I miss golf

[ChemEngineer]

I MISS GOLF

​

I had another dream last night that I was playing golf once again, as I did for years.

In my early youth, fishing was the most wonderful pastime I could do or even imagine. Some years later, I took up rabbit hunting with a powerful 12 gauge shotgun and my almost brother, Alan Rude. More exciting and more dangerous than fishing. Moving to California, I fished again with virtually no success and then became a certified scuba diver, where I killed fish with spears, grabbed lobster, and pried abalone and scallops off reefs from 15 feet to 100 feet underwater. Heady stuff.


Then water skiing, snow skiing, riding powerful dirt bikes across the desert and up steep hills, getting a pilot’s license and taking my family over Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion National Parks, and on to Las Vegas.


Along the way there were marathons, triathlons, long range fishing trips up to ten days on the ocean hundreds of miles out to sea. Lots of tennis and racquetball. Golf, I always thought, was for sissies and old men. Finally, I thought to give it a try, to play golf with my beloved wife. She always liked miniature golf and her dad played it before we were born. I took him out to the links many times and he loved it. A few years of golf, and I shot a few 88’s. Bogey golf is good golf.


Now that I’ve sold my clubs, I sure do miss the $50 to $150 green fees, for four hours of frustration and two good shots. It’s too expensive. It’s too time consuming. It provides too little exercise, and seems impossible to improve your game. Lugging a bag of golf clubs is very different than lugging a tennis racket and a dozen tennis balls. I still play tennis now, five days a week. The other two days I play racquetball, smacking the ball against the wall as hard as I possibly can.


I was right. Golf is for sissies and old men…. who can’t play tennis.

 

[Oddball]

I used to caddy for "old men and sissies" who could shoot their age.

 

[Moonglow]

I stopped playing when my first kid found my bag and bent the clubs that were thirty years ago..

 

[DGS49]

I'm an old man who can't play tennis anymore. Fact is, I COULD play, but every three or four times out I would injure or re-injure something and have to take (at least) a month off, and it just wasn't worth it. I get plenty of exercise on my bikes and walking and at the gym.

You have to be damn old to be too old to play golf. I golf with men in their eighties.

Once you are retired, the greens fees and the time are no longer an issue, although I remain a cheap bastard, so I don't play anywhere that the fees are more than $50 (except occasionally on vacation).

The problem with golf, if you try to learn it as an adult, is muscle memory. Thing is, after age 16 you cannot acquire muscle memory, no matter how hard you try. It is just not possible. So with golf you have to have developed a sound, repeatable swing before age 16, or you will never have one.

If you HAVE muscle memory then you can think about where you want the ball to go when you are hitting it. How do I shape the shot and things like that. If you LACK muscle memory, you are thinking about your swing while you are swinging the club, and if that is the case you are lost. The best you will ever be is a "bogey" golfer. And that that point, as hinted above, what you remember from a round of golf is the couple of excellent shots that you happened to hit during that round. But that is good enough.

As Dr. B.F. Skinner found out, intermittent reinforcement is one of the most powerful drivers of behavior in the animal kingdom. When you are reinforced OCCASIONALLY, you will keep coming back. And that is the thing with golf.

 

[Oddball]

The problem with golf, if you try to learn it as an adult, is muscle memory. Thing is, after age 16 you cannot acquire muscle memory, no matter how hard you try. It is just not possible. So with golf you have to have developed a sound, repeatable swing before age 16, or you will never have one.

Nonsense.

"Muscle memory" is nothing more than a description of what's known as "over-learned skills"....That is the realm of the mind, not the muscles.

90% of golf is played between the ears.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Last time I played golf I paired up with a circuit court judge and we got piss drunk.

Think we only paid twilight rates, though.

 

[MarathonMike]

I used to caddy for "old men and sissies" who could shoot their age.

Yep, My Grandfather shot two under par 70 at age 72.

 

[Mr Natural]

Golf is a nice walk ruined by a stupid game.

 

[MarathonMike]

Golf is a nice walk ruined by a stupid game.

Golf is a great game, it's just really difficult to play well.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

I MISS GOLF

​

I had another dream last night that I was playing golf once again, as I did for years.

In my early youth, fishing was the most wonderful pastime I could do or even imagine. Some years later, I took up rabbit hunting with a powerful 12 gauge shotgun and my almost brother, Alan Rude. More exciting and more dangerous than fishing. Moving to California, I fished again with virtually no success and then became a certified scuba diver, where I killed fish with spears, grabbed lobster, and pried abalone and scallops off reefs from 15 feet to 100 feet underwater. Heady stuff.


Then water skiing, snow skiing, riding powerful dirt bikes across the desert and up steep hills, getting a pilot’s license and taking my family over Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion National Parks, and on to Las Vegas.


Along the way there were marathons, triathlons, long range fishing trips up to ten days on the ocean hundreds of miles out to sea. Lots of tennis and racquetball. Golf, I always thought, was for sissies and old men. Finally, I thought to give it a try, to play golf with my beloved wife. She always liked miniature golf and her dad played it before we were born. I took him out to the links many times and he loved it. A few years of golf, and I shot a few 88’s. Bogey golf is good golf.


Now that I’ve sold my clubs, I sure do miss the $50 to $150 green fees, for four hours of frustration and two good shots. It’s too expensive. It’s too time consuming. It provides too little exercise, and seems impossible to improve your game. Lugging a bag of golf clubs is very different than lugging a tennis racket and a dozen tennis balls. I still play tennis now, five days a week. The other two days I play racquetball, smacking the ball against the wall as hard as I possibly can.


I was right. Golf is for sissies and old men…. who can’t play tennis.

Getting older sucks.

Golf and baseball "hurt"
Strip bars are a tease at this age.
Fishing hurts my hip....hell everything hurts my hip.
Pick up youtube and Instagram.

Honestly I do enjoy a lot of the interactions on both platforms. Outside of that GARDENING AND LANDSCAPE work are my goto's if I'm not at work

 

[MarathonMike]

Getting older sucks.

Golf and baseball "hurt"
Strip bars are a tease at this age.
Fishing hurts my hip....hell everything hurts my hip.
Pick up youtube and Instagram.

Honestly I do enjoy a lot of the interactions on both platforms. Outside of that GARDENING AND LANDSCAPE work are my goto's if I'm not at work

Hey don't ignore your hip. I'd recommend getting a high definition x-ray done. It really helped me to find out that I had arthritis starting in my hip and what I can do to improve it.

 

[ChemEngineer]

Golf does have good jokes and nice shirts, not to mention courtesy you don't find in football stadiums. It's a gentleman's game, unlike soccer.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

Now that I’ve sold my clubs, I sure do miss the $50 to $150 green fees, for four hours of frustration and two good shots. It’s too expensive. It’s too time consuming. It provides too little exercise, and seems impossible to improve your game.

I pay 13 bucks for 9 holes, have my own pull cart for my clubs and get in just about 3 miles each time I play on my "home" course. I can walk 9 holes in under 2 hours.

When I want something a bit more challenging I play one of the local 18 hole courses and have never paid more than 36 for a round with a cart since many will not let you walk these days. I

When I started back playing about 8 years ago I was shooting in the low 100s, now I am in the upper 80s.

 

[Brick Gold]

Pumping iron is far less common in hetero-sexual men, and when you go to a public gym, if you are hetero-sexual, you will be in the dangerously smaller minority. Healthy men are fit and not bulging. No need to see my muscles through my clothing and no need for them to be comically cartoonishly huge.

Women want to get noticed in public, men do not. They are born for the street and always seek the lowest point.