You know the feeling. You pull into the parking lot, check in at the pro shop, and find out you've been paired with a random. Your stomach does a little thing. Is this going to be four hours with a cool stranger who becomes a golf buddy? Or four hours of silent suffering with someone who takes 12 practice swings and doesn't fix their divots?
The difference between those two scenarios has almost nothing to do with how well either of you plays golf. I've had incredible rounds with 30-handicappers and miserable ones with single-digits. Skill is irrelevant. What matters is something much simpler and much harder to fake.
Character.
But we're not going to call it that, because that sounds like a self-help book. We're going to call it "not being the guy everyone dreads getting paired with." Same thing. Better packaging.
The Unofficial Rules of Being a Good Golf Partner
1. Be Ready When It's Your Turn
This is the foundation. The bedrock. The load-bearing wall of golf partner etiquette.
When it's your turn to hit, be ready to hit. Not searching for a club. Not finishing a story. Not taking your fourth practice swing. Not walking back to the cart for a different ball. Ready. Club in hand. One look at the target. Go.
You don't have to rush. But there's a canyon-sized gap between rushing and what most slow golfers actually do, which is perform a small ritual before every shot that involves reading the wind like they're captaining a ship across the Atlantic.
You're hitting a 7-iron 155 yards. Just hit it.
2. Help Look for Their Ball
When your playing partner hits one into the rough, you help look. Always. Every time. Even when you know it's gone. Especially when you know it's gone.
There is no faster way to tell someone "I don't respect your time or your experience" than standing in the fairway looking at your phone while they're thrashing through knee-high fescue looking for a Titleist 3 they'll never find.
Walk over. Look for 30 seconds. If it's lost, say "drop one, we'll get it back." Move on. The search itself matters more than the result.
3. Celebrate Their Good Shots
This one costs you literally nothing and means more than you think.
When your playing partner — stranger or friend — hits a good shot, say something. "Nice ball." "Great swing." "That's a player's shot right there." You don't need to compose a sonnet. Just acknowledge it.
You know why? Because most recreational golfers hit maybe 5-10 genuinely good shots per round. Those shots are rare and precious, and having another person witness them and confirm "yes, that was good" is half the joy of not playing alone.
I played with a random once — guy named Dave — who reacted to my good shots with more enthusiasm than I did. "OH, that's GORGEOUS," he'd say about a perfectly average 6-iron that happened to find the green. It made me play better. It made me like golf more. It made me want to come back.
Be a Dave.
4. Don't Coach (Unless Asked)
This is the hardest one for golfers who are decent. You see your partner topping every drive and you KNOW it's because they're lifting their head and you could fix it in one sentence and—
Don't.
Unless someone explicitly asks for your advice, keep it to yourself. Unsolicited swing tips are the golf equivalent of telling someone they look tired. Even when you're right, you're wrong.
People are aware of their problems. They're working on it. Or they're not, and that's their choice. Your job is to be a playing partner, not a playing instructor.
The exception: if someone asks "what am I doing wrong?" then by all means, offer one (ONE) simple thought. Not a full swing breakdown. Not a reference to a YouTube video. One thing they can try on the next shot. That's it.
5. Manage Your Temper
Look. I get it. Golf is frustrating. When you chunk a chip from 20 yards and it goes 3 feet, the urge to slam your club into the ground is primal. I've been there. We've all been there.
But here's the thing: your tantrum affects everyone around you. That club slam, that f-bomb, that putter thrown into the air — it changes the energy of the group. It makes people tense. It makes the fun disappear.
You don't have to be happy about a bad shot. You can be visibly annoyed. You can mutter under your breath. You can shake your head and move on. All of that is fine and human and relatable.
But the line is clear: your frustration should not become someone else's problem.
A controlled "ugh, come on" is golf. A full-volume profanity-laced meltdown is not golf. It's performance art that nobody bought a ticket to.
6. Keep the Pace
Pace of play is golf's most debated topic and I'm not going to solve it here. But as a playing partner, your responsibility is simple: don't be the reason the round is slow.
That means:
- Play ready golf (not strict honors — whoever's ready, goes)
- Limit yourself to one practice swing per shot (zero is better)
- Pick up when you're out of a hole (double par, triple bogey, whatever your limit is)
- Drive to your ball while your partner is hitting, not after
- Putt out if you're close, even if it's technically someone else's turn
The fastest thing you can do is be ready. The second fastest thing is to pick up. Nobody is tracking your score on 13 except you, and honestly, you'll have more fun if you pick up at 8 and move on than if you grind out the 11 in silence.
7. Fix Your Stuff
Divots. Ball marks. Rake the bunker. Put the flag back. It's kindergarten-level "leave it how you found it" but you'd be amazed how many golfers skip this.
Fixing ball marks on the green takes five seconds and saves the next group from putting through a crater. Replacing your divot takes three seconds. Raking the bunker takes ten seconds. None of this is hard. All of it matters.
And here's a pro move: fix one extra ball mark on each green. Not yours — someone else's, from an earlier group. The greenskeeper will never know it was you. The golf gods will.
8. Share the Good Stuff
Got extra tees? Offer one when someone's digging through their bag. Brought snacks? Share them on the turn. Have a koozie? Bring two.
Golf is four hours with another human being. Small acts of generosity — a handful of trail mix, an extra ball when they're running low, filling up their water bottle from the cooler — turn strangers into friends. Or at least into pleasant strangers, which is the next best thing.
9. Talk, But Read the Room
Some people want to chat the entire round. Some people want silence between shots. Most people want something in between. Your job is to figure out which one your partner is and match their energy.
Good conversation topics for playing with strangers:
- The course itself ("Have you played here before?")
- What they're playing with ("How do you like that driver?")
- Non-specific life stuff ("What do you do?" but only if they seem open to it)
- Complaining about a shared experience ("This wind is ridiculous")
Bad conversation topics:
- Their swing flaws (see #4)
- Politics or religion (you have four hours and no escape)
- How much their equipment costs
- Your best round ever, described shot by shot
10. Be the Same Person on 1 and 18
This is the real one. The hidden message in the list.
It's easy to be pleasant when you're playing well. Anyone can be charming on birdie. The test is what you're like on the back nine when you've lost four balls and your driver has betrayed you and you're 20 over and the round feels like it'll never end.
Are you still saying "nice shot" when your partner hits a good one? Are you still fixing your ball marks? Are you still keeping the pace? Are you still pleasant to be around?
Because that's character. Not the golf kind — the real kind. The way you handle a bad round says more about you than the way you handle a good one. And every person you get paired with will remember which version they got.
Playing Golf With Strangers: The Cheat Sheet
If you're nervous about getting paired up — and a lot of golfers are — here's everything you need to do:
- Introduce yourself on the first tee
- Be ready when it's your turn
- Help look for balls
- Say "nice shot" when it is
- Keep your temper at "mutter" level
- Don't give unsolicited advice
- Keep up the pace
- Fix your marks and divots
- Share your snacks
- Be the same person all 18 holes
That's it. That's the whole list. None of it requires being good at golf. All of it requires being good at being a person.
The Round They'll Remember
Nobody remembers what you shot. Seriously. Your playing partner from last Saturday — do you remember their score? Of course not. You remember whether you had a good time. You remember whether they were fun to play with. You remember whether you'd want to get paired with them again.
That's the real scorecard. And the good news is, you have complete control over it.
You can't control your swing. You can't control the wind or the bounce or the lie. You can't control whether your putter decides to work today.
But you can control whether you're the kind of golfer people hope they get paired with.
Be that golfer. It's the easiest par you'll ever make.