than the disaster. Whether they steadied on the next tee or lost the following four holes describes how they take setbacks well beyond golf.
Do you walk or ride, and does it change how you play?
Why ask it
The preference splits cleanly between people who want the exercise and people who want the pace, and it changes the character of a round completely. Useful to know before agreeing to play together.
What annoys you most about how other people play?
Why ask it
Slow play, phones, and unrepaired divots come up most often. It is a light question that reveals their standards without requiring them to deliver a lecture on etiquette.
Who do you usually play with, and how did that group come about?
Why ask it
Regular fourballs tend to have long histories and firm customs. Asking how it formed usually produces the friendship story rather than the golf story, which is generally the better one.
Do you ever play for money?
Why ask it
Stakes and strokes are the two things new playing partners forget to agree. Raising it early avoids an awkward exchange on the first tee, or a worse one on the eighteenth green.
Do you watch professional golf, and has it changed anything you do?
Why ask it
Some amateurs copy what they see and others watch purely as spectators. The answer tells you how technically minded they are before you venture any opinion of your own.
What has golf cost you, in time and money?
Why ask it
This is the real subject in a lot of golfing households. Asked lightly it tends to get an honest answer, and occasionally a rueful one about a set of clubs sitting unused in the garage.
One more round, anywhere, with anyone. Where, and who with?
Why ask it
A good closing question because it needs no expertise from either of you. Most people name a person rather than a course, and often someone who is no longer around to play with.
How to use these questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Talking golf with anyone
Ask about the round, not the swing
Stories about a particular hole, a group, or a course are open to anyone. Questions about swing mechanics narrow the conversation to two people who already know the vocabulary.
Do not offer a tip
Unless they ask, advice on someone's game is heard as criticism, even when it is right. The fastest way to be dropped from a group is to coach it.
Let bad rounds be funny
Golfers would rather tell you about the disaster than the birdie, provided you laugh with them and not at the score. The worst hole question almost always outperforms the best shot question.
Say plainly if you do not play
It saves both of you a stretch of guesswork and usually produces a better conversation, since most golfers enjoy explaining the game to someone who is genuinely curious.
If you are about to play together
Settle format, stakes, and strokes on the range
Whether it is stroke play or a match, whether anything is riding on it, and how many shots anyone is getting. Sorting it in advance prevents the only argument that reliably ruins a round.
Agree what counts
Gimmes, mulligans, breakfast balls, and a maximum score per hole. Nobody minds any of it as long as everyone is playing the same game.
Ask what pace they like
Mismatched pace spoils more rounds than mismatched ability. Someone who wants four hours and someone who wants five and a half will both have a poor day without discussing it first.
What tends to go wrong
Assuming ability from appearance
Age, build, and equipment predict almost nothing. Ask how often they play instead, which tells you what you need to know without anyone having to state a handicap.
Turning it into a comparison
Following their answer with your own better score ends the exchange. Ask a second question about their round instead.
Pressing on cost
Club fees and green fees can be a sore subject, particularly for someone who has cut back. Ask once, lightly, and take the short answer if that is what you get.