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Can someone explain the appeal of golf to me?
So, I’m sitting at an airport lounge right now and the thing that is on the bar TV is golf. The (only) folks watching it are the most typical business folk you can imagine. Is golf just the modern version of polo (the ones with the horsies)? As someone who prefers to watch hockey and finds basketball and baseball to be less entertaining. Golf goes the extra distance of not just being uninteresting, but irritating by how snobbish it feels.
I’ll confess that I had a couple of drinks already so I’m a bit extra, but I’m genuinely curious if my take is wrong and I’m missing something.
Edit: another thought, will Millennials and Zoomers don’t embrace golf at all and golf resorts become a rarity in the future?
IMO it is a “sport” that you can do competently while being a grossly out of shape old person, which lends itself to business very effectively. Also, it gets you outside ( and possibly drunk ) for a couple hours. I don’t see why new generations wouldn’t attach themselves to it as well.
Golf is incredibly hard to introduce people to. Beyond the equipment cost, there's this culture barrier that's extremely off-putting for newbies.
"You can talk now, but not then"
"You can stand here, but not there"
"You have to do this in that situation"
"Ugh. Why can't you hit a shot more than 50 feet"...."Oh crap, you hit the ball too far. You almost hit that group"
"Why'd you choose that club? That was clearly the case for this club."
"Why'd you choose that ball? You'd do better with this ball."
"Oh, there's a stroke limit. You can't finish the hole".
"Oh, yea. Pace of play. You should just pick your ball up"
"Oh shit. Don't drive the cart there. And, you can only drive perpendicular there"
"Don't be too loud. Don't have too much fun. Don't do anything that anyone else on the course could interpret as not being miserable".
I really enjoy swinging a golf club and visiting the range, but I generally find the attitude golfers have towards others to be completely insufferable.
It’s interesting you bring up the stuffy etiquette part. If anything, I’ve seen that reverse a lot over the past 14 ish years. With groups like LIV and Good Good on the rise, it’s never been a better time for new folks to have fun while joining the game.
The only time I've experienced people being stuffy on a course was at one of the Disney Courses. I got paired with a doctor and his care salesman dad, and his dad was an absolute douche to the course staff the entire time and very particular about shit that didn't actually matter. Otherwise, I've not seen much else.
I know absolutely nothing about golf, but it's interesting you pointed this out, because businessmen playing golf together makes more sense to me now. It's a way of feeling out another person and "checking" that they are of your social class, and "fit in". A sort of interview.
It’s a great way to spend a lot of money and ruin a good walk. If you’d like the same effect for less they have disc golf.
Neither is going anywhere because they’re great social games. Mostly private and you can actually talk with the other players
I understand playing golf, your old, you want to get away from your wife, you go and get drunk and drive around in a golf cart with your buddies hitting a ball around. That makes sense. Actually, getting drunk and driving around in golf carts doing anything would be fun. But WATCHING golf, sober people golfing just makes no sense to me.
Golf is in the end a sport that takes a lot of skill. If you golf regularly, what the pros do is practically black magic.
But yeah, if you don’t golf it’s not very interesting. But if you do it’s a fascinating expression of the sheer degree of control humans can have in their muscles.
Stick, ball, booze and a nice walk in the park.
I am a millennial with quite a few friends who play golf. They often discuss how lucky they are to get a decent tee time so I don’t think it’s getting any less popular. Golf is not quite like polo because you don’t need a horse and there are public courses that make it affordable for middle class and even lower class households.
Now I don’t really love golf that much, I’ll play 9 holes maybe once a year. But I think the number one thing people love about golf is hitting a great shot. If I play a round of golf and get one great shot that feeling will still with me for a long time and people who play a lot are chasing that feeling. There are other aspects like walking through a serene setting and getting away from things, a sport you can drink while playing, a sport you can gamble while playing, collecting clubs and other gear to get better, mental game against your self to get better, etc. These aspects will appeal to different people at different levels, but I truly believe the main hook for most people is the feeling when you hit a green or sink a long putt. I vividly remember a few of my good shots, and I don’t even like golf that much!
Fair, I can understand personal accomplishment and the social aspects of it. But watching it on TV feel so bland. Is there a golf equivalent of the Miracle on Ice or the Hand of God?
COVID made golf a lot more popular, but it also made golf more expensive. Some of the courses that cost $25 for 18 on a weekday before the pandemic are now like $50-$60 for 18.
There also used to be apps where you could book tee times for crazy good rates, but they've all been bought by the same company and that company proceeded to screw over all the golf courses so almost none of them use the booking sites anymore for discounted rates.
Idk why anyone likes golf that doesn't involve windmills and a cave underneath a crashed prop plane, but i can tell you that as a millennial I do know plenty of people my age who got into golfing. In the south, at least, golfing is seen as prestigious if you go for it as a career and how a lot of guys will conduct business meetings in a more relaxed atmosphere.
I think more so then other sports, golf is one that is only remotely interesting if you also play it. Watching golf without ever picking up a club you lose all reference as to it's difficulty. Golf is so much harder then it looks when just watching it.
Also, golf is simple tv. Unlike hockey or basketball, leaving the room for 15 minutes really doesn't matter. It's just someone you can casually watch and go: wow nice shot, then go back to whatever that you were doing.
As for why do people play? I think others have covered it but I think it's a combination of having a low (physical) barrier of entry, it being slow enough paced that you can casually chat, drink, smoke, whatever while you play while still getting some time outside with friends. Also, it's super satisfying when you have a good shot/hole.
All it takes is puring an 8 iron from 150 out or letting the big dog eat on a reachable par five and you’ll get it. To pipe that little white ball down Broadway. Sinking a clutch 15 footer for birdie. You just need a taste and and then you’ll wish you had a heroine addiction (it would be cheaper.)
It's hard to describe why it's fun but for me it's half about spending time with my friends. It can honestly be the most frustrating thing ever but you know you can do better and when you do it's a great feeling.
I feel like playing golf also makes watching good more enjoyable because you can appreciate just how difficult what the pros are doing. It might not look that exciting on TV when you don't have any reference to pull from
I agree entirely. It's about spending some time with the lads on a nice day, and being able to shit talk playfully. The competition is almost entirely working on personal performance since another player cannot really affect your game. So you get to just talk smack and have a beer or two on a nice day whilst messing with your mates.
I feel similar to bowling or billiards in the winter. All of these competitions from a spectator standpoint are much easier to understand and appreciate since you know how bullshit hard what that pro just pulled off is.
This is it. You’re using metal clubs to accurately move a tiny ball across great distances. It’s such a neat activity that changes every stroke.
I'm not a golfer myself, but I've grown up around the game (family who played decently-seriously and I worked as a caddie for 8 years).
Why people like golf (the game): I really appreciate the element of "you against the course" - basically every shot you ever hit is going to put you in a new circumstance, and figuring out how to handle that is a challenge I find really interesting, especially at high levels where players have pretty incredible control over the ball. There are also interesting direct-competition elements when you get into match-play, especially playing in partnerships - figuring out how aggressive you need to be to beat your opponents, or whether you can play it safe.
Why people like golf (the social activity): it's basically the perfect sport for doing business. It involves stretches of downtime while you're walking to the next shot, but they're broken up by having to take your shot so they don't stretch on forever. It can be played with people of different skill levels because of the handicap system, and if you're a bit more serious about the game, it's something you can keep working on when you'd be too old for other more-intense sports.
I think it's definitely a sport that requires first-hand (or first-and-a-half-hand, if that's what I have) knowledge to appreciate watching, though. If you do know the game, watching professional golf gives you the chance to see people at the peak of their ability with the most challenging setups possible.
If you do want to get into the game, it's probably easier and cheaper than you think - while the private-club world certainly exists (the place I caddied at is one of the most exclusive clubs in the country), my local public course will only cost you $25 per person, which isn't bad for 4 hours of entertainment.
Were you watching when this happened or this happened? These guys are good, and I love pretty much all sports. There were also 3 holes-in-one this week.
Just watched it now, it just doesn’t seem like anything to me as someone that doesn’t know anything about how difficult that is to do. Like a game winning dunk or 3 pointer with seconds on the shot clock feels like something.
A dunk or 3 pointer happens many times per game. Holing out for eagle from 197 yards away is probably like 2,000 to 1 odds.
I enjoy golf. I will watch golf if nothing else is on.
For me, I find it enjoyable/interesting to watch how much better the pros are than me. Like, I know the pros are amazing in Hockey/Football/Basketball/Baseball, but golf just lays it out in such simple terms.
On the surface, golf is a stupid simple game. Hit a ball with a stick to get in in the hole. It's not real-time. You don't have to defend against an all-star or rapidly developing play. In fact, it's really just you and your skills being bench marked. It's literally only "well can you do this one-thing in slightly different scenarios".
Golf also has two other unique things going for it:
Because the "game" is so "simple", there are metrics on everything - and those metrics are extremely meaning. In most action sports, so much is situational. "Miss that shot", "missed that catch", "that was a bad play" can all be attributed to situational elements. In golf, it's extremely clear what's a good/bad shoot.
Golf is the only sport that I've literally not improved by practicing. It's infuriating.
For me, this means watching golf is simply awe-inspiring. The pros just play at a level that is just unbelievably better than the average player and they do it in a way that's unbelievably clear. The pros hit shots 2x as far as me, while being unbelievably more accurate. They hit shots that I can only dream of attempting. When they do end up in trouble, they have some trick up their sleeves. Even when they're playing bad, they're playing miles better than I could ever play.
Golfing is like sailing or racing cars/bikes.
The thrill is in the participation, not watching on TV.
As for actual playing...
Golfing is a weird mixture of frustration with the occasional perfect shot, that keeps you coming back for more, intermingled with a pleasant days walk, following an errant ball, in some lovely scenery, with friends.
To me the "game" of golf is very compelling and lends itself to tons of interesting situations with regards to player versus course and risk versus reward, etc. However, the "sport" of golf is not...
Part of that is the barrier to entry and etiquette requirements, and part is that the sport just simply does not televise well. Tiny, impossible-to-see ball and no concept of how diffcult the shots are without having played the sport extensively yourself.
I do play disc golf pretty avidly, and I would say it solves some of the problems for someone, like me, who is interested in the "game" but not the "sport". The cost of entry is much lower, the etiquette is there but much more casual, and the watching the professional tour, while not available on network TV, is much more engaging with larger object to follow and more obvious physicality of sport.
Disc golf obviously has it's own problems as well, but that's my 2¢ on the subject.
Things brings back memories of my days behind the bar. Every year we'd hold a fundraising event for a charity in the form of a golf outing at a local club. My job was driving the beer cart. A crappy electric golf cart with a massive cooler full of ice and beer on the back and oftentimes a bikini-clad co-pilot to toss cans at thirsty golfers. Man, back then, I loved golf.
To this day I've still never swung a club.
I've played a bit of golf, I hate it. The sport itself is whatever -- if you enjoy it, sure, enjoy it. But there's not a lot going on besides a self-improvement loop. There's plenty of way cooler shit I'd rather invest my time in getting better at, thanks. What really gets me is the whole "it's nice to get outside and enjoy nature." shtick. Go for a hike you chuds, you don't need to pay several thousand dollars a year to walk around in dollar store nature.
Perhaps a little less judgment?
Sorry, it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek but I could have made that clearer. I have lots of friends who always try and convince me to golf, so my internal monologue is somewhat directed to them.
Ah, fair enough then. That's why we need progressive punctuation. The snark mark would have been perfection! :)
I joke that golf is the most problematic thing that I do. Granted I exclusively play at public courses.
I love golf because it is all you. If you make a mistake you have to fix it. If you do well you did it. To me golf is like the yoga of sports. It is so mental.
On a casual level, anyone can play golf. You don’t have to be in great shape. Also at the public level it isn’t crazy expensive.
See also: bowling. Great if you prefer inside to outside.
I have watched many sports over the years including golf, but golf is one that it really helps to play, even if only once, to appreciate. Like most sports when you watch the pro's playing, it looks pretty straightforward. When you play it yourself you realise just how much work they go through to get to that stage.
I haven't played it a lot, maybe about a dozen times, but it is a nice mix of a physical challenge (not exersion, but being in control of your body) and a social walk around.
Putting is WAY harder for normal people than the pro's make it look.
Golf is like long distance, outdoor pool.
The same kind of things that are enjoyable in pool, can be enjoyed in golf. Accuracy, bank shots using green contours instead of bumpers, etc.
For me it scratches the same itch, without being stuck in a bar or pool hall. Or at least it used to before I messed up my back. Now I play in charity scrambles a couple times a year loaded up on extra pain meds.
Still love the feeling when everything comes together and a drive or iron shot goes exactly like you wanted.
I am not a golfer, but my dad is. Everyone else has summed it up well, but I think the low physical barrier to entry and social aspects are especially worth emphasizing.
My dad used to be a top athlete in high school, but in his senior year he had a heart attack due to an undiscovered birth defect. Since then he's been restricted from most sports. Golf is one of the few he can play, and it's a good reason to hang out with his friends. They used to host a casual tournament amongst their group (they still might, no clue), and go on golfing trips sometimes.
Meanwhile, his best friend had a stroke a few years ago. He's lost a lot of his mental faculties which heavily impacts his life, but one thing he can still do that he enjoyed before? Golf. He's now loosely obsessed with it, and calls up dad about golfing pretty often. Now that it's summer and my dad is entering retirement I think they've gone golfing once a week. Our neighbor who just lost his wife a couple months ago joins them a lot too.
It's just a good way to get out of the house and get some exercise, and hang out with friends too.
(Also funnily enough, my dad just turned on golf as I was writing this.)
The only time its ever interested me is watching those 'miracle' hole in ones. Like that kid who skipped school so he could shoot in front of Tiger Woods and nails a hole in one. The crowd went nuts because it was truly an amazing experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTFqQmgthY4&ab_channel=AssociatedPress
So many sports involve two common elements: a ball and projectile motion. Somehow we humans can’t stop watching it, there’s a primal love of tracking and predicting. Golf is simply the purest form of this. You get distance and control like no other sport. If you want to strip away the snobbishness, try some golf video games!
I’ve played every major sport on the planet and all the major ones in NA at some reasonably competitive level at some point in my life. Golf is by far the most technically challenging and fitful one I have ever played. It’s also the only one you can play your entire life; you can play with people with completely different skill sets, genders, and ages; it’s one that lends itself equally well to taking very seriously or not at all serious as an amateur; it finds a home in business and in leisure, in 2020 it is significantly more accessible to all socioeconomic backgrounds than ever; and it is an outdoor activity that lasts for hours. It’s probably my favorite hobby or a close second to DMing.
As for watching it on TV or even in person? No, I don’t get that at all; it’s probably the most boring spectator sport that isn’t cars doing laps.
Kind of off topic, but this thread reminded me that /r/nongolfers exists,^1 and is a place OP would probably enjoy, being entirely about taking the piss out of golf and golfers. That kind of weird niche injoke sub is something I'm really going to miss about reddit and which Tildes really can't replace by design. The in depth conversation focus is a bit of a double edged sword.
^1 On the other hand, double checking that I had the right name reminded me that the much more cleverly named /r/ateeists doesn't exist anymore because of Reddit's crackdown on subs with inactive moderators. Something tells me that sub didn't really need heavy handed moderation and just about any community member could have been asked to step up to be the warm body they needed for the paperwork if Reddit wasn't being so overzealous with the pruning.