Why This Craze Over Golf?

Just part of my golf manuscript “Swap Work . . . Play Golf” demonstrating golf for challenging your boundaries, good physical activity & creativity.

A delightful moment captured in the nick of time – one-putt shot!

What’s this silly game that I am so hooked up with? Just taking up the game at age 65 and after going through a back operation some two years ago? Like most people, I had the notion of being downright stupid chasing after a little ball not much bigger than the size of ping-pong or a squash ball, and all trying to put it into the hole, after a series of drive from the tee-off green. Most people, including seasoned professionals, encounter daily joy and frustration . . . yet they still persist and never seem to resist!

Here’s the” Golfer’s Poem” that says it all:

In my hand I hold a 1.68″ diameter ball

White and dimpled, it is rather small.

Oh, how bland it does seem to appear

This harmless looking little sphere.

By its size I just could not guess

The awesome strength it does possess.

But since I fell beneath its spell

I’ve wandered through fires of hell.

My life has not been quite the same

Since I chose to play this game.

It rules my mind for hours on end

A fortune it has made me spend.

It has made me curse and cry

I hate myself and want to die.

It promises a thing called par

If I can hit it straight and far.

To master this tiny little ball

Should not be very hard at all.

But my desires the ball refuses

And does exactly as it chooses.

It hooks and slices, dribbles and dies

Or disappears right before my very eyes.

Often it will have a whim

To hit a tree or take a swim.

With miles of grass on which to land

Yet it will find a tiny patch of sand.

Then has me offering up my soul

If only it will find the hole.

It makes me whimper like a pup

And swear that I will give it up.

And take to drink to ease my sorrow

But it knows I’ll be back tomorrow!

Have A Great Day! Yes indeed!! I am having the greatest time in my life now that I have discovered the joy of the game and no doubt too the frustration that goes with it.

This week I have played virtually everyday and even taking part in Club’s competition on Wednesday and Saturday. Last Saturday, I won a golf ball! After a round of 18 holes lasting five or six hours (sometimes more), my old bones keep telling me to quit. ‘Stop killing yourself” – my back and my legs shouting out aloud.

The popularity of golf supersedes all others. Of the ball game, whether it’s tennis, cricket, squash, hockey, football, rugby, basketball, softball or whatever ball – they all pale in significance and excitement when compared to golf. It is a game that combines all games. You wonder how such a little ball can generate so big a following all over the world with prize money unheard of with the others.

Golf is fascinating and stimulating

It’s exciting and “sexciting”

It’s exasperating and frustrating

Yet so satisfying and fulfilling

It’s exuberating and exhilarating

It’s rejuvenating and glorifying

It’s everything that you can think.

You soon run out of adjectives and superlatives when attempting to describe your feeling for golf. It’s so challenging and unpredictable. You’ll not likely to have two hits of the same!

Ever heard of “golfing widows”? That’s because the golf game has become, to the man, more than a mistress, day or night. All golfers are gripped with unsurmountable passion and such a magnificent obsession. I guess that’s the reason why more women are taking up golf, with Annika Sorenstam leading the way, even taking on the men in the battle of the sexes.

Golf needs not be an expensive game. The snob value and status symbol attached to it had put off a large portion of the general public. With more and more equipment being manufactured in China, you can quite easily pick up a starter’s set for no more than $300. This will see you through your amateur days and the golden years of your life. Of course, you can easily spend a fortune on upgrading your set and trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Golf is for all ages. Whether you’re young or old, you’ll get as much fun out of it. Tiger Woods is renowned for starting off as young as three. He is the best thing to have emerged on the golf scene, paving an inspirational path for all to follow. Hailing from Hawaii, there is this thirteen –year old girl, Michelle Wie, standing close to six feet tall and driving the golf ball some 300 yards, a distance that even the best of man cannot attain.

At Pickering Brook Sports Club, I have recently met up with a group of sprity old gentlemen and ‘young’’ ladies in their 60s, 70s and 80s, many of them been playing for over 20 to 30 years, and still going strong. They are some of the nicest people you can ever meet on the golf course. From the health point of view, you can certainly draw great inspiration from them to get started on the game and keeping on at it! There is no mandate age for retirement in golf. Some of the greatest golfers of the world, like Jack Nicholas, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and many others are still on the golf scene swinging away that little dimpled ball.

Pickering Brook Golf Course provides you with a different experience. Having played in Burswood, Hill View, Whaleback and Collier Park, which can be rather expensive even for a pensioner playing on a regular basis, Pickering Brook’s unique “sand green” course gives you that close-to-nature feeling with the natural bush and trees setting. Membership per year is only $88 and you can play everyday for the rest of your life like you have all the time in the world.

Life is one great adventure and golf provides you that! You’ll get up each morning excited, fresh and ready to go. Some say it’s better than sex!

Paul Chong

An Avid Golfer