Is Golf a Sport?

Is golf a sport?  The question comes up from time to time, especially when manly men are deciding on the real definition of sport.  But since the best golfer in the world missed the cut in golf’s oldest event, and a 59 year-old guy came within a shot of winning it, well it’s a fair question, isn’t it? 

Is golf a sport?  Well, it is amazing how many former pro athletes misspend their declining sporting years playing chicken with a little white ball.  The ball usually wins, too.  I remember watching Marcus Allen during his Hall of Fame football days.  Not the biggest or fastest, but tough and cool under pressure.  This guy didn’t spit the bit.  Well, not until he started golf.  I watched an interview with him at one of the endless celebrity golf events.  His tone was one of surprise as much as awe.  “On the football field, with guys trying to kill me, I was cool,” he recalled with a laugh.  “Out here, a butterfly goes by at the wrong time and just looking at it can throw me off.”  Okay, other athletes who have tried golf universally respect it, but is it a sport?

I was a tennis player and my sport is all about winners and losers.  The tennis court is about 80 feet long, and I can be off by as much as two feet and still have my shot be a winner.  If I’m off by two feet over 80 feet on a golf shot going 200 yards, my shot will probably end up in the woods or water or somewhere else awful.  The tolerances of golf  are so narrow that your ultimate target—even on a 500-yard hole--is a cup just 4 ¼ inches in diameter. The further you hit it the straighter and more controlled you must be.

So golf isn’t like other sports in that the rush of adrenaline we need to chase our moving balls is no good to you in golf.  You want every 7 iron to go the same distance as every other 7 iron.  You want control.

For me golf is a sport, all right.  I admit I am a problem golfer and I put golf in a category all its own in sports.  But golf is a sport.  Any endeavor where your body’s coordination and stamina play a determining role in the outcome—that’s a sport.  Any endeavor where your mind and heart and confidence and guts can have an impact on your body and ultimately the outcome of the contest—that’s a sport. 

Some point to the fact that the ball isn’t moving as a suggestion that golf isn’t really a sport.  Oh, really.  Well, golf is the kind of sport that is so difficult that the damned little ball will be happy to lay there as long as it takes you to screw up the courage to hit it.  It’s easy not to choke when you’re busy racing your ass off just to get to the ball.  Trust me, I know.  I’ve chased tennis balls and I’ve stood over golf balls and trust me, the golf ball may be fraught with more danger.  After all, even if you miss the tennis ball, if you win the next point it’s as if nothing happened.  In a pro tournament, the shot you hit Thursday morning still counts on your card Sunday afternoon.

Finally, not only is golf a sport, it’s the only “magic” sport.  In tennis I know that if you started today you could probably not win a game from me in your lifetime.  The coordination is too difficult to run, hit and guide the tennis ball.  But golf is different.  You can make a hole in one with one swing your first day in golf.  And if you lined up every good golfer in the world, they wouldn’t be able to match your one miracle shot at that one moment.  Sure, if you each hit 10 balls their other 9 would probably be much better than yours.  But your one, your hole in one, is magic. 

The curse of golf is that, no matter how good you get, you could always have done a bit better.  Those great golfers are annoyed when their approach shots end up 10 feet from the hole; they were hoping for 5 feet.  A 59 on the scorecard could always be one shot better if only you’d made that one….  The "if only" shadow falls over every golfer on every round.