In “Red in the Face” from season 1, he returns from the garage to almost catch Roger hitting on Betty with a bottle he got from “the golf bag”.
In “Maidenform” from season 2, a guy at the country club asks if he plays golf and he non-answers that he doesn’t mind watching others play.
Is it possible he has played golf, but doesn’t care for it? Or considers it a waste of time, like anything other than work, drinking or girl-chasing?
Regardless of whether he likes it or not, he’s probably not any good at it considering that he grew up dirt poor in the days before municipal golf courses. In terms of fitting in with the country club set, it’s easier for Don to say he just doesn’t like the game than to explain that he’s no good at it because he’s been too poor to play most of his life.
My father was in sales, had memberships in a couple of different country clubs, and to the best of my knowledge, never played a round of golf in his life. The country club was where he took clients for lunch, and let them play a round as his guest.
I’m guessing he’s a poor golfer for the reasons GreasyJack outlined, and that he owns a set of clubs because he learned to play just enough to get through the games he was probably forced into when he was a junior associate.
Now he would just send Pete. At his current level (or even the level he was at when the show started), he can get away with making jokes about his disdain for golf. There have always been plenty of executives who sucked at golf (wasn’t this a running joke on Bewitched, that Darren’s boss Larry is a horrible golfer? huh, talk about two shows that probably don’t get compared often.) but like many things on the show, Don’s issue isn’t so much that he sucks, but WHY he sucks (because he was poor).
Him owning clubs reminds me how non-smokers of that era usually had ashtrays. What kind of socially clueless person wouldn’t have an ashtray for guests? An advertising executive would own golf clubs whether or not he liked to golf.
I’d never noticed all the similarities to Bewitched before. Don and Derwood seem to be the same guy.
Plenty of people say that Betty’s a witch.
Don needs Endora to keep him in line.
Ha! Don would certainly benefit from having a big can of female whupass opened on him! 
Midway through the series, they’re replacing Jon Hamm with Jon Lovitz.
Good thread…I find golf to be intensely boring…yet, its almost required to play (if you want to advance up the corporate ladder).
I wonder how many execs are closet golf haters-the game is tremendously expensive, time consuming, and hard to fake (enjoyment thereoff). All of the college alumni associations that I belong to feature big golf outings-which I never attend. I cannot hit the ball consistently, and really dislike it.:eek:
“My wife, uh… January… Jones. Yeah! Who I’ve seen naked!”
Is the bolded part still true? I’m not questioning it, I’d just like to know.
I agree that it used to be true, in some industries at least. When I graduated from engineering school in the mid-80s, lots of job interviews were potential tracks to management. One petroleum engineering job actually contained a certain number of days spent having lunch and playing golf with clients each month. Since the closest I’ve ever gotten to golf was the revolving-windmill variety, I sure didn’t pursue that job.
These days, I work with lots of defense contractors. A fair number of them golf, but a lot don’t, and there doesn’t seem to be any career penalty for them.
Don’t you get tired running them 18 bases?