AITAH -Asking for my son's friend (his parents) to pay for a damaged golf club?
My son is 14 and has golfed for about 5 years. He is better than average for his age and has a tournament coming up in a few days. He has expensive clubs acquired through trading up and working odd jobs to help pay for some of them / Christmas and birthday gifts.
Yesterday he went to the range with some friends. One of the friends showed up with no clubs??? My son offered to let him use his clubs.
My son's friend swung the club and must have been at a crazy downward angle, breaking the head of the club by smashing in the bottom. After an awkward silence, the kid said he'd pay for it and they finished their range session.
Then we got a message saying he would talk to his parents but it seemed he was less wiling to take responsibility.
We then recieved a message from his dad with a few of the following points:
This was my son’s very first time playing golf. The damage o ccurred while he was attempting to hit a golf ball during normal play. The club was not used improperly, nor was it struck against the ground, a cart, a tree, or any other object. It was simply an unfortunate accident that happened while learning the game.
While I understand that the club has value, it was also a used club with visible wear prior to the incident. More importantly, when sports equipment is lent to a beginner, there is always an inherent risk of accidental damage. Unfortunately, this is one of those situations.
For these reasons, I do not believe it would be appropriate for our family to contribute toward the repair or replacement costs, and therefore we will not be making any payment.
To be clear, the damage was done to the bottom of the club so it very much hit the ground with the ball in-between the club and the ground causing the damage. It was caved in and cracked. The club is less than a year old, not even used a full season and had no giant scratches or damage, other than normal scuffs prior to yesterday.
We offered to pay more than half so we're accepting part of the blame for our sons decision to let him use the club.
It's my position that he's taking zero accountability. By his own argument, his son should take part of the blame.
He showed up at a range with no clubs.
He did ask to use it.
He did break it.
He knew he had no experience and asked to use the clubs.
We found a replacement online and asked that he pay less than half the cost to replace the club. We paid a total of $550 CAD for a brand new club and asked them for $250. Even a counter offer of SOMETHING would have been more reasonable then outright denying any responsibility?
AITAH for even asking or should this person have owned up to this a little bit and offered something?
EDIT: I completely agree that my son should not have let him use it. That's why we were accepting part of the blame and offering to pay over half. This issue I have is passing the entirety of the blame to my son for being a nice person and accepting no responsibility. My initial posts asks if they should have at least offered SOMETHING and that's all we were hoping for.
The costs are associated with the Canadian value at 13% tax. Options are limited due to time constraints as he needs the club for a tournament tomorrow. We found the best available deal and still talked them down to less.
Our response is just that we are moving on and accepting that he doesn't want to take any responsibility. Hoping it doesn't affect our sons friendship over a material thing. I do question his lack of accountability in my response but ultimately, not forcing anything further and likely won't reply to any further responses.
Thanks for all the feedback back everyone.