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Amid unprecedented post-pandemic growth in participation, golf is experiencing its share of growing pains. In some places, ever-more-crowded tee sheets are starting to turn what should be a relaxing and fun time with friends into tense, contentious and sometimes litigious circumstances that threaten the game’s long-established traditions of integrity and gentility.
Even professional golfers seem to be running afoul of golf’s social contract.
On the eve of LIV Golf’s final tournament of the 2026 season, a highly-rated public golf course in Indiana took to social media to call out a high-profile visitor whom it had had to dismiss from the property for flagrantly disobeying house rules.
Bear Slide Golf Club, a daily-fee facility whose 18 holes opened in 1989 and were laid out by Dean Refram, published a Facebook post seeking to clarify rumors that it had banished a group led by former PGA Tour player-turned LIV Golf tour member Harold Varner III.
The post details the dustup. After agreeing to welcome Varner and three friends to enjoy a round on its highly-regarded course – Bear Slide enjoys a sparkling 4.7 rating across 488 GolfPass reviews and is ranked #8 in Indiana on its latest Golfers’ Choice list – Varner showed up half an hour late and with a total of six golfers, requesting dispensation to play as a sixsome.
Fivesomes are rare enough, especially at public courses. Sixsomes are practically unheard of except in extraordinary circumstances. I have played in a sixsome just once, for six holes during a high school golf team practice in a rainstorm when mine was literally the only group on the course.
Like nearly every public golf facility on the planet, Bear Slide does not allow groups larger than foursomes – a rule both the course’s starter and management reiterated to Varner when he and members of his group requested an exception.
After a tense exchange on the first tee, Varner and his buddies seemingly followed the rules, teeing off as two threesomes. But Bear Slide’s ranger allegedly found them playing as a sixsome on the fourth hole and the course’s management promptly dismissed them from the property.
This was an admirable display of backbone from a proud public golf course, even more so amid professional golf’s contentious present climate.
Elite professional golfers receive special treatment all the time, with many golf courses happy to comp golf for them and their friends. Having great golfers stopping by is good for business; courses have been touting visits from golf luminaries for decades.
If the allegations from Bear Slide are true (Varner's camp posted a retort later on), Varner and his entourage should be ashamed of their conduct, and deserve to be called out for their flagrant disrespect for the hospitality extended to them by the course.
I had heard of Bear Slide as an upper-level Indiana public golf course in the past. Now, I am even more excited to seek it out when I finally get around to playing some golf in the Hoosier State. For refusing to give in to the cringe-worthy don’t-you-know-who-I-am attitude that seems to be more and more common among privileged golfers, I salute them. Their steadfastness says a great deal about the pride both ownership and management take in cultivating a positive atmosphere.
“Perhaps this group felt like they should get special privileges because of who they are and the organization they belong to,” the post read. “But we believe that everyone should be treated fairly and should follow the same rules, regardless of your playing ability or connections.”
Bear Slide is not the only public golf course with the guts to rail against poor golfer behavior in recent weeks. Towards the end of July, a frank-to-the-point-of-vulgar Facebook post from Meadows Farms Golf Course in central Virginia went viral, venting about the damage some recent guests had done to its greens.
“To the little cucks that damaged our course yesterday afternoon,” wrote Josh Dotson, whose family owns and operates Meadows Farms, “I will find you. I will call your mommy and daddy and explain to them what you did.”
Dotson went on to muse about exacting payback via a certain bodily function placed at the offenders’ doorstep.
Whatever your feelings about Dotson’s language, I think any respectful golfer would be eager to support a course run by someone so passionate and righteously upset at such a pointless act of vandalism. For that reason, much like Bear Slide, Meadows Farms is exactly the type of golf course I would love to patronize.
One kicker to the Meadows Farms episode: I actually ran into Dotson about a week after his philippic made the rounds on the internet. With a couple of hours to spare during a visit to nearby Tributer Resort, I drove around to take a look at a couple of other golf courses in the area. Dotson and I struck up a conversation at Somerset Farms Golf Course, which his family also owns and is currently getting back in prime playing shape.
It didn’t click with me until later that the friendly, mild-mannered man I had chatted with in the Somerset Farms parking lot was the same man who had posted that sensational open letter. It never came up in our ten-minute conversation, even though he would have been well justified in mentioning it. I take that as a testament to something that all good stewards of golf places seem to share: the desire to look forward and to relentlessly improve and serve their customers. Even if it means putting malicious golfers in their place.
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