GolfStinks

A Golf Blog for the Rest of Us!

Are Kids Sports Becoming Too Demanding?

| By | 3 Comments

It’s Saturday morning. I’m up early, I’m showered, I got my stuff together and I’m ready to go. I jump into my car and I’m off. Am I headed out for a round of 18? Nope…not even a round of 9. Instead, I’m headed to my kids soccer games.

That’s right…another season, another sport. In the winter, it’s basketball. For the spring and summer, it’s baseball. Now the fall comes…and it’s soccer.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that my kids want to participate in sports! It’s much better than them sitting around the house everyday playing video games or doing nothing at all. But I wonder to myself if some of these little league sports are going too far. Now I don’t wonder if the kids are going to far. They want to do different things and play different sports, which is great! What I wonder (and worry) about are the sports themselves. Specifically the schedules.

Last year I wondered whether I should get my kids involved in golf due to the opportunity for a college scholarship. But now I’m not so sure. I mean, maybe they can wait until high school before they start playing anything else competitively.

Did you play little league sports? I did. Baseball and basketball. When I got to high school I traded those in for football and track. But it wasn’t until high school that I remember my sports schedule ever being what it is for my kids! When I played little league baseball, I remember playing games on Saturdays and having, maybe, a practice a week…if that. Basketball was the same…a game on Saturday mornings with practice one night per week. But these days? These kids should be getting paid for the amount of time required to participate in these sports. Or maybe the parents should anyway.

The schedule can be bad enough with just one kid, but two or more? Insane. I’ll show you what I mean:

Lets start with basketball. Once again, when I played it was one game on Saturday mornings and practice one night a week. This stays pretty much the same, but with two kids. Therefore, we have practices two nights a week in two different locations and games are again every Saturday. However, the first game can fall anywhere between 8:30-11:30 am, while game two can fall anywhere between 1:30 and 4:30 pm. And of course, the times change every week.

Let’s move on to baseball. Luckily for my wife and I, this is not so bad because our boys played on the same team. But they won’t next year. So we have to enjoy the games on Sunday mornings or afternoons and practices at one location two days per week. Next year, who knows? Practices as much as four days a week and games on Saturdays and Sundays?

That brings me to soccer. Practices are every Monday and Wednesday originally scheduled “from 5:30 until it’s dark.” This has since been revised to end at 7:00. But games are every Saturday AND Sunday! Really? Is it really necessary to play games on Saturdays and Sundays? See, this is why Americans don’t like soccer. Right from the start, it’s just a pain in the rear. Well, that’s not really true. Americans don’t like soccer because it’s boring.

But far and away the worst was, of course, my favorite sport…football. For the entire month of August, practice is every night Monday-Friday. Every night. Once the school year starts, it’s down to three nights per week with games every Saturday morning. What’s worse is, while in all of the other sports the competition is entirely in town, the football games are played against other rival towns. This at times requires travelling up to an hour away to play the game.

Now, I have no idea what a golf schedule for kids is like. I never looked into it. I didn’t play myself when I was a kid. I didn’t even play in high school. But if it’s anything like these other sports, I’m not sure how we would be able to handle it!

But, it’s a fun sport. It’s a safe sport. And it’s a sport you can play for pretty much the rest of your life. So if adding this to the list of sports the kids choose to play is necessary, then my wife and I will do what good parents are supposed to do. We’ll suck it up for the kids and find a way to make it happen. But I gotta tell ya, these little league sports are getting a little bit out of control…

Swing ’til you’re happy…if you can find the time!

Are all Golf Courses Basically the Same?

| By | Leave a Comment

To all you non-golfers; It may appear on TV that all golf courses are the same. And, believe it or not, I once thought that too…at least for a period of time.

As some of you may know, I’ve played many, many different golf courses in my 20+ years on the links (including my quest to play all the public 18-holers in my state). But after you play so many, they tend to mesh together in your mind like a hodgepodge of flag sticks, sand traps, ponds and grass.

When you’re new to the game of golf, typically you frequent one course that you feel comfortable on. And that level of comfort pretty much keeps you loyal until the day a golfing buddy invites you to play somewhere else. Going to that “new” course can be exciting and it will seem like everything is different – the scenery, the layout, all of it.

And in reality, it was all different. But then you play a another course and another and before you know it, they all start to look similar. Well, after playing at all these different places, I developed a problem:

If a person mentioned a particular course to me, I would quickly tell them, “Oh, I’ve played there and it was decent.” When they’d follow-up with, “What did you like about it?” I would hesitate. I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember any details of said course! I would try to remember – I’d think of a particular par 3 with a pond and 30 par 3’s with ponds rushed into my mind.

So what did I do? Were all those courses I experienced – that I spent my hard-earned money on – lost somewhere in that vast (and mostly empty) noggin of mine? I prayed not. The solution? I began writing reviews for each course – complete with my own rating system – which seemed to jog the old memory!

Much of that system is still intact and can be found on golfstinks.com – except now I’ve gotten your input too. If you took the survey (see the results HERE), you had a say in how the rating system should work. I know there are more of you out there – golfers that love playing at different courses. Well, you’ll never have to forget the details again – just rate and post a review for any of the thousands of courses in our database.

But, shameless plug aside, I think I’ve come full-circle. When I first started golfing, every course I played was unique. Then, eventually, one track bled into another. And now, I’ve learned to take notice, appreciate and file-away the idiosyncrasies of each place I visit.

I once penned an entire post on why golf is unique compared to the other sports – and one of the biggest reasons is no two courses are exactly alike. Think about that for a second. Football fields (both American and European) conform to exact specifications; baseball diamonds and hockey rinks do too. But not golf – every single course is unique to itself.

Of course, I knew this all along. But it sure is fun remembering it all over again! So don’t just play golf…experience it. Travel, discover and enjoy – even if it’s just to the course in the next county over.

Get Some Wings & Beer, The Final Round Is On!

| By | 1 Comment

Why don’t more folks gather for wings and beer while watching golf? (Photo via Pixabay)

It’s Sunday afternoon and Stinky Golfer Tom and I have just finished watching the Giants blow a huge lead and lose. To that I say…YAY!!!! Tom, a typical fair-weather Giants fan, does not agree with my sentiments.

But as we’re watching the games, I start to realize it’s almost every Sunday that either I have a buddy or two over to watch the football games, or I’m invited somewhere to watch them. Sunday afternoons watching the games by myself are few and far between.

But it’s not like this for other sports. I’ll get together with some friends to watch basketball once in a while. Some of the bigger rivalry baseball games will also call for the occasional gathering. But do you know what sport my buddies and I have never gathered for? Yup, you guessed it…golf. Not the Masters. Not any of the Opens. Not the Championship. Nothing. Why? Well, for me anyway, the answer is simple…because it’s boring!

For non-golfers, it’s easy to say the sport itself is boring and that’s why they don’t play. But we golfers know differently. Once we’re out there on the course, it’s far from boring. But that doesn’t mean it’s not boring on TV. I’m sorry, but it is. Golf as a spectator sport just doesn’t satisfy my appetite for competition. Watching golf live is not bad, but on TV? It’s like gathering your friends around the backyard to watch the grass grow. But what I haven’t quite figured out is, why is it like that?

I enjoy the sport. I participate in the sport. We’re watching the best of the best on the pro tour. So why do I have no interest? Why don’t I call up the guys and say “Where are we watching the final round on Sunday?” I try to think of reasons, but I haven’t come up with many:

Firstly, there’s the commentary. It’s dull. It’s too quiet and reserved. It’s….well…boring! Now I’m not saying I want early 80’s John Madden style commentary. That’s certainly not necessary for golf. But it couldn’t hurt to spice it up a bit. Change up the tone on a great shot. I don’t want to hear words like “useful” and stuff like that. That’s just become more of a joke now. If you want to draw in a younger audience (and lets face it, the current core audience isn’t getting any younger) then you have to make the sport more exciting to watch. Livening up the commentary couldn’t hurt.

Second, and we’ve touched on this before, who the hell are these guys that we’re watching? Most of the players in these tournaments are unknowns to the casual golf fan. If I don’t have a vested interest in the players or a reason to follow them, then why would I care to watch? I’d much rather just go out and play myself!

But that’s about all I can come up with. I don’t get excited to watch a golf tournament on television, whether Tiger is playing or not. At most, I check in just to see what’s going on and who’s leading. I’ll stick around for a few shots, but not much more. Apparently, my golfing buddies all feel the same.

So if I’m a participant in the sport, and my buddies are also, but collectively we just don’t care all that much about watching it, the PGA may have a potential problem on their hands in the future. Because if that’s the situation for me and my buddies, I’m sure there are all too many more like us out there.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

A Real "Grip It and Rip It"

| By | 1 Comment

I’m a huge football fan. By far my favorite sport. The NFL especially. I can give or take college football. Between too many mismatches, way too many meaningless bowl games, no playoff system in FBS, the whole BCS system, the pansy overtime rules…there’s just so much to dislike. But hey, it’s still football, so that makes it OK.

But on Sunday afternoons, I don’t want to know anything from anyone. I want to plant my ass on the couch for the next ten hours and not be disturbed. Don’t call my phone because I won’t answer. Don’t send me an email because I’m not checking it. And for heaven’s sake, between the months of September and early February, if you want me to show up to your birthday parties, kids birthday parties, social gatherings and various other events, plan to have them on Saturdays. If that’s not possible, then you’d better plan on having a TV somewhere in the general vicinity. Otherwise, you’ll get my card and/or gift either in the mail or the next time I see you.

I like football. But something strange happened just a few recent weeks ago. I was in the midst of my usual Sunday afternoon routine when, for some still unknown reason (maybe I was stuck watching the Jets), I changed the channel and found myself strangely drawn to what I had stumbled upon. At first I tried to resist and return to football, but every time a commercial was on, I went right back to my new found attraction.

What was it you ask? What was it that could possibly pull me away from my beloved NFL? It was an exhibition. An exhibition of accuracy, power and skill. It was the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship and quite simply, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. They say “Chicks dig the long ball.” Well guess what…so do I. And so do most other golfers and golf fans. Think about when you’re on the course with your buddies. When someone sinks a nice putt or makes a great chip…that’s all that’s said – “Nice putt man” or “great up-and-down” – that’s it. But when a member of your foursome rips into a drive that sails about 320 down the pipe…now there’s a reaction from the other guys in the area! We all know it’s only part of the game, but people love to see it. It’s like the home run in baseball. Sometimes it may be completely meaningless…but people still love to oooh and aaah when it happens.

This gets me thinking; Why is the PGA not capitalizing on the potential popularity of this by creating their own exhibition? Think about it. MLB has the immensely popular Home Run Derby. The NBA has two popular exhibitions with the slam-dunk contest and the three-point shootout. These leagues have figured out this is what fans love to see. So they give it to them! Why not have some of the long drivers on the PGA tour take on some of the guys from the LDA on the Wednesday before one (or more) of the majors? Not only could they possibly gain some TV time, but they could sure make some extra money at the gate with an extra day for the fans to get in!

Wouldn’t you like to see John Daly grab hold of one of those custom 50″ drivers and just tear into one? Wouldn’t it be great to see him go up against five-time long drive champ Jason Zuback who is more than capable of 400+ yard drives on an almost regular basis?! Now that’s a show! Another benefit for the PGA would be to get fans more familiar with some of the golfers most of us have never heard of.

Anyone know who Robert Garrigus is? No? That’s because he was #127 on the money list. But he led the tour in driving distance at 312 yards. How about Charley Hoffman? He was #41 on the money list, certainly off the radar for many fans. But did you know he hit a 467-yard drive at the Valero Open in 2009? That’s right, I just said 4-6-7! Dustin Johnson was 15th on the money list, so he’s more recognizable. But did you know he hit five drives last year over 400 yards? Take any one of these three guys, put a custom long-drive club in their hands, and you have a damn good show!

I feel, especially with the #1 golfer temporarily out of the picture, now is the time to experiment with some things that may help to draw the fans that will undoubtedly be missing from some of the tournaments. Hey if the Home Run Derby can go from a tape-delayed exhibition in the mid-80’s (inspired by a TV series which ran for a few months in 1960) to what it is today, then why can’t the PGA do the same? For crying out loud, take your noses out of the air, stop taking the sport so serious and give the fans something to watch simply because it’s fun. The fans will thank you for it.

For more information on the Long Drivers of America and the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship, check out http://www.longdrivers.com/.

Questions / Advertise

info@golfstinks.com

Disclaimers

See here

Privacy Policy

See here