Golf Clubbing

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"Okay, you guys, it's dangerous, so we need to be prepared. So I brought a golf club!" —Yosuke, Peachi's Persona 4 Web Comic

When you think of sports equipment-as-Improvised Weapon, you probably think of a baseball bat. But thugs who want to be a bit different, perhaps show a bit more class, reach instead for their 9-iron. Where the former is essentially a big stick, your golf club is more like a hammer, with all the weight concentrated on the point of impact.

The Weapon of Choice of the Corrupt Corporate Executive, because they're likely to have one lying around anyway. They might even have several, in which case you can expect them to consult their Number Two on the best club for the shot. Alternately, the Number Two might make a recommendation of their own volition part way through the assault.

Bonus points if the wielder says "FORE!" when attacking.

Compare Batter Up. Has nothing to do with Not My Driver.

Examples of Golf Clubbing include:

Anime and Manga

• Taiga does it in GaoGaiGar, even Calling His Attack while doing it ("TITANIUM HEAD DRIVER!").
• Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Keiichi gets a golf club in preparation for a fight at one point. Said fight was actually a friend asking for help at a baseball game.
• Madoka Magica: This is Homura's first weapon. She trades up pretty quickly.
• In You're Under Arrest, Aoi Futaba (who was in the golf team at high school) attacks some yakuzas who were armed with guns and taking cover beside a short cliff by hitting golf balls at them with a club. (The anime version of this story was much different; in that version, Aoi, who used to be a basketball player instead of a golf player, uses basketball moves to stop some delinquents from stealing a valuable pair of shoes.)

Comic Books

• Green Lantern foe the Sportsman frequently uses golf clubs as weapons.
• Psycho for Hire Mr. Fun in the Batman Family mini-series uses a golf club as a weapon.

Film — Live Action

• Starsky and Hutch: Reese Feldman slaps Huggy Bear while he's posing as a caddy, for forgetting the nine iron. Later, Huggy whacks him in the head with it.

Huggy Bear: Found your nine iron, bitch.

• Anger Management: Jack Nicholson's characters uses one, reflecting a Real Life incident of his a little while before shooting the film.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: In the first movie, Casey Jones, who is known for using sports equipment as his Weapon of Choice, uses a driver to good effect against Tatsu.

Casey: I'll never call golf a dull game again.

• Batman Begins: Alfred knocks out a member of the League of Shadows with this.
• Wasabi is a French-Japanese action comedy. A golf culb is used by the hero (played by Jean Reno) in a scene where Yakuza brings him to a "negotiation" on a golf driving range.
• Suicide Kings: The Denis Leary character uses an iron to severely admonish a minor character, then complains loudly about these damn flimsy plastic shafts.
• Dogma: Jay whacks Azrael in the chest with a golf club, which Azrael believes to be a futile gesture... until it smashes his chest open. Turns out Cardinal Glick is the kind of pompous person who would bless his golf clubs for a better game.
• In The 51st State, Samuel L. Jackson's character, Elmo, manages to destroy a gang of (5?) Skinheads with one of his Golf clubs, apparently without straining himself.
• Evoked and made more badass in Don the Chase Begins Again, where you think for a moment that a man is going to be clubbed to death... Before Don kills him by hitting a golf ball right into his face at close range.

Literature

• Used at the end in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Given a stealth Call Back in the dedication in Mikael's book;

To Sally, who taught me the benefits of the game of golf.

• In The Hobbit, it is said that the game of Golf was invented by hobbits at the Battle of the Green Fields, in which Bullroarer Took scored a decisive blow by knocking off Golfimbul's head with a wooden club for a hundred yards drive into a rabbit hole.
• Subverted in World War Z; one character recalls that he saw a man trying to fight a zombie off with a golf club, only for the club to eventually bend, leaving him defenseless.

Live Action TV

• In the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Lead" a child molester is beaten to death with a golf club.
• Not used, but recommended over a basebal bat by Fiona in Burn Notice

Theatre

• A golf club is the murder weapon in the Agatha Christie play Spider's Web.

Video Games

• Silent Hill 4: Henry can pick up a couple of golf clubs as weapons, they're rather fragile and not practical to haul around given his limited inventory slots.
• Dead Rising: one of the survivors you can rescue in the second game is a pro golfer who's using her favorite club to keep zombies at bay. She's very nonchalant about the situation, saying that this is good practice for her swing and she hopes her favorite club won't fall apart. While you can use a club in the game, all you can do is drive golf balls into zombies' faces until you run out. It apparently never occurs to your character to use it as a melee weapon.
• In Persona 4, the main character's traditional weaponry is two-handed swords... or, alternatively, golf clubs.
• Halo 3 got a 7-wood golf club with the Mythic Map Pack, which is a reskin of the Gravity Hammer. It goes along with the golf ball and golf hole Forge items. It returns in Halo: Reach, and can be used in Firefight.
• Bioshock
  • In Bioshock, a main character is killed with his own golf club... at his own request, by the brainwashed player character.
  • Bioshock 2: While not actually a usable weapon, while in the "Journey to the Surface" ride in Ryan Amusements, you come across a animatronic Andrew Ryan. Behind him is one of his golf clubs. If you use Telekinesis, you can use it as a weapon by throwing it at something. If you throw it at the Andrew Ryan animatronic, you get an achievement: 9-Irony.
    
    In the multiplayer, a golf club is the signature melee weapon of the Businessman, Buck Raleigh. Also, the "Kill 'em Kindly" mode gives everyone a golf club and limits them to melee only, regardless of their chosen character.
• Fallout: New Vegas has a 9-iron weapon, and it has a special move in VATS called "Fore!", where you hit the enemy in the groin. This is also the Weapon of Choice of Driver Nephi, one of the Fiend leaders, who carries a unique driver.
• Super Smash Bros series: One of Peach's randomly-selected weapons.
• Grand Theft Auto series
  • Grand Theft Auto Vice City: In "Four Iron", Tommy Vercetti is asked to 'persuade' a businessman to do a deal. During the mission he lacks his usual weapons. So he has to get persuasive with a golf club. The club can be used as a melee weapon during the rest of the game.
  • Grand Theft Auto San Andreas: Golf clubs can be used as a melee weapon. If CJ knocks someone down, he will then uses a golf swing.
• The Hitman series
• In Ragnarok Online, the Priest class can be armed with Iron Drivers.
• In MadWorld, Jack can use a golf club as a weapon, including in the Man Golf minigame.
• In Wandering Hamster, getting a perfect score in mini-golf course earns Bob a golf club to use as a weapon.
• There is a game called Itchy and Scratchy in Miniature Golf Madness. Three guesses whether it features this trope.
• Left 4 Dead 2 provides the page image. Con Men Hate Guns... but they don't hate golfclubs.
• In Team Fortress 2, there's a golf club available as one of the Demoman's many melee weapons. It's a re-skin of the Eyelander, meaning you can in fact decapitate opponents with a golf club.

Western Animation

• Re Boot: during a dream episode Bob has Glitch turn into a golf club which he used on Hack and Slash. He made a hole in one.
• In King of the Hill, Hank is not afraid to use golf clubs to defend himself. He keeps a bag full of them by the front door. In The Buck Stops Here, Hank pulls his club against the bouncer who's after Bobby's given wristwatch which Buck waged on.