Golf is a good walk spoiled.
MARK TWAIN
I hate golf. I want to get that out of the way at the outset in case I fail to make it obviously clear by the end of this rant. Golf is not a sport. It is a game which would be fine except that it is a game with a great deal of baggage. I mean this literally. They pay people to lug this baggage around the golf courses. But I am getting ahead of myself. I hate golf. I will tell you why.
I once heard a story about John F. Kennedy out playing golf one day. The reporters wanted to get some pictures of him on the course, but Jack wouldn't let them take the pictures. He knew the pictures would hit the magazines identifying him as a golfer. Since golf was the game of the rich and the elite, the picture would show that Kennedy was out of touch with the blue collar working class folks who were the backbone of the Democrat Party once upon a time. I know this story is hard to believe when the most recent Democrat to occupy the Oval Office had numerous photos taken of him on the golf course.
Obama was definitely out of touch, but I don't want to bash on Democrats exclusively since virtually every Republican president in my living memory has been a golfer. And every time these presidents have hit the links, it has been bad press and bad optics. They could have gone bowling, gone fishing, or even gone drinking in a night of unbridled debauchery and garnered less negative press than playing that stupid game of golf. So, why do they still do it? It beats me.
Golf is a game for rich guys. Nothing says that you've made it like being able to afford a pricey membership at some country club. In short, it is a vanity which makes it the game of men with huge egos. Unfortunately, those egos are as large as their golf scores because virtually every one of these egomaniacs absolutely stink at playing golf. But being good at the game isn't the point. What is the point of the game? Well, I really don't know. It is a pointless game especially when you stink at it, and you could skip the 18 holes and just get to the drinking at the clubhouse.
The privilege is just being able to play the game. There are real sports these men could play like basketball or softball. There are pleasant games like bowling which is fun or chess which is intellectually stimulating and challenging. There is even exercise like running, cycling, or lifting weights that get you in shape. I can think of 100 better things to do with your time than hitting a little white ball on the course and then chasing it in an electric scooter while wearing ridiculous clothes. So, why do they do it?
Status. That's it. You play golf to show that you made it. Granted, there are lots of blue collar guys who throw their clubs in the backs of their pickup trucks and head out to the driving range or the public golf course if the county workers and/or prison chain gang mowed the grass that week. But these blue collar golfers are pretenders hacking away with their Walmart golf clubs at substandard courses aspiring to make the PGA tour and achieve escape velocity out of the working class. The only good thing I can say about this pathetic waste of drinking time is that these blue collar guys are actually pretty good at playing golf unlike those rich guys. But I digress. . .
Golf is a rich man's game because it is expensive. And the reason it is expensive is because it is the only game in the world that requires a large amount of real estate. And that, Gentle Reader, is why you common working folk have to settle for bowling and horseshoes. Real estate is pricey, and it has to be maintained. This requires clubs that charge dues, and those dues have to be large enough to keep out the riff raff who are prone to riding across the manicured greens in the golf carts and tossing their empty beer cans and cigarette butts willy nilly. And this is reinforced with Byzantine dress code requirements that forbid things like cutoff jeans and flip flops but will permit virtually every other fashion disaster that people with bad taste can imagine.
Golf is the rich man's indulgence. Those rolling manicured meadows of green are the barrier between those who have made it in life and those doomed to a life of perpetual grind in the salt mines of daily labor. It is not enough to be wealthy and successful. One must also flaunt it. Used to be, this could be done with an expensive car and a Rolex watch. But any hoodrat drug dealer can buy those baubles. No, golf is the great signifier that you have arrived, and you did it without getting caught for illegal activities. I don't know if Richard Nixon lost any of his club memberships after Watergate. That would have to be a subject for another post and probably some other blog. But you get the point. Golf is the trophy wife of games.
Whenever I see or meet a man who is a golfer, my opinion of him is greatly diminished. This is before I have seen him in his loud golf pants. That spectacle takes him to an even lower place of disgust in my book merely a few rungs above serial killer, pedophile, and IRS agent. A man who golfs is a boor, a jerk, and a few other things with obscene names attached to them. Unfortunately, some men I like such as the late Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump played golf. When I meet a man I like who golfs, I regard him as a nice guy with a really bad habit like smoking or fingernail chewing. You try to look past the disgusting nature of the habit.
My hatred of golf is mostly rooted in socioeconomics. This is just a fancy way of me saying that I was born into a working class family, and I have remained in the working class. Some people will say that I am envious, but the truth is that I would never play golf even if I won the lottery or was filthy rich. By the same token, when I encounter a rich guy who hates golf and refuses to play, he notches up considerably in my estimation of him.
I don't think I am alone in my thoughts about golf. People who play golf on the regular express a great deal of frustration at their inability to make that little white ball do what they want. Perhaps golf is a way for powerful men to feel powerless again. I don't know. It mystifies me how anyone can find enjoyment in doing something so poorly which just reinforces my point that golf is more about status than performance.
Certain activities belong to certain types of people. I can't imagine a surfer who wasn't also a pothead. Similarly, video games will always be for kids and basement dwelling losers too sorry to get off their butts and get a job. Likewise, golf will always be to me a game for rich jerks to show off to the world that they are so rich that they can afford to blow good time, money, and real estate on a game they will never be good at. There are better things to do in life. Golf is not one of them.
