I know it’s hard to believe, but there are people in this world who simply hate the game of golf. Conceding that these folks are basically scoundrels, they still have a right to be haters.
And while those of us who read this blog simply adore the game, the haters have their reasons for considering golf a waste of good time, money and real estate.
So what are these reasons? I’m sure there are more, but I basically boiled-it-down to five big issues…Let’s examine them:
Golf is Too Boring
Sure, you and I know that golf is about physically and mentally coming together to pull-off the perfect shot every time you hit the ball, but to non-golfers, it’s a downright snore. Have you ever watched golf on TV? You have to admit, the commentators don’t make it very exciting. And then the crowd (unless the shot is pretty awesome) is fairly subdued. Television aside, people that don’t understand the game don’t appreciate laying up on a par 5 or hitting a good lag on a long putt – it’s all just rather ho-hum to them. These are the same people who also relate to the second one on this list…
Golf is Too Stupid
“Why would you want to chase a little white ball around for hours and hours?” How many times have you heard that one from a non-golfing friend or family member? To these folks, golf is just plain stupid. It boggles their mind on how you will actually pay to play this game. You can explain all the things you love about golf but it will probably fall upon deaf ears – let them think what they wish.
Golf is Too Slow
OK, we golf lovers may actually agree with this one. But we’re upset over something taking five hours that should only take four. For non-golfers, three hours would be too long. Look, the reality is, when you don’t necessarily like something, you want it to be over as soon as possible. But could it be too painful for these people rather than too slow? See below…
Golf is Too Hard
Do you have that friend who has to be great at everything he or she does? It’s the best to get these people out on the golf course and watch them shank and slice their way back to the clubhouse for the first and last time. “How do you play this game?” they’ll ask as they proclaim you’d have to be crazy to fork over hard-earned cash without ever having a chance to go pro. Yes my non-golfing friends, golf is hard. But that’s what’s so fun about it! One man’s torture is another’s comfort.
Golf is Too Expensive
This has a ring of truth to it. When you compare the costs of playing golf with playing, say, any other recreation sport, golf will (over the course of the season) cost you more. This can mostly be attributed to greens fees, which all recreational golfers must fork-over before teeing off. And this is probably why golf has been (and continues to be) called a “rich man’s” game. But I don’t think that label is necessarily fair. For example, I’m by no means “rich” yet I can still afford to play once a week (granted I’m not playing Pebble Beach every week). But hey, when you have a passion for something, you figure out how to work it into your life. Perhaps golf is expensive, but too expensive? Not if you love it.
So to all you golf haters that may stumble across this post…remember: Before you tell that golfer in your life his or her favorite sport is boring, slow and stupid – consider this joke: Two guys are walking down the first fairway at the local club and one man says to the other; “My wife told me if I don’t quit golfing, she’s gonna divorce me…God I’m going to miss her.”
All sports are pointless, some are more fun to watch than others, others are more expensive and any sport worth pursuing is going to be difficult. I think golf comes in for special abuse for one particular reason: the task of lugging around all this equipment. Use a caddy and you look like somebody who has to bring along the hired help when he wants to recreate. Use a cart and it becomes debatable how athletic the whole enterprise has become. The fourteen clubs and extra balls and associated stuff is literally a burden for the game’s image.
It’s not the game people hate. It’s the golfists. You’re all tossers!
I’ve played golf for 29 years, and now I’m done with it. I only agree that it’s too expensive now. I do think it’s a great game, but Americans are killing it with 5-6 + hour rounds, carts only rules, cheating, sandbagging handicaps, and the cost is immense. I was a 6 handicap and I’m just going to walk away from it and never play again. I’ve just got more important things to do than waste thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours a year playing a game. The 1% can have this all to themselves as far as I’m concerned because they deserve the burden of trying to play the ridiculous game that golf has evolved into in modern day America.
Why do I dislike Golf?
Could it be the misogyny that exists in so many clubs?
Could it be the elitism that makes freemasonry look open?
Could it be the fact there are so many participants who play, get pissed in the bar and then drive home?
Could it be the stupid “fashions” they were, I mean Pringle Sweaters?
In the same vein, John Daly. Those pants!!!!!
Could it be the fact that setting up a course destroys acres of open countryside, displaces wildlife and blocks access for the majority for the entertainment of a set of tossers displaying the above traits?
Your reasons for disliking it are pretty fatuous in comparison to the reality of what golfers are.
Have you ever even been a member of a club? My guess is that you have not been. I have been a member of numerous clubs over the years and there are just as many ladies who play as men. In fact the club I am currently a member of has an association which only ladies are allowed to join and they play weekly and monthly tournaments there are so many of them.
Again what are you talking about with the elitism? You are talking about what people in the media have told you to believe. There are clubs which are for the elites of the elites but like all things it exists on a spectrum and these are an outlier. For every Augusta National or Pine Valley there are 100 other private clubs like mine where I paid 500 bucks to join and another 100 public daily fee courses.
I am a woman and have belonged to one of those other clubs. More than one in fact over the past 20 years. Yes the misogyny is real. It is precisely why clubs need their own Ladies League within the club. The ladies organization provides a way for the women to circumvent the numerous men in the same club who simply do not want them there.The elitism is also very real and very prevalent. It is so bad that most of them don’t even know they are promoting it. It is often a “Let them eat cake” attitude. Or worse, when it is laughed off like a joke’s on them kind of attitude. And the prevalence of drinking till you can’t walk straight then driving yourself home is so commonplace and accepted that it isn’t even considered a problem unless you get caught.
The statement that there are just as many lady golfers as men? No. Just no. In no world is that true. I am a lady golfer, I deal with all of the above routinely. It is possible to still play the sport and avoid being a pretentious, self centered jerk. Also, there may be women golfers but we are absolutely outnumbered by the men. But I can say with all honesty it is extremely difficult and I’m not entirely sure it is worth it. It can be a fun, social sport and you can even feel like you’ve gotten some exercise if you walk, but it is definitely also full of many people you wouldn’t like at all if they didn’t golf with you 😉
When you break it down in terms of inert/kinetic, it’s really fucking amazing that it’s considered a sport at all. It’s 99% standing there/walking from point a to b. Hence- stupid.
Stupid,Stupid,and more STUPID I absolutely agree.
I was wondering what people who thinks sports are stupid do for fun?You could say all video games are stupid because you are just hitting buttons,Or fishing is stupid because your just casting a rod? It would seem like all activities are stupid with that attitude
most weekend hackers play this stupid game because of and ONLY because of the 19th hole.So all they really want to do is drink and maybe take advantage of some free sex.POINTLESS!!!!!
Andy Griffin once said “Why someone would want to chase a little white ball around a cow pasture makes no sense to me”. WITH THAS I AGREE COMPLETELY.
The tossers that play golf just for the beer is idiotic in its own right. Why would anyone pay around $50 US Dollars just to play something for 5 hours just to drink beer? How does that make any economical sense. There is NO OTHER sport in the world where the FIRST thing you do before playing is drink FIVE BLEEPING BEERS. People dont do that before football, baseball or basketball games. I can understand more pub games like darts, billiards or bowling where what you do has ZERO effect on others, but by sucking at a hobby and drinking while playing effects EVERYONE around them.
I hate golfers but like playing golf. Golf is also not a sport. not a sport if your “uniform” can double as job interview clothes
Ive been playing this game for 6 years, and i just recently realized how truly stupid this game truly is. Everyone complicates the game, thats why its interesting. You hit a ball with a stick toward a hole in the fewest hits. Simple stuff. Swing plane, shoulder turn, and general swing technique just makes a stupidly simple and boring game into something challenging.
Just my opinion lol.
Golf is the lamest “sport” on the planet and those who love it and play it are a waste of skin. I used to love playing golf until that one fine summer in high school when I worked at a country club to be nearer to the sport. Golf wouldn’t be such a terrible sport were it not for the kind of people who so often play it. Golfers are the most smug, rude, disrespectful, and condescending group of people you will find anywhere. Whether rich are simply middle-class, golfers are either elitists or “aspiring” elitists who fancy themselves just a cut above the common man and they don’t hesitate to display this attitude. In golf, it’s all about your gear and your clothes. The country club is a place where pricks go to display how much money they can afford to waste on a mere game. They show up wearing $500 worth of ridiculous clothes, carrying a $2500 bag filled with $3500 (or more) worth of clubs. Then they hop in their $4000 (or more) golf cart and lazily chase a ball around for the next few hours while drinking beer and sharing pretentious gossip with everyone they cross paths with along the way.
The people who are the lamest of the lame are the people of average means and income who spend every last penny they have trying to fit in and rub shoulders with the club elites.
Well stated! To me, golf is essentially an extension of high school where the alleged “cool guys” go as they eternally attempt to impress one another, brown-nose, and desperately seek the approval of others with similarly fragile egos. I would much rather go for a nice hike by myself in the mountains, etc. which for me is a much better use of my finite life energy.
Its okay not to like something, but bashing on it and people who enjoy playing this sport is very stupid.
Well other than just saying the author had a hidden agenda, I have to say that golf has become not only too expensive but it’s generated controls that make the game ‘not so much fun any longer’.
Why can’t I go out and walk 9?
Why can’t I go out and walk 18?
IF it were like it was in teh 60’s-80’s you could pull up to almost any golf course and pay your $15/$20 and walk 18 holes.
No more. They want that additional $12 to $15 per player in cart fees. WTF?
And if you bring your own cart, they want $10 from you to ride in your own cart? WTFFFFFFFFFK?
This game grew what I call fictitiously. Tiger brought a lot of attention to golf but not a lot of real golfers. Just a lot of wannabees. That does not create a permanent stir in any sport.
The average round of golf is still 97-100 if one plays by the rules and keep an accurate score.
This game over the past 70 years is still teaching the same old same old grip/stance/swing. The PGA didn’t even have a unified method of teaching golf until 25 to 30 years ago. Now they all try to teach the same things to everyone without understanding that even the pros have different swings. How is this common sense?
The game became ‘ a corporate entity ‘ driven by money not the sport as it began in Scotland. Up until the 70’s or 80’s it was truly a game that everyone enjoyed playing or watching.
Nobody really likes golf. Everybody pretends because they think others like golf. It’s like going to a strip club. It’s never as good as what you imagine. Why do people waste money to go on a walk? I think golf courses should pay full price for the water they use then see how many people “like” golf.
https://www.greenbiz.com/news/2011/03/11/even-green-golf-courses-waste-water
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/science-environment/how-your-water-rates-subsidize-golf-courses/
It isn’t the activity itself that’s makes golf the most appalling “sport” on the planet (although hitting a little ball around using sticks while wearing fancy dress that looks like it came from goodwill is pretty ridiculous) No, the main problem,
Is the elitist couture of the game. The whole golf & country club mentality with it’s army of little hitlers enforcing the rules and strict policy of keeping the plebs out. Virmin.
Putt Putt is the only kind of Golf that is at least fun. I grew up next to a course and took lessons for years… it is boring and a waste of time, sorry.. but can’t stand it when people in business act like it’s a good thing.
I 100% agree.