Golf is a great sport. Golf is an expensive sport. Golf is a fun sport. Golf is a leisurely sport. And golf is a hard sport. Everyone who has never played golf always exclaims how easy it looks, and that it doesn’t require a lot of effort. Sure, it might not be incredibly exerting, but it is far from an easy sport. Golf is incredibly difficult, and therefore frustrating. While golfing recently, I realized just how bad I am, and needed to justify to myself why being bad at golf is actually good. Here’s what I came up with.
See the Whole Course
Golf courses are beautiful, from the perfect green grass, white sand traps, large trees, and bodies of water. A good golfer mostly stays in the fairway, and therefore only sees the woods, waters, and fescue from a distance. But as a bad golfer, you get up close and personal with all of these hazards. This allows you to truly appreciate the 75 year old tree that you are about to blast a ball into for the fourth time. As a good golfer, you would never be able to understand what is like to walk through a prairie, as your ball never ends up in the fescue. I feel bad for these good golfers, as they put down a good amount of money to play at a beautiful golf course, without really seeing it in its entirety.
Good Exercise
As mentioned above, golf does not require a great amount of activity and strength. That is what allows it to be the favorite sport of old, retired men. However, exercise is good for you, and something that many of us could use more of. As a bad golfer, you are going to swing your club a lot. Not only will you swing your club a lot more during the round than a good golfer, but you probably also spend a lot more time on the range before the round. Plus, if you are like and take a bunch of mulligans, or play two balls on some holes, you may be swinging upwards of 200 times on the course including practice swings. Factor in the 50 balls you hit at the range before, and that is now a quarter of a thousand swings. As noted above, bad golfers also hit the ball all over the course, and in areas that carts can’t drive into. This means you will also be walking much more than your good golfing counter parts.
Better Value
Golf is pretty expensive, so playing poorly works in the benefit of your wallet. No, bad golfers don’t get discounts at courses, but, it does mean your round takes a lot longer. Therefore, you pay the same amount of money for a longer period of entertainment, or frustration, or whatever it is you play golf for. Golf balls themselves are pretty expensive too, so it is always a good thing to find some on the course. This rarely happens to good golfers though, as you don’t ever find golf balls in the middle of the fairway. Golf balls are found in the territory of bad golfers, namely hazards.
Stress Relief
Poor performance usually leads to stress and frustration. Therefore it seems counterintuitive that being bad at golf is stress relieving. This is because when you hit yet another poor shot, you have an excuse to yell profanities, and even throw your golf club, or hit your bag, slam your club into the ground, or whatever it is you want to do.
Everyone Wants to Play With You
Good golfers want to feel like they are good, and what better way to do that than play with a horrible golfer. Thus, being a bad golfer results in many opportunities to play golf, as you will be the first person a good golfer thinks of inviting to play with them.