Since some arguments about sports seem to be as passionate as those about religion, then it’s an important distinction to make.
Do you get on the case of hunters and shooters for calling themselves “sportsmen?” Do you inform them that they aren’t sportsmen, they are actually “gamesmen?”
I know I am not the “you” to whom you refer, but if by “shooters” you mean people who shoot at targets, then I would call that a sport - it has the necessary combination of physical skill and competition to make it a sport in my book. Hunting doesn’t, and I do not regard it as being a sport. Or a game.
FTR, I think shooting, hunting, golf, and drag racing are all perfectly fine sports.
Golf is generally acknowledged to require quite a bit of experience to really excel at the top levels of the sport-the subtleties can escape the more inexperienced. While yes there have been major winners in their teens, they are very few and far between (and, as far as the men’s tour is concerned, that hasn’t happened in 150 years, since Young Tom Morris came on the stage, at least as far as professional-eligible majors are concerned). In tennis for example there’s been many teen major winners.
I wouldn’t base whether something was a ‘sport’ or not if it was in the Olympics or not - based on that criteria, baseball, softball, and squash are not ‘sports’.
And network coverage? Please - poker is covered extensively by ESPN. Is it a sport?
You have a logical fallacy there - if domething is deemed to be a sport because it is in the Olympics, that does not mean that things not in the Olympics are not sports.
I’m with you there - ESPN has also covered Scrabble and spelling bees.
I realize you are trying to get a reaction, and we have certainly done the sport v game thing many a time. But I find it curious that your definition seems to weigh so heavily towards the “physical” side of athletic competition, while minimizing the mental. Also, physican ability is manifested in countless ways, from strength, speed, agility, coordination, endurance …
I think that most sport includes at least some element of both physical and mental, with varying ratios lying along a continuum. It seems that when the physical component is decreased to a certain point, folk tend to consider an activity more a game than a sport. But not everyone agrees at where that point is.
Similar for the “static” and “active” types of physical effort. The hand-eye coordination involved in high-level darts is amazing, but most folk would consider that a game compared to the gross muscular efforts involved in football.
In racquetball tournaments you would think a kid would have an advantage. But they are won by people ion late 20s and 30s. Rubin Gonzales won one in his 50s. We are talking pro tour here.
Must not be a sport, then!
But you don’t find many sports pages (or websites) that cover Scrabble tournaments. Every sports page covers golf.
Tiger really takes good care of his body. He works out a lot . He makes sure he doesn’t have pressure from unresolved sex. When he came in most golfers did little working out. Now golfers are in excellent shape. Cross training is the norm now.
You are either delusional, or being deliberately obtuse. Golf most definitely involves physical exertion.
Is it just me, or does anyone else recall Elin being described as a Swedish “supermodel” around the time of Tiger’s wedding? All this time, that’s what I thought she was in her former life. I had no idea until the recent incident that she and her sister were basically nannies. Also, does anyone else find it weird that the Parneviks would hire gorgeous blonde twin sisters as nannies? I don’t think that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with that, but I know plenty of people that have nannies or au-pairs and they don’t ever look like them.
I thought I’d post this here rather than in GQ :
UK injunction granted over golfer Tiger Woods
So what am I missing out on ???
From what I’ve heard, photos of him in flagrante. We would find out if he packs a 9-iron or a 7-iron. But that’s just what I’ve heard.
What’s the difference between Tiger Woods and Santa.
Santa stops after 3 ho’s.
Breaking news from Tiger’s website:
This is very bad news for the PGA. They were begging and pleading for sponsors to keep sponsoring their tournaments next year in these economic times. They lost a number of them anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few tournaments dropped during the season. A heck of a lot of people only watch golf when Tiger is in the field.