UNDERSTANDING THE TRULY
DERANGED MAD DOG
The Management Journey:
Whipping, Beating and Neutering The Mad Dogs of Clubdom
By Gregg Patterson
“MAD DOGS”???
There are Mad Dogs in every
clubhouse, members who
run about, foaming at the
mouth, yapping constantly,
nipping at the heels of board
members, committee members,
management and staff. They can
infect the body politic and trust,
that most fragile of commodities
and the most fundamental tool in
successful club governance, can
be compromised or destroyed.
Mad Dogs are usually clever
sorts with too much time on their
hands and too little to do. The
club has become their job. They
see themselves as guard dogs of
“the good” - and are rabid in their
search of “the bad”. They slink
about, lurking in the shadows,
ready to pounce.
Mad Dogs may be loners in that
their madness, but Mad Dogs truly
love to hunt in packs. The Pack
of Mad Dogs---their “bitcher and
moaner” buddies---inspires their
madness. The Pack provides moral
and psychological support, makes
them the Alpha Pooh, become
enablers of their madness. The
Mad Dogs always say “the pack
agrees”, that the pack is ready
to bite, whether the pack is so
inclined or not.
They’ve no agenda. They live in
their own warped imaginings
where they’re Club President one
moment and General Manager
the next. In their mind, what they
think and then say---true or not-
--is THEIR reality. They live on a
different astral plane. The Truly
Deranged Mad Dogs are so mad
that most members see them
as such and are ignored. They
blather on, heard by many but
harmless.
But the truly dangerous Deranged
Mad Dog is the one who’s on the
Board of Directors, has some
type of moral authority because
of it are perceived to reflect “The
Board” when they speak. These
characters are considered to be
authority figures with the inside
scoop. This is the Truly Deranged
Stealth Mad Dog. But when you
put a Truly Deranged Mad Dog
in this position, watch out---they
don’t have the facts so they make
them up.
Then there is another type of Mad
Dog called the Truly Deranged
Mad Dog. This character is
the one who thinks a thought,
imagines a story and believes it
to be true whether it is or not. They want to get out of
confrontations over Board
decisions and they contrive
stories to deflect the blame for
those choices from themselves to
others. They disparage members
and truly believe what they’re
saying. Their confidence, their
style and their delivery are such
that people actually believe them!
They may be the blonde haired,
blue eyed boy from the prominent
family, long time member,
alumni of all the right schools,
approachable and pleasant. But
they have a complete disconnect
28 I
I GOLF MANAGEMENT AUSTRALIA
WINTER EDITION 2017
from reality and lack a clear
understanding between what
they’ve so casually said and the
damage they can do both to
others and to that most precious
of governing tools, trust. These
Truly Deranged Stealth Mad Dogs
can really bruise you since the
world listens to them and believes!
It’s scary knowing that the Truly
Deranged Stealth Mad Dog doesn’t
even know they’re mad.
Mad Dogs are social creatures.
In order to bite they need an
audience to witness the biting.
These animals tend not to write
letters---too easy to refute---but
slink about in search of receptive
ears. They have stories to tell
about things they’ve seen and
they are compelling, persistent
and sometimes even convincing in
their delivery.
Every club has these characters--
-Mad Dogs, Truly Deranged Mad
Dogs and Truly Deranged Stealth
Mad Dogs.
MUZZLE, NEUTER AND
PUT ‘EM IN CAGES
When you approach a Mad Dog
you need to acknowledge some of
the ground rules of containment.
Understand that with Mad
Dogs there are no private
conversations. You need to
acknowledge that a Mad Dog,
when sworn to secrecy, will race
from your office to bite and infect
others with whatever juicy tidbits