Golf vs. Bowling

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m going to preface all of my commentary by saying that I’ve never actually played a round of golf, though I have been to a driving range on multiple occasions. I profess ignorance and gladly welcome all commentary and education.

What I’m interested in is the Dopers’ opinions on why bowling seems to always take such a back seat to golf. I believe that the two sports are the largest participant sports in the United States, and both seem to be dismissed equally as boring by those who do neither. Both involve, on a professional level, at least, incredible hand-eye coordination and the ability to quickly assess changing conditions. Both are accessible enough that individuals can start playing in some fashion from the age they’re first able to walk until, well, until beyond the point they aren’t really able to walk anymore.

And yet, professional golfers have their own cable network and make many, many millions of dollars competing each year (not to mention endorsement fees), while professional bowlers struggle to find a television home on a weekly basis, and to date, the most celebrated bowler of our time has made a total of $3.2 million in a 25 year career.

My apologies if the question seems ignorant, but I’m geniunely curious about the opinion of others regarding this disparity. As I said previously, all commentary is welcome.

2

Despite everything else that is good about it, bowling will always have the stigma of a barroom activity, which stems from its overrunning of hoodlums at various parts in its history. Bowling alleys were once attached to dive bars, with women and children only allowed to freely participate in the sport shortly before pinboys were abolished with the introduction of the automatic pinsetter. This stereotype still lives on in a very few establishments.

Golf was almost always associated with nobility and upper-echelon people. While each sport has its historical common traits that, from perhaps a puritanical perspective, are considered unseemly, golf has the benefit of being outdoors and involving of nature, which may or may not have allowed for a cleaner atmosphere that co-exists with its lofty reputation.

3

I hate to be a thorn in people’s sides, but here’s my opinion of golf. (cursing included in the thread title)

Tripler
I won’t comment any further.

4

I’ve thought some more, and I think I could rightly speculate (with vague education) as to the reason for the dominance of golf by nobility: the cost of the land.

When golf was first played in Scotland, such practice took place on public link-land (seaside prairie-ish terrain, with tight grass kept cropped by sheep, for the uninitiated) that was used for other activities. The cost of land wasn’t an issue, and all walks of life played together. When the game was transported to the Land Of Hairpieces, the cost of land was duly noted, and with the formation of “country clubs” outside the city limits to take advantage of the land (along with other factors, I’m sure), the separation commenced further.

Bowling, with its accessible nature, had its ups and downs.

5

Sigh—I don’t mean to keep making separate posts, but I keep thinking of points.

The actual ball itself was a main factor in separating the masses from this game. For well over two hundred years (ca. 1618-1848), the ball was a leather cover stuffed with a tophat-full of wet feathers, which was then sewn up and allowed to dry. The resultant product was a ball that rivals today’s ball in performance and durometer—capable of going over three hundred yards in distance. These “featheries” were also very expensive (around ten dollars apiece in today’s money v. the Titleist Pro V1 at $4), given the demand which was required within their manufacture—a master craftsman could make four in a day, and each ball lasted a round or two if you were lucky.

So, even when the gutty came into being, thereby allowing more to take up the game easily, I’m sure that the attitude was all too well established even before land prices became an issue stateside.

6

Interesting question. It’s not like bowling and golf are directly competing with each other. Can I rephrase the question?–in this age of TV and mass media, it’s understandable that some games, e.g., basketball and tennis, get the big money because they are fun to watch and therefore can be sold to a mass audience; so how did golf, which is really boring to watch, get all the money, while a similarly boring-to-watch sport, bowling, end up with pocket change by comparison?

I guess golf secured the exclusive upscale business country club market (imagine conducting social business meetings in a bowling alley–music’s too loud or bad, you get shot in the parking lot [happened here recently], etc.), so the early organizers got corporate sponsorship for the tour (I’m guessing). So now there’s tons of money, so people keep paying attention to it, which gets it more money, which gets it more attention, etc.

Follow the money. After all, when Happy Gilmore had to pay off the back taxes on his grandmother’s house, he turned to pro golf, not pro bowling. (Happy Gilmore and Caddyshack – golf is so big and entrenched that it is profitable even to make fun of, whereas the only bowling-related movie I can think of is The Big Lebowski.)

Now, would golf still be big time if they stopped throwing huge piles of money at it? Maybe, because now that it’s established, it’s News, whereas bowling is Not News.

Could pro bowling be more popular? Yes, with more money/attention thrown at it.

[I think it’s all artificial, golf is propped up, and couldn’t make it to the big time on its own. (I like golf. And bowling.)]

7

I’ll take bowling. Not as much walking, the beer is closer and its easier to get to the can to take a dump. Of course, you can whip it out for a leak on the links, as well as bring your own beer, but dropping the bomb can be a challange. Both of them require queer shoes, so thats a wash.

And I’ve never gotten laid by a chick I’ve picked up at a golf course.

8

[slight hijack]
At first I thought this thread was going to be about a survey I heard about on the radio (sorry, no cite). This survey ranked the participants in various sports by IQ. The highest ranking sport was bowling, while the lowest was golf.

Given the general perception of these two activities, I would have guessed the opposite. What this has to do with golf’s financial success, I couldn’t say. It just struck me as funny.

[end hijack]

9

Brains <> Money

10

Thank you to all of you for the thoughtful responses.

I wonder what would have happened if, say, 100 years ago, bowling had been relegated to exclusive clubs that required membership and exhorbitant fees. Perhaps there’d be a different story to tell. I have a painting hanging in my office at work depicting a bowling scene from the 1920s, and all of the men participating are wearing ties, and the men and women observing are wearing suits and fancy dresses, respectively. It seems to me that bowling could easily have gone a different route. Perhaps I should consider myself fortunate that bowling has remained accessible for the common folk.

I can’t help but be disappointed that you don’t remember “Kingpin” with Woody Harrelson. :slight_smile: But your commentary reminds me of something I’ve heard addressed previously about the popularity of professional bowling – it lacks personalities, and it lacks drama.

In Kingpin, generally speaking, the story involves two professional bowlers with a history who will stop at nothing, legal or otherwise, to beat each other. Obviously, this doesn’t happen in real life. But it’s worse than that. There are no real rivalries in professional bowling, no showdowns. And when there is an elite match-up in bowling, it lasts maybe 15 minutes. Whereas in golf, if Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson square up, you’ve got a built-in two hour television event.

11

And no one stops to think about the fact that bowling a perfect (300) game is probably the most difficult sporting achievment there is, especially when done in league play. Assuming you are competing in a league with 5 man teams, that means that for a minimum of 8 of the 10 frames, you have had 9 other people bowl down that lane before your next turn on it, and that changes the conditions of the lane. It’s a slight change, but it’s cumulative, and you have to adjust for it.

12

Going on aesthetics alone as a television spectator sport, golf is much more easy on the eyes.
Rolling green hills accented with white sand. Blue skies and lush foliage.
Pleasant to watch anything being played here.

Versus a bowling lane in a bowling alley somewhere where the scenery never changes for the duration of the competition.
If your not watching for the sheer competition of the event, not that pretty of a sport.

(Which sport do they use as a demo on those 65" Hi-Def TVs at Sears? Not bowling.)

13

I don’t think that most folks who only bowl recreationally even know what it means to talk about lane conditions, and that may also be part of the problem.

In golf, it’s fairly easy to see the hazards one might encounter with an errant swing: lakes, sand traps, people – you name it. Not to mention possibly having to battle the wind, accounting for sloping greens and the like. But if you don’t bowl competitively and/or only roll the ball straight down the lane, you likely don’t understand how some oil patterns are far easier than others.

I often get non-bowlers who know me asking me why I have five bowling balls. They have no idea what goes into trying to get your ball to knock down all ten pins with every shot. When I tell them that top professionals often travel with 20-30 balls at each tournament, their eyes just sort of glaze over…fun to watch, really. :slight_smile:

I can’t argue with that at all. The only two outdoor bowling tournaments I’ve seen on television (one on a beach in Florida, the other at Miller Park, the baseball stadium in Milwaukee) were more disorienting than pleasing to the eye.

14

I’d rather get hit by a flying golf ball than a flying bowling ball.

15

And several pair of shoes. It is also not uncommon for a pro bowler to throw several of his balls during the day’s warmups, decide that none of them are gonna cut it, and just go drill a new one.

You ain’t kiddin’, there. I’ve come to the line in league play with the first ten strikes under my belt (and several beers) twice. The first time I completely tanked - got a six count or some such shit. Second time left only a lousy friggin’ 8-pin. But man, there’s nothing like being in that groove where you just know when you take that first step that all ten a them pins are gonna be in the pit in less than 3 seconds.

Gave up the sport a few years back when the old average spiraled downward for 3 consecutive years. Just couldn’t seem to quite close out a season above the 200+ point.

Ya wanna know another difficult achievement in the sporting world which requires a great deal of hand/eye coordination? Shooting a 25 on the trap range. Never attained that either, tho’ I regularly hit 20+ birds.

16

Men bowl.

17

One possibility: The Professional Golfers’ Association has been around since 1916, and, until (I believe) the late 1960’s, it ran the PGA Tour.

The Professional Bowlers’ Association, on the other hand, was founded in 1958.

Professional golf, therefore, had a head start of around 40 years, and bowling has never caught up.

18

Never saw Kingpin … and forgot it was out there. Which further strengthens the point about bowling being forgettable. Time to go see it! (There was a bowling superhero, Jeneane Garofalo (?), The Bowler, in Mystery Men.)

Good points – bowling has no stars. The NBA is marketed, and refereed, around the star system.

Consider some other average working class sports that went big time recently – Poker – they tossed tons of money at it and they figured out a telegenic format.

Women’s billiards – not to familiar with this – didn’t they give it some va-va-voom?

So a more interesting question now, is, How Could Bowling Be Turned Into A Big Time Sport? Aside from tossing lots of money at it. Victory dances? Cheerleaders? Merge it with poetry slams? Allow body checking? Combine it with Oktober Fest? More personality? (I heard an interview with Johnny Petraglia, once – he had some pretty interesting things to say.)

19

For me personally, golf has an infinite amount of changes from one hole to the next…distance, terrain, obstacles, weather, pin placements, etc… Many different clubs/irons/putters to hit the ball with for different flight paths. It’s very strategic when you plan your shots, and even more strategic to get out of trouble and save par. I don’t see that much change at a bowling alley. You can play up to two different lanes, one lane probably being different than the other, but you still get to use the SAME two lanes to perfect your throw and spin. Different ball weights, composition, grip does different things on a lane, but nowhere near the variability that you see in golf. That’s what is so attractive to me about golf instead of bowling. (I do take my kids a play both sports.)

As for perfect games, bowling has a lot more perfect (300) games (thousands if not millions over the years) than golf has (18 birdies or better in a row in a single round…which was probably first defined by the late Ben Hogan). Never…been…done…yet. But, it just might happen in our lifetime.
Defining the perfect round of golf…where the score of 50 on a par 72 is considered a perfect game.

20

I don’t play either of them and I find them both rather dull. For what it’s worth my first reaction to the OP’s question was simply that golf is a sport where you actually get some exercise whereas ten pin bowling isn’t. Perhaps that perception also colours the thinking of lots of other people too?