# Is golf really a sport?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 29, 2007, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076 "2007-04-29T19:16:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/81 "2007-05-02T04:48:02Z")
[QUOTE=mangeorge]
The only game slower and less eventful is, I think, baseball.
Peace,
mangeorge
[/QUOTE]
Any sport that can be played while drinking a beer is not truly a sport. Golf, bowling, darts, NASCAR, are not truly sports.
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### Author:  [@Capa84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capa84)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/82 "2007-05-02T08:26:39Z")
Motorcycle road racing-sport?
You aren’t turning a wheel, you actually have to use your entire body to negotiate the course. You could be an out of shape or old race car driver and be competitive, but you couldn’t be 250 lbs and be dragging your knees and elbows through a turn at 130 mph.
It does wear you out physically as well. I lean toward calling road racing, and probably motocross style racing sports, but calling auto racing a competition.
I think skiing is a sport, because your body is responsible for navigating the course, but bobsled is not, because all you are doing is giving commands to a device.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/83 "2007-05-02T09:07:13Z")
[QUOTE=LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt]
Any sport that can be played while drinking a beer is not truly a sport. Golf, bowling, darts, NASCAR, are not truly sports.
[/QUOTE]
Man, if you think what they’re doing in those NASCAR cars is drinking beers…
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### Author:  [@LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LightWithoutHeattttttttttttttt)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/84 "2007-05-02T11:04:05Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia]
Man, if you think what they’re doing in those NASCAR cars is drinking beers…
[/QUOTE]
OK, I retract the NASCAR part but the rest still stands.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/85 "2007-05-02T14:59:54Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay]
That’s a purely arbitrary distinction; you’re creating a definition that simply doesn’t mesh with common sense or, indeed, the history of sport. Would hockey stop being a sport if, instead of playing 60 minutes, all games were treated like overtime and the first goal always won? Isn’t that kind of stupid?
[/QUOTE]
It is arbitrary, as I’ve said. I was just clarifying my definition.
I don’t think it’s a stupid line to draw though. A game is something that involves a convoluted process, otherwise there’s no “game” aspect. And a sport is by definition a physical game. So anything which doesn’t have anything particularly convoluted would be a simple physical excercise.
Now that doesn’t mean that people won’t root for one person to win, and that races won’t be shown on TV. But that doesn’t mean something’s a game. I can root for the bus to show up one minute early tomorrow morning to take me to work, and they can show the bus stop on TV starting at 6:55 AM, but that doesn’t mean bus arrivals are a game.
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### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/86 "2007-05-02T15:38:42Z")
Professional golf is a sport. Nowadays the most successful have become physically fit . They discovered the fittest win most often.
Senior softball leagues are a past time and exercise. Golf leagues mostly are fun and social activities.
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/87 "2007-05-02T16:53:20Z")
I played in an ameteur league for a bar a friend owned. It was a blast. A couple were seniors, but most were just lounge lizards. 😛
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/88 "2007-05-02T17:45:12Z")
[QUOTE=mangeorge]
When I mentioned “figure skating”, above, I was referring to the slow skating around in precision designs (figures), mostly circles. Boring, but what the hey, IMO.
So, is that “figure skating” and the other more popular style done to music “ice dancing”?
[/QUOTE]
Olympic (and other) figure skating used to include the “figures” you mentioned above but they dropped that because it was so incredibly boring and not what people wanted to watch. They always included free skating, I don’t know if they always had a short and a long program. Now, they are just the short and long programs to make up the score. There are mens, womens, and pairs figure skating.
Ice Dancing is a discipline of pairs skating that emphasizes different skills and aesthetics then figure skating. There’s much more emphasis on the two skaters mirroring each other, less on throws. It’s a separate contest.
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/89 "2007-05-02T19:47:06Z")
[QUOTE=Telemark]
Olympic (and other) figure skating used to include the “figures” you mentioned above but they dropped that because it was so incredibly boring and not what people wanted to watch. They always included free skating, I don’t know if they always had a short and a long program. Now, they are just the short and long programs to make up the score. There are mens, womens, and pairs figure skating.
Ice Dancing is a discipline of pairs skating that emphasizes different skills and aesthetics then figure skating. There’s much more emphasis on the two skaters mirroring each other, less on throws. It’s a separate contest.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks. They made a wise decision, imo.
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### Author:  [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/90 "2007-05-02T20:19:51Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia]
Why two months from now?
[/QUOTE]
School’s out. Before pay to post, but still somewhat now, the end of school meant bored sophmores sitting on their computers all day would eventually find this place and litter it with their brilliant humor. It was an annual rite, like Easter and Thanksgiving and Homer posting stoned.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-golf-really-a-sport/402076/91 "2007-05-02T21:14:56Z")
One other possible wrinkle: perhaps golf and many of these other activities can be played either as a game or as a sport.
Most people realize that the courses they play bear little comparison to the courses the pros compete on. Even if you play on a course that hosts a tour event, with very few exceptions you are not playing it the same way it is set up for the pros. You are not playing from the way back tees, hitting to the tour pin placements, with the greens sped up and the rough grown tall.
I am not sure whether most other sports have the top competitors playing on such different fields than casual amateurs. For example, how different is an NBA court from what you’s encounter in a high school or health club? Isn’t an astroturf football or soccer field pretty much like an astroturf field? Same dimensions and all. Bowling alleys, tracks, pools …
I played Olympia Fields the year before it hosted the US Open. They were moving a ton of sod, pinching the fairways at the pros’ landing areas. Even tho we were playing from the middle tees, none of us could imagine driving the ball to those spots.
Just saying, as with so many activities, at the top level it is a far different activity than we mere mortals participate in.
For the folks who mention John Daly and Craig Stadler as non-athletic golfers, I’ll offer you a Fridge Perry or Wilbur Wood. Possibly even a hoopster along the lines of Larry Bird. Yes, he had phenomenal athletic gifts. But IIRC, he couldn’t run very fast or jump very high…
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