I’ve been seeing a trend lately of significant others, and single women ages 18-30 who can’t seem to understand, “Why, golf?” Many asking more specifically, what is with the obsession of golf that has “all of the sudden” overcame any and every college aged guy who has ever picked up a club.
Now, anyone who has ever tried golf before understands how frustrating the game can be. The feeling where you run out of profanities and want to throw your clubs in the drink, we all know it. The days you’ll “never pick up a club again”, until the next morning. It’s not the 96 bad strokes we made on our way to a 105 on the card that keeps us coming back, or the 7 strokes that you got away with topping a wedge from 40 yards and ending up on the green. We come back for the one perfect shot that we hit the entire day, but the one that we expect to hit every time we address the ball. It goes so much deeper though.
For how many more years are we going to be able to play 2-4 rounds per week? The ‘summers’ only last so long as you get older, no more 3 months of guaranteed time off. I reminisce on the last three summers that I spent at home where there were few days I wasn’t able to link up with some of my best friends on or off the course. Start off the day with a 3:00 pm tee time, after a long night before, and pick up right where you left as you revive yourself with a breakfast ball and another white claw. No better way to spend a summer night than blaring music, while swerving around the fairways, and hacking your ball closer to the hole with a group of your best friends.
As we continue growing, as much as it sucks, it’s something that has to happen at some point. It is only a matter of time before we will all be working full time jobs and 4 rounds a week becomes 3. Eventually we’ll find someone that can put up with us for life, but that will take away another round a week, unless we’re really lucky. With that comes kids eventually, and that will quickly turn 2 rounds a week into 1; with more kids, that 1 round a week may only turn into an hour at the range. Time is running out. Not to say that those things aren’t blessings, but there will never be a better getaway than a round with the boys.
Long story short, the obsession with golf isn’t an “all of the sudden” thing. As I sit and watch the 2020 US Open, seeing Tiger playing with guys that are younger than me, I understand that anyone who has ever picked up a club and stuck around long enough to respect the game never loses the desire to ‘pure’ one more shot. So while you sit by the phone waiting for us to tell you we finished a day of golf with the boys, don’t. Let us have another drink and enjoy the night because we will always fiend for the summer nights in high-school when playing 3 rounds a week was regular. I hope and look forward to being able to play golf every day in retirement with my best friends like many of the gentlemen I see at the country club every day. Wouldn’t that be the life. Until then, I will continue to hold on to the rounds we do still get to enjoy. Drink a few too many beers, hit a few extra balls, and continue trying to cuss my ball back onto the fairway. Nothing will change.