They throw their clubs backwards, and that's wrong. You should always throw a club ahead of you so that you don't have to walk any extra distance to get it.

The line plays on Tommy Bolt’s reputation for on-course temper and for tossing clubs in frustration. By treating a tantrum as a problem in efficiency—throw the club forward so you won’t have to walk back for it—Bolt turns anger into deadpan practicality. The humor depends on the mismatch between the supposed lesson (good course management) and the underlying behavior (poor self-control). It also reflects a golfer’s constant attention to minimizing wasted steps and effort, a mindset that, in this joke, is applied to an obviously irrational act. The quote endures as a compact example of sports folklore: personality distilled into a punchline.