Pasture Pool...

What's with this whole golf thing?

I've been trying to figure out the intense draw this perplexing little game holds for so many of my fellow carbon-based life forms.  Not me, others.  It's possibly the one very bad habit I've managed to avoid.  And God knows, I've warmly embraced most of them...

It seems a significant percentage of the citizenry actually enjoys spending loads of discretionary income to buy scads of specialized equipment that invariably will not work, in order to spend waaaaay too much time and effort smacking a little white ball while walking around a few hundred acres, in funny looking clothing, carrying a bag full of weapons with which to do battle.  

And at which none of them, unless in the hands of one Mr. Woods, are worth the powder it would take to blow them to Hell.

Golf has always left me cold.  First, you have to get up last night sometime in order to get to the course in time to...waste time ahead of some other time-waster.  Second, you have to have all this heavy, cumbersome equipment.  Like, 24 different clubs to negotiate your way around the course.  Whatsamatta?  Can't make up their minds?  Just pick a club and deal with it!  The very fact that you need so many clubs tells me they haven't figured it out yet.  Making one club do would also get rid of lots and lots of excuses for why you played poorly today.  And it would make it a whole bunch cheaper to waste time on this devilish game.  

And second, you're looking over "here" and trying to make the little white ball go over "there!"  Name me another "sport" where you don't aim where you're shooting?  Imagine how much tougher it would have been for Shaq to make free throws if he'd been facing the snack bar instead of the hoop.  And if you do look, then you tend to slice it or cut it or smoke it or zip it or juice it or whatever they call it, which makes the awful little ball go anywhere except where you intended!  

Frustraaaaating! 

Third, it's expennnnnsiivvv!   It costs like $100 to walk around 18 holes for a few hours and take whacks at the ball.  At some places, the reeeely tony places, it can cost two or three or four times that much!  Just to waste time taking licks at a little ball that never did a single thing to you!  

Yes, I have personal experience.  I actually tried to play once.  A friend and I rented some clubs and a couple of electric carts at a public course.  We brought a case of Coors Light which powered us through almost to the 9th hole.  We hacked and whacked and sliced and shanked all over the place, while inhaling mass quantities of this tasty adult beverage.  Apparently, racing electric carts, side by side, while trying to play polo with 5 irons isn't viewed with approval by reputable golf course management.  At least ours wasn't.

We were (im)politely asked to vacate the premises, immediately, thus bringing to a close my one and only golf experience.  But I learned enuff that day to pester you now with my opinions.  To continue.

Mark Twain once said, "Golf is a good walk ruined."  Now, I wouldn't go quite that far, but if you need to go for a walk, why drag a bag of heavy clubs with you?  No, I've never caught the golf bug.  

But I DO have suggestions as to how this game could be made better.  Mucho better.  

I suggest we simply do away with clubs.  No clubs.  At all.  Just take the little ball, throw it as far as you can, walk up to it, pick it up, and then throw it again.  Again and again.  Keeping count of the "throws," doncha' know.  Just kind of saunter along, smelling the flowers, enjoying the cool breeze, humming a little tune...

BTW, when was the last time you saw the word "saunter?"  

When you get to the greens, you simply kick the ball in the hole with your foot.  That's it.  Choose tennis shoes, or golf shoes, or sandals, or cowperson boots, your choice.  You count the strokes just like now, but without the expense or hassle of lugging around those heavy clubs.  

And you can do without the cart as well.  No clubs, no need for a cart.  Thus, you get to walk all around the course, which is faaarrr betta' for you than riding around on your ass.  And if folks stopped playing golf, then the thousands of courses around our fruited plain could be repurposed into homeless shelters, thus solving this very thorny problem once and for all.  

Annnnd, considering that the planet is burning up in a fiery Hell of "Global Something-or-Other," just think how much electricity we could save without those pesky little carts?  "A volt saved is a volt earned," or something...   

But the one thing that my little "fix" won't fix is, the major flaw with golf:  The better you play this stupid game, the fewer strokes, or "throws" you'll need.  You'll get better, one would hope, and getting better means negotiating the course with fewer strokes/throws.  How's that work?  You pay $100s to play, and the better you get, the less you get to play it?  What's up with that?  

I suggest we change the rules of golf to let you either (1) pay less for fewer strokes/throws; or (2), get to take more strokes/throws when you improve at the game.    Or, do as I did, and choose billiards, or "indoor golf," or "pasture pool," as I call it.  Same basic game played on a much smaller course, with no concern as to the weather.  Night or day, inside or out, hot or cold, wet or dry, and no little cart required.  And the best news is, you can play pool just as badly as you play golf, but do it quicker, cheaper and easier, and you get to meet an entirely different (and in many respects, much more interesting) kind of people.      

Make sense to you?  It does to me...