Graciousness

Graciousness

Greetings Golfers,

The other day while paying cash for my gas (and a much needed Dr. Pepper) … I was 50 cents short … so the guy at the counter said he’d cover it. Being a Minnesotan, I felt guilty and tried to stop it … then he said “Don’t steal my joy”.

How cool was that?

Not only do we have to know how to give … but we have to know how to receive.

Gracious receiving … has not been my skill. I hope I’m getting better at it. I’m finally understanding that I’m “stealing their joy” by being a bad recipient … I thought that I was being noble.

Wrong. Noble is more than doing the right thing … noble is standing up for the right thing.

Here’s a crazy version of this that’s been on my mind. Some people think that doing the right thing is doing whatever they have the power to do. Basically … being a bully … or a thug.

One of my speeches here has been about acceptable levels of behavior. On an a grading system from A - F … here’s how I see it:

A - maybe/hopefully someone

B - staff and shareholders

C - our customers/golfers

D - unacceptable

F - public execution

A few years ago, I resurrected FastPlayFriday for a day. I went out Rangering … starting on #18. So … all was well on #18 … golfers on the green, in the fairway and on the tee … and they were on a 4 hour pace … same on #17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9 … and not on #8 … no one on 8 … #7 until the tee box … I inform them that there are 2 open holes and they’re behind pace … one of their players was a (former) shareholder who said “Why do you always yell at me?” … I replied “because your always doing something wrong”. He was “entitled”. He thought that being a shareholder entitled him to D-level behavior.

So … I left #7 for hole #6. There I saw a little girl running around on the green. Hmmmmmmm. And, there was a cart parked right in front of the green. So, I parked on the cart path and walked over and asked him what was going on. He replied that he could do this because he was “special”. Hmmmm.

I asked what that meant. He replied because he worked at Deer Run that he was special and could do what he wanted. I then made it clear that he couldn’t … and that they had to go in.

This craziness left me with having to relax the golfers backed-up on #5 and #4.

Why were we backed-up? Because … people who should be behaving at B-level … were behaving at D-level.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

Maybe my reluctance at receiving gifts is a fear of acting entitled. But they’re very different situations. Graciously accepting help or a gift is a good thing. Acting entitled is the opposite of graciousness. Does it warrant Level-F … public execution?

Maybe. It depends on the situation.

Cheers!

Tom Abts
GM/Head PGA Professional
tabts@deerrungolf.com