Sport Not a Sport: Golf

It's St. Patrick's Day! The the Americanized version of Ireland's weak-ass version of Germany's far superior Oktoberfest. Have you ever noticed how come September the beer aisle is littered with Oktoberfest seasonal beers, but the only beer specific to St. Paddy's day is Bud Light dyed green, which will be served throughout the NCAA tournament. You never realized how long beer sits around at a bar until they dye it green for one specific week and they're still serving it month later. I've ordered a beer in April and been served a green one. It's shocking.

Anywho. In honor of this most Irish of days I decided to knock back a few ales and write about golf, a sport I assume originated in Ireland.

Nope. Just Bing-ed it. Scotland. However, I watched Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: Why Is This A Trilogy, Can I Stream the Weird Cartoon Version I Used to Love last night, and according to Gandalf it was created in Middle Earth by Bilbo's ancestor.

Golf, a game which the origins of are highly contested, is a game played on courses of well landscaped forest clearings. The quality of the game is directly related to the property value of the particular course in use. This fact is part of the reason golf is seen as a sport of the elite. Another reason is cost. Golf is stupid expensive. Here is an Amazon listing for a used driver which you can purchase for $29. That is one club. You will be needing 8 to 11 more clubs to play golf. You can buy an entire set of clubs at once. Sometimes buying in bulk can lower costs. Let's see what happens when I search for "affordable golf club set."

$800!!!!

I specifically used the word "affordable." This is crazy.







More digging uncovers a used set on Amazon for $160. So that's good. You can buy those and still be able to pay your electric bill this month. Now you just need to buy some balls, special shoes and then pay to go play a game.

Yes, unlike in basketball, a sport whose sportiness is beyond reproach, the old men wearing double knee braces on the golf course don't take kindly to you standing off to the side and yelling "Next!" to stake your claim. Golf requires you to call ahead and arrange a time where you can play. Golf a sport for gentlemen. White gentlemen.

Just because golf is a game with daunting start-up costs and classist/sexist history that doesn't prove whether or not it's a sport. But it doesn't bode well. One of the great things about sports is that they act as an equalizing and unifying activity. Merit is determined on the field of play. If not everyone can afford to get onto that field of play then it doesn't seem very sporting.
(Note to self: Pitch movie to Disney about inner-city golf team)

Let's get into the nitty gritty of golf to figure out if it is a sport or not a sport. It has objective scoring. Every time you swing that counts as a point. Stroke? Whatever. You accumulate strokes until the ball goes into the cup. The person with the most points...what? Least points? YOU'RE ON THIN ICE ALREADY, GOLF! You accumulate strokes until you get the ball into all of the cup. "Cup" refers to the hole you are trying to hit your ball into. "Hole" refers to the stretch of course you are currently playing. From the tee to the cup is the hole. God you're stupid, golf. Still, objective scoring is involved. Penalties are given for prescribed reasons. There are no judges. If someone starts talking trash, you can always respond by saying "Scoreboard."

Golf is also physically taxing (so I'm told) which seems to be a qualifying aspect of sports. But the reason it's physically taxing is because you're walking around for 4 hours carrying a bag of metal sticks. Making a connecting flight in Charlotte is physically taxing when you have to haul your carry-ons from one gate to another. That doesn't mean ESPN2 should devote any airtime to it. And golf gives you the option of using a go kart if you get too winded. I'm sure John Kruk would have loved the option to hop into car instead of legging out a double when he hit one into the gap. To be fair, I don't think professional golf events allow the use of golf carts. I can't be sure because I've never watched one, because that would be the most boring thing in the world.

Golf also does not allow defense. You don't get to effect the way an opponent plays or what they do. It is played by taking turns. Players don't even take turns on the same hole consecutively. At pro events some players start on the first hole, some in the middle of the course, and some at the end. You could be winning when you finish the course and end up losing. How can something be a sport if the competitors aren't competing at the same time? I could play a course on Monday and my buddy could play it on Tuesday and then we compare scores to see how won. That's not a sport, that's a high score board. Golf is just an outdoor, extreme version of skeeball. But less entertaining to watch than skeeball.

GOLF: Not a sport.