Tim CE
Tim CE
Jul 24, 2017 · 3 min read

And the game of golf, by the way, is a very democratic game. It’s not just a country club game. It’s one of the few things that you can go out and just play with strangers who you’ve never met before and have an amazing time.

In many ways, isn’t golf anti-democratic, at least as far as sports go?

We can’t talk about “the game” without talking about access to the game and the actual materials required to play the game.

  • Golf courses themselves require a lot of space. And because they take up so much space (and probably also because of where their desired clientele live), they’re usually located in suburbs or rural areas, places only accessible by car, away from densely populated areas, and so on. Not particularly accessible.
  • Even though they’re so big, each golf course can accommodate only a relatively small number of players at a single time. Limited number of holes, ideal pace of play, and all that. The point isn’t that this is an inherent exclusion (because people could theoretically just play on a Tuesday if the course isn’t available on a Monday), but rather that it’s a solitary game, for a few at a time, like tennis. In this way, it’s unlike team sports, where a bunch of people can just show up in a park and play—if there are too many, you can just sub out as you go. So, while you might socialize with a few strangers for a few hours while playing a round of golf, it’s not exactly a place for any semblance of collectivity or togetherness—quite the opposite, it’s a place for relative isolation.
  • While there are public courses, so many courses are owned by private parties. Sometimes those owners charge membership fees, and sometimes being willing and able to pay the fee isn’t even sufficient to become a member. But regardless of whether it’s a country club or merely a privately owned club open to the public, private courses aren’t subject to public input and oversight—that is, they’re removed from the actual democratic process.
  • Playing golf is expensive. Even if you forego the uniform — the collared shirts, the spiked shoes, the glove, the branded hats, etc. — even a basic set of clubs is costly. And even though you can technically share a set of clubs, generally each player has their own. Contrast that with a game of soccer, which only requires a single ball for two teams. And then there are the golf balls, which beginners regularly lose and would need to replace. And then there are the fees just to play a round, which can be costly, even if you don’t use a cart. Even if you can find a cheap course, it adds up. Contrast that to an open-access basketball court or soccer field at a local park.

And then there’s the gameplay. It’s not the case that any average (or even athletic) person can simply walk onto a course and play with any sort of competence. Golf is an extraordinarily frustrating sport to play for beginners.

  • In general, improving one’s golf game requires a lot of time and money, often via private lessons (like most “country club sports”). Natural athleticism helps, of course. Club speed, hand-eye coordination, proprioception, all of that. But far more than in baseball (which also involves whacking a round object with a modified stick), for example, a slight glitch in a golf swing could be the difference between a great shot and a terrible one.
  • This doesn’t matter so much in a sport like basketball, where a missed shot is just a missed shot. In golf, a poor shot often means a lost ball, whether in the water or wherever. It also means that your game is way less efficient, because you’re taking way more strokes and trying to find balls at the edge of the woods, so it takes much longer to play a round. It’s also a strong deterrent from playing again, unless you have the time, money, and or social/professional necessity of improving.

All of this (and more) makes me question who these “strangers” are with whom you can play golf and have an amazing time. Chances are, they’re relatively wealthy, from a relatively narrow segment of society, with highly predictable racial and gender identities. But those are just the probabilities.

Democratic? Maybe Wilmore was talking about mini-golf.

    Tim CE

    Written by

    Tim CE

    Clinical, not cynical.