When I was young, there was a sport that when I stumbled across it on the TV, my eyes glazed over and I’d get annoyed since it took the place of whatever program I wanted to watch and I’d quickly change channels. It had music and visuals that reminded me of the LDS general conference. That should give it away (along with the thumbnail above).
I didn’t start to play this sport until later and I didn’t start to get decent at playing until I was in my late twenties. That sport was Golf. It was then, that I no longer rolled my eyes when it came on. I started to study the players as I became more obsessed. I read Golf Digest, I watched the golf channel. I took my wife golfing, I took my children golfing. I stopped by golf shops more than any other shop.
Today, I look at golf as one of the greatest spectator sports – especially in person. But it wasn’t always that way.
My first sport that I watched with any regularity was baseball. My team was the Mets, I’m not entirely sure why, I think it had to do with our family connection to New York. But then why the Mets and not the Yankees? I’m afraid that motivation is now lost to me. But I watched just about whatever team was on. There were some fun moments – Like Oral Hershiser just dominating in the World Series, and some shocking ones – like the earthquake that disrupted the world series in San Francisco. But it’s a long sport with a lot of spitting, hitting cleats, your favorite player only get a few at-bats during an entire game. Watching soon became a bit like torture. I stopped playing and caring completely quite young.
By this time I had started playing basketball, football and tennis. Tennis, wasn’t on very much, but when Wimbledon, The French Open or the US Open was on, I was glued to the screen watching Sampras, Agassi, Ivanisevic, and Chang. The tennis prowess was unbelievable to me. But tennis was on rarely. I had gone to BYU football games since a small child and had watched few professional games on TV. I understood the fundamentals of the game, but didn’t appreciate most aspects of it and had no connection to any professional teams, so I largely ignored football. Which left basketball, where again, I was brought up going to BYU basketball games. Also, professional basketball games were on TV all the time. But for some reason, basketball never really caught on with me and it wasn’t until later I figured out why.
Truth is, basketball never really caught on with me because I don’t feel like there’s that part inside that thinks, ya, I could do that. I’m a pretty tall guy by many standards. But by NBA standards I am a nobody, a shrimp – totally minuscule. I hear over and over – well, this guard is only 6-3 and that is just too short for most execs in the NBA. Seriously? So, I don’t particularly enjoy watching the most coordinated of the tallest 1% who play a sport, it’s just dumb. As has been said “you can’t teach tall.” College BB is better, but even then, I only watch maybe a few games during march madness. But I’m at the point now where years go by without catching a single game.
I’ve always thought that Basketball would benefit by having height divisions, like boxing has weight divisions. It’s not competitive to have a short guy play against a giant, just as a featherweight doesn’t really have a chance against a featherweight. So until that changes, I just don’t care to watch the best of the abnormally huge try to play against each other.
My interest in each of these sports faded to some extent as years went by. My interest in watching tennis died pretty quickly as soon as the “grunters” sprang on the scene. I remember the first match between Federer and this young bratty kid named Nadal. I took his grunting as obnoxious and a stupid way to try to annoy Federer. He grunted and scrambled all over the court while Federer just seemed to glide and exist on a higher tennis plane. I thought, the grunting was just this one obnoxious youth and that he would out-grow it, but no, it spread like wild-fire. Some players shrieked, some players grunted – all to obviously rattle their opponent. It definitely rattled me right out of watching. Sure, I tuned in if Federer made it to the finals, but otherwise, no thanks.
Football, grew in interest and faded over the years. Specifically I grew into loving college ball and then grew out of it into pro ball and now find myself starting to grow out of pro ball. But am still hanging in there since Brady is still older than me!
Regarding the other sports, Here’s a brief list and why I ignore each:
Fighting i.e MMA, Boxing, wrestling etc. just hold no interest because I don’t like a sport who’s only purpose is maiming. To me, a sport needs to have a goal, some point with any maiming secondary. So no, I don’t enjoy those “sports.” It’s just fighting and not what I’d call a sport.
Hockey, hard to follow the puck and I think the fighting is stupid.
Formula 1 – hard to follow any particular car because of the constant camera angle changes – not very interesting to me.
Nascar -another left turn.
Soccer – ugh, it all comes down to drawing penalties for free kicks and the flopping just is so! It drives me crazy, no thanks.
The Olympic sports, meh. The “best” in the world at doing some weird obscure skill that very few others do… Sure, giant slalom in the winter Olympics is ok, but otherwise, pass.
Which brings it back to Golf. There are tall golfers, short golfers. Strong, fit and fat. It is a sport as there is significant exertion and it’s interesting in how different players approach the sport. Some focus more on power, some focus more on finesse, others try to balance. It’s all interesting to me. Sure, if you get too short or too tall, golf can be more difficult. So you tend to not see any giants playing golf professionally. Tallest golfers are around 6-4. That’s still very tall!
However, what makes golf even better is watching it as a fan of a particular player – especially as a parent means your player is always in- your child is always playing. It’s not like football where if your child isn’t the qb or rb, they are just running around and blocking or just running except those few plays where they get a look. Golf like tennis is an individual sport. It is the ultimate sport of meritocracy. There is no such thing as “not getting your minutes”. If you are good, you will succeed.
I watched my boys play different sports through the years and I loved watching them play golf more than any other. It took a bit to realize why I liked it so much more than basketball or football. It’s because, I get to walk along with him the whole way. He plays every moment because that’s the nature of the sport. It’s incredibly competitive, but the competitors can be good friends too since it’s so individualistic. There’s no complaining afterward about refs, or the coach, or a ball-hog. That’s all non-existent in golf. The worse that happens are bad bounces, but all players are subjected to the same odds of bad bounces.
So while I have lost interest in all other sports over the years, I still love golf and grow to love it more each day. And The Masters is the best of the best, the ultimate meritocracy. Where the champions of the years all compete together with the champions of the Masters of the past. It’s glorious and is the greatest spectator sport. I’ve attended local events, but would love nothing more than to watch any professional event. Watching the Masters in person… Yes, please, please, please.
