Golf is it the Hardest Game of All?
“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want!” – Randy Pausch The Last Lecture
Golf owns this insightful statement, in my opinion. Some say that the game involving the little dimpled white ball is the hardest of them all. It takes four plus hours to complete a competitive round over 18 holes. That is a lot of concentration spread over half a working day. Golf is played over vast distances in comparison to most other sports. There are 14 clubs in the bag, which demands a lot of competency with a wide range of tools. Golf is it the hardest game of all?
Golf Clubs Are Tools
Golf clubs are tools, and every player must physically understand each of them. There are two distinct swings, which need to be mastered if you are to play the game with any real competency. A swing for your irons and another for the driver and fairway clubs off the tee. You need to move seamlessly between these two swings with a variety of different clubs. There are long swings and shorter swings to achieve greater distance and more height/less distance respectively. There is the power game of driving the golf ball vast distances over various hazards. Then, there is the feel game with wedges and putter in hand.
The Scottish Game is Tight Fisted
I equate all these types of required actions with changing gears. Of course, changing gears in your vehicle is a hell of a lot easier than what is required out on the golf course. A momentary lapse of concentration out on the links can be cataclysmic to your score. The Scottish game is a tight-fisted bugger when it comes to keeping score. It is easy to give shots away in this game and much harder to get them back. Earning an eagle or birdie is hard graft for most of us playing this game.
Bogies come far too readily on that eponymously named train.
Golf is a Hard Task Master
Generally, we walk off the course post round with a number of lessons learned, which we hope to call upon in future rounds. Handicaps are matched by the score of the daily round less than 20% of the time according to statistical data. What is that less than one in five? We play this great game of golf because it is so darn difficult to master. If it was easy most of us would not bother, I reckon. Its very toughness makes the few times we exceed our hopes all the more satisfying.
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