I just don’t understand the need for so many courses, I played golf as a kid on the same one for 10 years, the local environment allowed it to maintain itself for the most part.
IMHO sport is a misnomer. “Game” seems more fitting to me.
I actually get exhausted playing golf - but that’s because I’m BAD at it. Apparently I put too much force into my swing. Every time I’ve tried to play I get told to relax and “let the club to the work”.
So they literally have these weighted sticks to reduce the amount of frickin effort required to hit the ball.
It’s not a sport. It’s an ANTI-sport. The less you try the better you’ll be.
Can you imagine if we had an Olympic running sport to see who the slowest runner was? That’s what golf is. Get the weakest, limpest, vitamin-defficient humans and see how accurately they can hit a tiny ball into a hole.
It was invented by the Scots as a joke against the English while they all go and compete in proper sports like caber tossing and hammer throwing.
Or to keep it short, know that John Daly is one of the greats of the sport. Look up a picture of John Daly dated any time in the last 30 years, and you’ll know how hilarious that is.
And people complain that Starcraft isn’t a sport.
Where do you draw the line between sports and games? Are sports competitive where games are fun? Is poker a sport? Are video games capable of being sports? What could be done to golf that would make it a sport? Are all sports games if not all games are sports?
These are the questions that keep me up at night.
When I think of sport I think of anything where one sweats due to physical exertion.
I sweat playing rocket league and working on my car, but they’re not sports.
If you can play it while drinking a beer it isn’t a sport.
Any sport can be played while drinking a beer if you put your mind to it and believe in yourself.
Ever hear of Beer league hockey, sport?
Chess is a sport, and one can absolutely play chess drunk
No it isn’t.
I mean you can believe what you want, but you’re factually incorrect
Not saying I hold this opinion myself but I think people that say this usually draw the line to physical exertion being required.
I would piss my colleague off by telling him he’s got a nice hobby…
Good. They need to accept reality.
Oh that just made him angry, I always added that no sport has the winner of a major tournament in their mid 40s.
I mean… Tom Brady was a super bowl MVP in his 40s.
Chris Chelios won a Stanley Cup in his 40s.
But your point is well taken nonetheless.
But that’s a team sport though. If we compare that to tennis the oldest tournament winner is Rosewall in the 70s at 37 years old and more recently Federer in 2018 at 36 years old.
Definitely a fair point.
Sports that are more based on endurance than sprinting tend to have older people who do well. Mid-40s is pushing it for championship level, but you can still be competitive at that stage, and still participate well into old age if you don’t have any major health/injury issues.
I’m always interested in this take. By definition,.it’s clearly a sport.
How do you define sport and how does it not meet the definition? It’s a game of physical skill, mental concentration, and competition.
physical skill
Is this is a suggestion that golf doesn’t take physical skill?
masterbating takes more skill
I guess I can see how someone who struggles to find their tiny dick might find masturbation to be very difficult.
My dick is heavier than a golf club.
I can see how that would also make it extremely difficult.
I have always viewed it as a sport involves and active defensive player and an overall greater level of physical movement
Motorsports have no defensive player and do not involve much physical movement (unless you count the car’s movement).
Giving a cat a bath involves a defensive player (the cat) and significant physical movement (depends on the cat’s mood).
Part of the definition of a sport is that it accomplishes absolutely nothing useful at all, other than entertainment, thought about it and perhaps fitness. Bathing a cat is not a sport because it actually has a useful goal, I.e. cleaning a cat.
Fuck that, I’m starting a competitive cat bathing club.
I would say that getting healthier and fitter is absolutely useful, and so is entertainment.
But anyways, some sports can be useful for training purposes (Ever heard of the Firefighter Olympics? It’s really cool).
Also there’s also stuff like people jogging/biking to go places, and sailing maybe can also fall into this category though I don’t think it’s a thing anymore. (IIRC in the 1700s there was a sort of sport where ships would race each other across the Atlantic to deliver stuff as fast as possible. Not sure though, take with grain of salt.)
There’s still people who sail to get to a destination. It’s a bit of a rich person thing, though. Even without a motor, boats are holes in the water that you sink money into. More so if it has to be ocean-going.
Giving the cat a bath (other than the weird one I had that loved water) is classified as a blood sport.
What about non-team sports, like running, cycling, surfing, skiing, etc. maybe there’s a defensive strategy but there’s no active defensive player. Are those also not sports?
Interesting point, i know they are definitely sports so it kinda throws my point away haha
Not really. They meet your qualifier of greater amount of physical activity/movement.
Sport has connotations of fast paced physical activity.
Games like Solitaire and Golf can be done by yourself and for most people won’t be spiking your heart levels to a runners high.
You haven’t played golf with me. Better watch your balls as you have your legs open to swing.
Fishing has entered the chat.
Definitely a defensive participant and an offensive participant, but way less physical activity like 90% of the time.
Sport shooting as well.
sport fucking
Is chess a sport?
As much as assaulting fish is a sport. Much more reasonable and intellectual though
Do you move a lot during chess (yourself, not the pieces :P)?
I move my balls, but that’s a different story.
Devil’s advocate, in a dense suburban setting it keeps that land from being paved over and turned into a commercial zone. But when it is in a rural setting, absolutely.
First of all, this…
dense suburban
…is an oxymoron.
Second, in the hierarchy of urban greenspace, golf courses are only one step up from the very bottom (just above private lawns).
not all suburbia is north american ffs
So? Whether it’s North America or elsewhere, if it’s dense it’s “urban,” not “suburban.”
What if it is slightly less dense than what you call dense? Then it’s still the most dense suburban area possible. Clearly there are still varying levels of density within areas not dense enough to be urban.
Look at what people in NYC and north east NJ call suburban, then look at what someone in upstate NY calls suburban. Density is very different. Look at it as a scale. Dense Urban, Urban, light urban, dense suburban, suburban, etc. I am specifically pointing at places like in NJ where it would more likely be turned into a mall than a park.
If you want to preserve the land then make it a public park where everyone can enjoy it not just the rich jerks who can afford to pay to be there
Ideally sure, but we are dealing with capitalism. In a high populated area people will want to find a way to profit over every inch.
Many towns have public courses which are just as described.
I don’t agree. It’s not like the land being used in that urban setting is home to wildlife. It’s not filled with trees. It’s a giant lawn that gets watered every day and if you want to be there, you have to pay. I don’t see that as being an improvement to anything else in a city.
Golf courses, at least the ones I’ve been to, have tons of trees. They’re usually densely forested in the areas between holes to make a sort of barrier. And I certainly see more wildlife on a golf course than in, say, the parking lot of a strip mall.
I found a squirrel’s nest on one course with about a hundred golf balls in it. And I’ve gotten chased off my tee shot by a bull elk.
Those animals are there despite the course, not because of the course. Golf courses are not wildlife habitats.
Take a look at New York City and tell me where the animals are.
The High Line Park for one. There’s also another huge park in central Manhattan you may have heard of, but the name escapes me.
I guess this is the internet and being deliberately obtuse is just to be expected. Pretty much every golf course in a highly urban area would just be more buildings if they didn’t exist.
You mean like those two parks I mentioned? Just more buildings?
Lets replace golf courses with mini-golfs and parks!
It would be more challenging if they left the trees in place anyway.
It’s green space conservation. Always nice to see in the urban jungle.
Las Vegas has something like 70 golf courses wasting inordinate amounts of water. Of course most houses also have outside private swimming pools too.
I MUST KEEP BIGGERING I’M TINKERING ON BIGGERING AND BIGGERING IS TRIGGERING MORE BIGGERING
It sucks because it’s such a big sport here in Scotland, it’s strange that people use the defense other things are worse to make it seem like it’s not a problem. It’s mainly stupid since there are plenty of other spots that have the similar qualities, without the masses of land lost and wasted water.
I also think it’s funny just how much it costs to go golfing, some courses here in Scotland have a membership system with like silver, gold and platinum.
It feels like a very elitist way to price a sport, and no I would rather not spend a months wage per year to hit a ball down a field for a year, mini golf is much cheaper, more enjoyable and environment friendly, and I’ll be just as shit as I would be at golf.
Two golf courses nearby have closed down and are being rehabilitated by the National Park that claimed the land or however they got it. IIRC one of them was family-owned for four generations, but the last owner was in his mid-twenties and got in way over his head, and committed suicide on one of the greens.
Sucks about the circumstances, but otherwise I love to see it
Great places to pitch tents.
It’s a sport?
I mean… E-sports exists so I guess the word “sport” doesnt actually mean physical exercise, just competitive elements, apparently
Esports is considered an activity rather than a sport according to my states school system. What is the difference between a sport and an activity? I couldn’t find their definitions lol.
I like to think of golf, bowling, and esports as competitive pastimes.
And we out here just lost in the mix. lol
I would say activity is a huge encapsulating word that all sports, games, clubs, etc fall under.
Sport to me is an intensive competitive activity.
I would like to also say team based, but wrestling, track, and swimming would be absent from such a definition. Similarly, if you were to say outdoors most winter sports would be excluded.
With my definition you could argue for games like Chess to be intensive and competitive. I’m unsure. I think it changes depending on the level of play. At the end of the day, the only people who really care about exact definitions are those in administration deciding what activity gets what.
I think your definition is great, wrestling is sort of team based and you still have an active opponent
I mean, you technically move your body when you’re hitting the ball and then when you walk to the golf cart.
I do that when I go to the kitchen to eat something. I move my body and walk to the kitchen
- You have a goal (find something to eat)
- You are moving your body
- If you have to cook anything, that’s using a skill
By definition, that’s a sport. :D
Hey, it takes skill to scoop ice cream. That’s why you have to do it for kids. Getting ice cream from your freezer is a sport.
Is your kitchen outdoors and carpeted in lush green grass? Do you have a lawn mower come through your kitchen every two days? Do you have sprinklers that douse your kitchen lawn at 5 o’clock every morning?
It might be. You don’t know that.
Christ, this acktually again 🤦♀️
Honestly, I never thought of it as a sport. That was actually a genuine question 😂
A good walk spoiled and they won’t even let you walk on a number of courses. Have to use the little electric cars.
I thought cricket was the most boring sport in existence.
I know this thread is a bit old, but I used to be an irrigation tech at a 27 hole golf course. Just wanted to throw some numbers out there for anyone interested. This was in a hot climate for reference. During the wet season, we would pump out anywhere from 200,000 gallons to 600,000 of water per night. During the summer or droughts, we would pump 750,000-1,500,000 gallons of water PER NIGHT. During the day, especially during droughts, I had to go around spot watering everything all day. I could easily pump 150,000 gallons during the day on top of what we pumped at night. During a hot week with no rain, our average was around 10.5 million gallons of water. Our course used “reclaimed water” but the majority of the water was supplemented by the city supply. We only got the reclaim license because of some favors and shady deals to lower our taxes.
