The idea was pretty simple: Sleep in, have something of a lazy Sunday and then go out for some afternoon golf. Was going to try to work on some of the issues I had Saturday during an average (to slightly below average) round of golf, clear my head and enjoy the last hours of the weekend.

I logged on to our online tee time site a little after 2 p.m. and wasn’t overly thrilled with what I saw. Basically I needed to grab a 2:50 time or wait until after 5 p.m. And I didn’t want to wait that long.

When I stopped in the golf shop, I was told that a couple of guys had signed up with me. That was fine. I don’t know that many people at my new club yet, so I was hoping that maybe I’d meet some guys that were cool.

This turned into a 4-hour blind date that was totally awful.

Three guys rolled out of the bar and it was pretty clear they had been in there for a while. They were buzzed and loud and two of the guys had handicaps in the mid-20s range. One of the guys is a decent player (high single digit handicap), but he was pretty much wasted and the longer we played, the worse he got.

While I usually play the back tees, they wanted to play the white tees. I was cool with that, but it wasn’t my first choice.

Basically, this is what I was subjected to:

– Constant talking while people were about to hit or hitting.

– Awful cart driving. Is it really that hard to stay on the path? Do you have to park 18 inches from the tee box, rather than taking four steps from the cart to the tee box? And, no, you shouldn’t park that close to a green.

– Ball marks rarely were repaired and divots weren’t replaced.

– Two of the guys threw clubs – I haven’t done that since I was about 15 – and one of them broke the shaft on his driver. No lie.

– Screaming of profanity and tons of homophobic references throughout the round. One of these guys was also clearly still living in the past and thinking about those days in the early 80s, playing hockey at Bloomington Jefferson. Goodness.

– Me becoming more and more tired of it all.

I don’t think I’m a prude. I don’t think I’m that tightly wound. I like to have a couple of beers. I like to have fun and laugh. But I also want people to respect the game. I don’t think there is anything wrong with some etiquette and not acting like a fool.

Four hours later, I was done being hijacked by D-bags. I hit some good shots — I hit it within 3 inches on the par 3 third hole — but my concentration wasn’t where it should have been.

And I’m pretty sure I will try to avoid those guys moving forward.