There’s nothing wrong with a game of pitch and putt. Chipping and tapping the ball on a course where you can see every hole is a quick and pleasing walk. When I was young I can remember my Gran got a hole-in-one by using a putter from the tee off. The putter was the only club she used. “No point in carrying two of them about” she’d say. This “fluke” shot told me that there was something wrong with this sport. What is the difference between a six iron and a seven iron?
If you’re a par player you should hit the ball 72 times during a round. That’s 72 touches of the ball in four hours of play. That’s not enough game time for me. Even if you were below average and had a score of 90, it’s still not enough shots of the ball. Consider 90 shots in four hours. That’s 2.66 hit’s a minute or 2.66 hits in 14,400 seconds. What the yellow jersey/green jacket/ whatever it is, do you do with all the other, wasted time?
I’ll tell you what is done with this valuable time. It’s spent watching your opponent club the ball less than a hundred times. It’s digging about in the rough looking for your Dunlop65. Don’t get me wrong it can be therapeutic searching for lost balls but not when irate golfers are waiting for their turn to drive off. More galling is observing your opponent try to find his ball. What can be worse than this? Your time is being consumed by someone stomping about in long grass.
Wait a minute; this post is in defence of golf. Sorry, I got caddied away there. Right, for golf. Think, think, think. A-Ha.
Golf does not use video technology. No third umpire referrals, no line calls overruled by Hawk-Eye, no red cards rescinded subsequently after video review, no peeping tom ref adjudicating on a try or not a try (although he always gives it as they need all the tries they can get). There’s no hard luck stories, once you’ve played the ball you don’t get another shot at the title. This is sport the way it should be; no outside interference. I’ve came round to thinking that it is a purists game. Tiger Woods excepted, of course.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Well, TR, I was with you most of the way, but somehow you lost me towards the end. I can find even fewer reasons to make a case for golf. But that is probably because I am crap at it. More fun can be had at the driving range, watching other people screw up.
I’ll settle for the walks and the scenery but why make it so darn difficult? Make the ball bigger and use a bat!
Hello Sipu and PG
I’ve never played a full round though if I did I’m sure I’d get value for my money and time. I’d probably get a darts score: 140.
Good morning TR
I’m surprised that you didn’t mention the obstacles, I always find them a darn nuisance!
or even Santa getting in the way
Morning Soutie,
Your photographs bring back pleasant memories for me; I was the school champion at crazy golf.
It’s always fascinated me that it’s easier to hit a moving object than a stationary one – with certain exceptions like flies which spoil it by moving the wrong when challenged. Generally speaking, unless Shane Warne is involved, a cricket ball follows a predictable path – and the same goes for tennis/squash balls and shuttlecocks. I can manage putting though, brought up with a hole in the ‘back lawn’ and an ancient wooden putter said to be my great-grandfather’s.
wrong way
Hi J.
“unless Shane Warne is involved, a cricket ball follows a predictable path – and the same goes for tennis/squash balls and shuttlecocks”
As a tennis aficionado I can tell you that Bjorn Borg’s topspin forehands were unpredictable in their bounce. Not that I ever played him, of course; he was too scared. 🙂
I believe he puts his name on pants these days.
Golf – Waste of a good walk if you ask me.
It was educational and immensely satisfying seeing Montogmerie put a ball straight into the middle of the pond at the Emirates Golf Club in Dubai just before the 18th green. He managed to emulate my own particular talent at the same spot almost exactly, and I think that is probably the drug of golf.
If you added up all your best shots round your favourite course, with a little luck you would equal or better these fellows. It just never happens 18 holes in a row…
Montogomerie?? Sorry, Monty – Montgomerie. Inexcusable really as Nairn Golf Club is one of his favourite courses
Monty is old hat, cwj, Alistair Forsyth is the new bunnet. My brother-in-law is acquainted with AF and never fails to tell me this. I never fail to tell him “I see Forsyth has missed the cut again.”
TR: “If I had my way no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust or profit under the United States, and all female athletes would be shipped to the white-slave corrals of the Argentine.”
— H.L. Mencken (A Mencken Chrestomathy)
Right about the golf, the second part is pretty good too.
JW, a serious word, if you don’t mind.
We Jocks rightly pride ourselves on the inimitable pantheon of our illustrious fellow countrymen with our many inventions, our firsts in every field of art or science, our deeds of valour and derring do and generally just our sustained and continuing ability to be awfu guid at everything.
We are, of course, modest and self-deprecating with it and find it difficult to take offence about anything at all. But see when people make light of the noble game of gowf? Think black shame tae yersel’, pal, that you have done so as one of our own.
You must well know that said game was given to us by the Good Lord in full and final proof that we were not put on this world to enjoy ourselves.
JM, was hop-scotch another fine North British invention too?