Love Hate

I've sort of had a love and hate relationship with golf.

(I've ALWAYS LOVED MINI GOLF)

One thing I can't stand about golf is how expensive it is to play a round and buy clubs, and wear the right clothes..etc.

One thing I like about golf is that it is an established sport with money in it. There are courses everywhere so getting a job in golf probably would be a good career.

I initially hated golf when I was at my grandpa's Country Club while in middle school. He isn't much of a golfer. I think he played occasionally because his friends wanted too. All that I remember about my experience there was that I had just gotten off a plane and was really hungry. We wanted to eat someplace close by so grandpa suggested the country club dining room. Since we just got off a plane we weren't dressed sharply. A few of us didn't have collared shirts on. When we got to the dining room I was stared at by 70 or so people who had there mouths wide open in shock. Their looks made me think that I was wearing a bloody shirt while holding a knife. Since we couldn't eat, were stared at as if we were aliens and were forced to travel around for an hour trying to find a place to eat, I wasn't a big fan of golf.

Once I went to a NASCAR race I realized that golf is actually ok. I saw a lot of guys with white tank tops, unkept beards and tattered clothes. I even saw a video of NASCAR fans and saw a guy with a three shaved into his back hair. At this point I WANTED everyone to have to wear collared shirts and khakis.

I also had a good experience at my Great Aunt's country club. I felt better about the game of golf.

Golf, like Tennis, Swimming and Cycling are leisure sports. These are the sports you begin to play as you get older, but you want to learn them while you are young. At a certain age you realize that your never going to play like Jordan, run like Usain Bolt, hit like Ray Lewis, or pitch like Johan Santana. You begin to be a little less competitive and have more fun playing sports. You don't worry about having to work out to win a state championship or having to do a preseason fitness test. You play sports for fun and for mainly social reasons. You transition from sports like basketball, baseball and football to those leisure sports that are easier on old bodies...not that I would say that I have an old body yet. My parents have old bodies and they tell me all about them.

These leisure sports are things that you want to be able to do as you get older. To me Golf is one of the most important sports to learn if you are in sports management or business. To me it is something you must know and should honestly be a required course in a college sports management or business curriculum. Everyone in business seems to play golf and everyone in sports management seems to play golf. That is why I have been dying to learn golf. It's so useful. Everyone I have met who has said that they play golf is someone that I responded to with "I want to learn!"

One thing I don't understand about golf is how athletes who play basketball, football or really action oriented sports also enjoy golf. Golf is so different from those other sports in terms of action. I feel like you might have trouble going from sprinting up and down a court to walking down a green.

I guess golf is something that you will read about if I actually do play it this year. (I mean I could have written a post just like this last year for all I know detailing how I was going to play golf all summer)

Golf could be this years waterskiing, except I still have a lot to learn with waterskiing too. I haven't quite mastered that yet.

I've learned the sports of Tennis and Golf before but not to the point where I feel comfortable playing. By that I mean, not making a complete utter fool of myself. In those sports I still feel like I could be so bad that the game itself is not fun for the others playing in it.

"I know the ball hit off of that tree, and that pavement. I think if we spend an hour looking in the woods over there we should find it. If you call in back up and special forces we could cut the time in half"

Or in tennis

"The object of the game is to hit homeruns into the swimming pool right?"

It might be fun for me, but it wouldn't be much fun for those that I would be playing with.

Swimming is something that believe it or not, I just learned at UCONN. It was also my lowest grade all year, a B. How do you get a B in swimming? Try hard, but still not be the greatest swimmer in the world. Although, I am pretty confident in the water now. I've beaten one person in the backstroke.

BTW I had a 3.75 this past semester. That means I had a 3.77 I guess for my senior year...so far. Senior year was my favorite year of college...by far.

So anyway my golfing adventure starts about right now, when I head over to the driving range.