Golf is Not a Sport
June 1, 2004
by Craig Curtice

The moment Phil Mickelson won his first major and leapt a full inch off the 18th green in giddy wide-eyed glee, I realized that golf just isn’t a sport, but merely a hoity-toity game that’s no better than it’s cheap cousin, bowling. I’ve played golf several times and it hardly compares to the physical experience of running road races, or playing baseball, volleyball, football, and hell, even whiffleball. Was Mickelson’s win really all that much more impressive than my whiffleball one-hitter I threw a couple summers ago in Cooperstown? If it weren’t for an interfering tree branch, I would have pitched a perfect game. After the victory I leapt several inches off the ground.

Now before I upset golf fans, let me say that Phil Mickelson is a nice family guy with golf skills, but he’s hardly an athlete; I’m sure that he’d get smoked by his caddie in a footrace to the parking lot. Another serious argument: Can golf really be a sport if 14-year-old girls are beating grown men in professional tournaments? There will never be any 14-year-old girls quarterbacking an NFL team, hitting 400 ft home runs, or dunking on Shaq. You know, pro golfers don’t actually retire either, they simply move on to the senior circuit.

Over the last twenty-five years, professional golf has been quietly sneaking up in a perceived importance, and it now rubs elbows with sports big four – football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. Golfers are hardly awe-inspiring athletes and the game’s snooty tradition seemed tolerable when guys like Arnold Palmer hawked Pennzoil, but now large corporations funnel billions of dollars into golf.

But here’s why golf isn’t a sport – anyone of any age or skill level can participate, and at no time during play are its participants ever out of breath. Unless you’re having a heart attack, there’s no reason golfers should be breathing hard. After completing a routine putt, how many gasp for air and plop down on one knee so their caddy can squirt water in their mouth? There’s no shot clock, it’s completely weather sensitive, can’t be played indoors, and there’s no talking (except for gallery poindexters yelling the idiotic “in the hole!”). Hate to sound like a straight guy metrosexual, but golf’s fashion sense sucks too – plaid pants and green jackets aren’t even thrift store chic anymore.

It doesn’t help golf’s case when its terminology is prissy and somewhat masturbatory with words like stroke, putt, birdie, and bogey. Less than impressive still is that pro golfers aren’t required to carry their own bag of clubs, and that recreational golfers use motorized carts equipped with coolers to keep the beer, err, soft drinks cold. Cheating like a fish finders on boats, some carts now have GPS mapping systems to tell you exactly how far it is to the hole, and how to locate the clubhouse after hours of drinking in the sun. Does this sound like a sport to you?

Since the majority of my golf knowledge is derived from Caddyshack (golf’s Spinal Tap), I’d like to point out that the activity has few real dangers to justify pro players receiving multi-million dollar checks. I suppose getting hit in nuts with an errant ball or struck by a putter thrown in disgust are risks, but when was the last time a pro golfer has been seriously injured or even paralyzed while playing?

So no, golf is not a sport, it’s just a skilled activity like horseshoes, Bocce ball, shuffleboard, and Lawn Jarts – the only exception is that big corporations don’t fund those games. And speaking of Lawn Jarts (the suburban monkey paw of summers past) they can still be found haunting garage sales by families who have learned the dangers of heaving flying steel spikes through backyard airspaces.

(Craig Curtice is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine who to this day maintains that he had nothing to do with the lawn jart that smashed the windshield of Mr. Hopkins’ Impala.)