Is golf really a sport?

Cafe Society
21

[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
I’ve noticed for a while now that you have an odd definition of action. You seem to think that 22 guys going full bore is equivalent to a single guy hitting a ball with a stick. Time is not synonymous with action. Multiply the total amount of action time by the number of players actually doing something and football has an order of magnitude more action than baseball. Golf? Virtually no action even compared to baseball.
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But from the perspective of the observer, who cares? It’s preposterous to suggest football has “more action” because more guys are moving per play; it’s the nature of the sport. Does the CFL have more action because it’s 12 guys to a side? Would you add more action is any meaningful sense by having football teams field 15 men at a time instead of 11 or 12? Does cricket have more action because it has about eighty six people playing all at once? I realize you’re a big football fan and it’s hard to admit that football is a really slow game, but it unquestionably is (it doesn’t have to be as slow as it is, but the nature of its relationship with TV makes it so.) I at least admit my sport is slow. The appeal of football and baseball lies in the anticipation of the next play, not in the volume of action, because they just don’t have much action.

Tennis has a LOT of action, but only two people (four for doubles) are ever doing anything. Boxing has action coming out the wazoo, or are you saying it’s action-impaired for only having two guys involved?

Golf may have only one guy hitting the ball, but it is the CENTER of the action. There’s nobody running a pattern who doesn’t get involved in the play. That the action is concentrated in one spot doesn’t detract from the intensity of the moment. In a way, it enhances it.

That defies any logical or existing definition of “sport,” and leads to a lot of ridiculous conclusions. You’re proposing a stupid definition of “sport” where sprinting is not a sport, but Tic-Tac-Toe is. Any definition of “sport” that excludes most things that are obviously sports is… well, it appears to be concocted solely to give more weight to sports you personally like, e.g. football.

A sport is ANY contest of physical skill undertaken for its own intrinsic purpose. Football is a sport, golf is a sport, baseball is a sport, sprinting is a sport (assuming you’re racing someone) cricket is a sport, water polo is a sport. Weightlifting, assuming you’re competing with someone and not just lifting weights to get fit, is a sport. Billiards is a sport. The parallel bars, that’s a sport. Ski jumping is a sport. That Scottish sport where they throw logs around is a sport. Javelin is a sport, as are high jumping and pole vaulting. Motor racing is a sport. Croquet is a sport, bowling is a sport, basketball is a sport, darts is a sport, and pretty much anything with the word “hockey” in it is a sport. Dwarf tossing is a sport.

Any other definition of sport I’ve ever seen was put together solely for the purpose of excluding sports the person didn’t personally enjoy.

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“Boxing has action coming out the wazoo, or are you saying it’s action-impaired for only having two guys involved?”
Where did I say anything about boxing being “action-impaired”? Exactly the opposite, actually.
And what’s this about totaling the action of all the participants?
I forgot what the rest of your post was about. :smiley:

23

Figure skating, the old traditional style, is a sport?

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Definition: A sport is a game in which two or more parties/teams concurrently compete to get a better score that is set based on accomplishing certain goals according to certain rules, and which game requires athleticism.

I call golf and football as sports, while as I would label boxing and weight lifting as being sheer athletics.

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[QUOTE=mangeorge]
Figure skating, the old traditional style, is a sport?
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An interesting question. I would say yes, even though it’s polluted by “artistic merit” scores. It’s a sport that’s poorly judged.

The line isn’t always that clear, and figure skating is the perfect example of a sport that’s had a lot of non-sport bias introduced into it.

[QUOTE=sage Rat]
Definition: A sport is a game in which two or more parties/teams concurrently compete to get a better score that is set based on accomplishing certain goals according to certain rules, and which game requires athleticism.

I call golf and football as sports, while as I would label boxing and weight lifting as being sheer athletics.
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Sage Rat, your own definition of sport contradicts your claim that boxing is not a sport; it meets your own definition of a sport. It would also seem to say that, say, the 100m dash is a sport, but the long jump is not, which is kind of absurd. The long jump would not be different in any meaningful way if you constructed more jump pits and had the jumpers all jump at once.

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I say sport. It takes incredible strength to wing that little ball as far as the pros do.

It is slow, but sport nonetheless.

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[QUOTE=RickJay]
An interesting question. I would say yes, even though it’s polluted by “artistic merit” scores. It’s a sport that’s poorly judged.

The line isn’t always that clear, and figure skating is the perfect example of a sport that’s had a lot of non-sport bias introduced into it.

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Or, perhaps, the definition of sport is changing - in part a reaction to sports not being male dominated events. Hence you get artistic sports like rythmic gymnastics or figure skating or synchronized swimming.

Danceline and cheerleading are considered sports in high school and college. The line between performance and sport is changing (I did one act competitions in high school, and acting is a physical activity - not that I’m arguing its a sport, but the lines are less clear than I think they were).

(And with that stretch, golf may be a boring sport, it may be one of the few sports you can do reasonably well into retirement as your body ages, but at least it has clear cut rules and scoring.)

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[QUOTE=RickJay]
But from the perspective of the observer, who cares? It’s preposterous to suggest football has “more action” because more guys are moving per play; it’s the nature of the sport.
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Yes, the nature of the sport is to have more guys moving. Thus, the nature of the sport is to have more action. You seem particularly aggressive on this topic, as if I’m denigrating your favorite sport. I am not denigrating any of the activities I mentioned. Specifically, yes, the CFL has more action than the NFL by virtue of having more players.

As for your laundry list of “but that means such-and-such isn’t a sport”, yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I expressed my specific position a while back in [post=7115019]this post[/post], with much added detail in a [post=7123551]followup post [/post]. (Content from both reproduced below.)

Sports are organized head to head strategic competitions with active, physical defense employed by the opponent, and are purely human-powered.

If you don’t exert yourself, you’re playing a game, not a sport.

If determining the winner involves going to the judges, or the humans involved don’t supply all the energy, it is a competition, not a sport.

Boxing is usually brought up as the counter to the judging qualifier, but sports are “played”. Nobody ever “plays” boxing. The fighting arts are just that: arts. Not sports.

Tennis involves athleticism, active defense, is organized, etc…, so it easily qualifies as a sport.

Golf, OTOH, is a game.

All races are competitions. Auto and horse racing could only be considered sports from the point of view of the cars and horses. For the humans involved, they are competitions. Similar with those new-fangled snowboarder and skier cross events, where the riders can tangle. Gravity is supplying the energy, thus they are competitions, not sports.

Standing around with no defensive option is a big strike against the activity being a sport.

While you might consider it odd to not call the Olympic events sports, I find that to be a very common sense conclusion. Sports are all about pitting humans against humans in head to head physical competition. Racing against a clock makes your opponent time, which is not what sports are about. That’s what races are about.

Of course, my personal definitions are no more valid than any other native English speaker’s, so take of that what you will. But I subscribe to the following classifications:

Races: Racing against the clock, and also potentially other competitors in your same field of play. Incidental contact may be allowed, (rubbin’s racin’), but you can’t just flat out knock a guy out of the race intentionally. Examples would be downhill skiing, sprints, marathons, NASCAR, horse racing, short & long track skating, etc… One of the primary characteristics of a race is that the defensive strategy can usually be summed up in under a paragraph, and sometimes in just a single word: inapplicable.

Fights: Boxing, wrestling, the UFC, and basically all hand to hand combat events are a class unto themselves. More serious than sports, and very much more hardcore.

Games: Passive activities that simulate characteristics of sports, such as board games and video games. Can be broken down further into real-time games (like most video games) and turn-based games (like board games.) Some physical activity may be involved, such as bar games like pool, darts, and foozball. The last is the ultimate example of the distinction, as foozball is clearly simulating the sport of soccer. This is also the category of card games and casino table games, and the aforementioned curling. (Damn the US women’s team is smokin’ hot! Too bad they choked, as I’m head over heels for the Johnson sisters.)

Competitions: Athletic events with no competitor interaction whatsoever, often decided by judging. No defense is possible. Figure skating, gymnastics, X-Games (both summer and winter) that focus on tricks and style would all be good examples of competitions. Also included would be weightlifting, the world’s strongest man/woman contests, bodybuilding, marching band, cheerleading, equestrian, golf, field events such as those that make up the decathalon, and no doubt countless others.

Activities: Often competitive, and often involving athleticism, and even sometimes organized, but not truly a sport. Paintball is the prime example that comes to mind. Pickup games of sports would also fall here, such as a two on two playground game of hoops.

Sports: Athletic, head to head strategic competitions with active, physical defense employed by the opponent. Sports are purely human-powered, have highly structured rules, and objective means of determining the winner: the score. Most sports have amazing strategic depth, and all sports have a dizzying array of tactics. Sports are basically a hybrid between games and competitions, employing the best attributes of both. Usually, but not always, they are team oriented. Football and all its derivations (Australian rules, arena, flag, etc…), basketball, soccer, baseball, volleyball, beach volleyball, cricket, ice and field hockey, ultimate frisbee, singles and doubles tennis, rugby, lacrosse, and no doubt many others I can’t think of right now.

These classifications may not be universally held, but they do have the bonus of including like with like. While there are a few wildcard activities that I would find difficult to classify, such as polo, the vast majority fit neatly into these groups. And I would be a bit surprised if a participant in one of them would be offended by the grouping they found themself in.

Except the curlers. While it is true that they definitely require more athletic ability than playing cards, it is hard to get past the obvious comparison to it being a gigantic game of marbles. Even still, I could justify calling curling a sport, but it’d be with reservations; when the opponent is on offense, you are only allowed to watch. That’s just not sports-like.

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[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
Or, perhaps, the definition of sport is changing - in part a reaction to sports not being male dominated events. Hence you get artistic sports like rythmic gymnastics or figure skating or synchronized swimming.
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And there’s also the recent tendency to classify games such as chess as “mind sports”, though I personally think that’s going too far.

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[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
No defense? that would make virtually all track and field, swimming, skiing, etc., not sports. I don’t think that works, but of course YMMV.
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And any team playing the Titans would be excluded.

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I don’t know if this affects your opinion, but there are tactics to golf relating to the rest of the field. A golfer will decide to take risks or not depending on how many strokes ahead or behind he is, how many holes there are left to play, what day it is in the tournament, how many top golfers still have room to make up strokes, etc. It’s disingenuous to say there are no defensive/offensive tactics that involve other players just because you’re not both after the same ball.

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[QUOTE=Zsofia]
Nah. Golf is a game. It’s a seriously freaking hard game that requires a lot of athleticism.
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Athleticism helps, but isn’t required.
John Daly won the British Open.

Craig Stadler won the US Open.

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I don’t think Daly or Stadler look appreciably fatter than David Wells or a typical offensive lineman in football.

Fat doesn’t mean “not an athlete”. I’d bet dollars to donuts that both of those golfers have hand eye coordination, muscle control, and explosive strength that most of us could only dream of having.

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There have always been big fat golfers; Ted Ray, for example. He was the Edwardian John Daly. He also hit that little ball farther than almost anybody else in the world.

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[QUOTE=Cheesesteak]
I don’t think Daly or Stadler look appreciably fatter than David Wells or a typical offensive lineman in football.

Fat doesn’t mean “not an athlete”. I’d bet dollars to donuts that both of those golfers have hand eye coordination, muscle control, and explosive strength that most of us could only dream of having.
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True, but it’s not just the fat. If you are going to call John Daly ‘athletic’ thats a bit of a stretch. (Overweight, heavy smoker, heavy drinker.) If you can be all that and still be one of the sport’s top players I think it is proof that athleticism isn’t a requirement.

36

Illustrating what Zsofia already raised, in match play in golf, there are concepts that are close to “defense.” Basically, you play more conservatively, going for pars, rather than risking your opponent scoring points if you get too aggressive and end up making bogeys. You’re not playing to score, you’re playing so that the chance of your opponent scoring is minimized.

And I don’t know how much tennis you’ve played, Ellis Dee, but there is like a hundred times more strategy involved in golf than tennis (and I say this as a lover of both sports). And I don’t think I can say that I’ve ever played “defense” in tennis, at least in terms of strategy. There can be a defensive effort to return a good shot by an opponent, but that’s more like a batter fouling off a good pitch so he won’t strike out – that’s not really defense as we’d commonly understand it, IMHO. I always thought of nearly every shot returned by an opponent as another opportunity to hit another “offensive” shot so I can score; I don’t think I’ve ever played a set thinking, “I’m going to beat this guy by playing good defense.”

And John Daly is not one of the golf’s top players. He lost his PGA Tour card last year after a pathetic showing, and now for the most part has to get special invitations by tournament organizers in order to play professionally on the tour. He’s a very recognizable figure who plays a tournament well about once every two or three years… maybe. The last major championship he played respectably in was 2005, and before that, 1995. He’s just not a top player.

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I will alert the New York Times, they have been mistakenly putting golf coverage in their Sports section.

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While there’s some defense in stroke play, match play in golf can be more akin to psychological warfare. It’s much more “you against me”.

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I’ll let you know after 4:16 tomorrow afternoon.

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[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
I say sport. It takes incredible strength to wing that little ball as far as the pros do.

It is slow, but sport nonetheless.
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Maybe more than strength it takes coordination to hit that ball where you want it to go. Coordination is just as important to sports as strength is, maybe more so.