The original game as invented by bored semi-drunk Scots was, I’m sure, a good laugh several hundred years ago with wee sticks and a random round thing.
The modern game and all its hideous capitalist/ classist cultural connotations is fucked.
The original game as invented by bored semi-drunk Scots was, I’m sure, a good laugh several hundred years ago with wee sticks and a random round thing.
Basically what they're really saying here is that anyone with money would agree with them and have no issues with the negative impacts of golf because it's something that all financially well-off people enjoy. Therefore, if you have any issue with golf in any way, it must be because you don't have the money to enjoy it, because every single person that ever lived is in love with golf, and the only reason anyone might have for not golfing is lack of funds.
Of course the nonsense needs no explanation, but that's the angle they were going for, and why they're rightly being ridiculed for it.
There's always that one hole where you have to hit the ball hard enough so it goes around the vertical loop ramp but not too hard so that it then bounces at the right angle to get anywhere near the area of the hole that's blocked by a whole bunch of strategically placed pieces of wood.
Most of the times I played it, my group is enjoying themselves on holes 1-5, is getting tired of being held up by the group in front of us for holes 6-12, and is getting noticeably bored by hole 13, but feel like we have to finish it. It's a game that starts fun and becomes obligation.
Wait until you hear about the laws in place that guarantee them access to water their fields no matter the drought. Nobody has heard of an unkempt golf course.
Not just that, but I found a few golf courses in my city where natural habitats used to be. These place could have easily been changed into nature parks for the local residents to go wind down a bit, but noooOOOooo. Some rich assholes had to buy the land and destroy the ecosystem so they could whack a ball around some fucking grass into a little hole.
Would there be a difference to the sport if a part of the land was just left natural? I expect it would make the sport more interesting, atleast to the spectators.
What about non-team sports, like running, cycling, surfing, skiing, etc. maybe there’s a defensive strategy but there’s no active defensive player. Are those also not sports?
Part of the definition of a sport is that it accomplishes absolutely nothing useful at all, other than entertainment, thought about it and perhaps fitness. Bathing a cat is not a sport because it actually has a useful goal, I.e. cleaning a cat.
I would say that getting healthier and fitter is absolutely useful, and so is entertainment.
But anyways, some sports can be useful for training purposes (Ever heard of the Firefighter Olympics? It's really cool).
Also there's also stuff like people jogging/biking to go places, and sailing maybe can also fall into this category though I don't think it's a thing anymore. (IIRC in the 1700s there was a sort of sport where ships would race each other across the Atlantic to deliver stuff as fast as possible. Not sure though, take with grain of salt.)
There's still people who sail to get to a destination. It's a bit of a rich person thing, though. Even without a motor, boats are holes in the water that you sink money into. More so if it has to be ocean-going.
Where do you draw the line between sports and games? Are sports competitive where games are fun? Is poker a sport? Are video games capable of being sports? What could be done to golf that would make it a sport? Are all sports games if not all games are sports?
But that's a team sport though. If we compare that to tennis the oldest tournament winner is Rosewall in the 70s at 37 years old and more recently Federer in 2018 at 36 years old.
Sports that are more based on endurance than sprinting tend to have older people who do well. Mid-40s is pushing it for championship level, but you can still be competitive at that stage, and still participate well into old age if you don't have any major health/injury issues.
I actually get exhausted playing golf - but that's because I'm BAD at it. Apparently I put too much force into my swing. Every time I've tried to play I get told to relax and "let the club to the work".
So they literally have these weighted sticks to reduce the amount of frickin effort required to hit the ball.
It's not a sport. It's an ANTI-sport. The less you try the better you'll be.
Can you imagine if we had an Olympic running sport to see who the slowest runner was? That's what golf is. Get the weakest, limpest, vitamin-defficient humans and see how accurately they can hit a tiny ball into a hole.
It was invented by the Scots as a joke against the English while they all go and compete in proper sports like caber tossing and hammer throwing.
Or to keep it short, know that John Daly is one of the greats of the sport. Look up a picture of John Daly dated any time in the last 30 years, and you'll know how hilarious that is.
every golf course could be a lovely botanical garden/park or arboretum, with little paths every which way and carefully crafted scenery to make you feel like you're inside a disney movie
I used to hike along the coast there quite regularly but someone decided it was much better to turn the whole thing into a gulf course and to illegally block access to locals.
Edit: Of course they also chose the driest part of the island.
Where is this? California has strict regulations about the actual beach access. So e.g. Pebble Beach is in one of the most beautiful locations in all of Northern California, ridiculously expensive and nearly impossible to play as a mortal, but you can still go drive around 17 mile drive through the course and walk along the coastal trails for free.
There is regulations for beach access too here where all the coastline need to be accessible to the public.
So far with this particular resort they are doing everything they can to discourage people from coming in and showed a strong disdain for the local community.
AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING ON EACH SIDE. Seattle estimated they could solve the housing crisis by closing a handful of their muni courses (leaving multiple municipal and a dozen private courses in the area) and building medium density housing there. Solving a critical need by getting rid of a few locations for a dying sport:
Most of the golf courses near me are pretty much this - densely forested areas with meticulously landscaped little gardens, which happens to have some holes built in.
I don't care for golf and wish golf courses were better used spaces, but the thing about golf that makes it interesting is the meditative practice of being able to swing the club in just the right way to make the ball go where it needs to.
I like archery and you have the same sort of thing going on there. You have to have your positioning, movements, focus, and smoothness of action to hit the target. You can tell how you failed before the arrow hits the target. Working on fine tuning your actions is enjoyable.
I shot in highschool and it was the same thing. I loved it. You get into this extreme zen state and.become hyper aware of your own body. It was a lot of fun.
It isn't the same sort of thing though. Yes, you can pick a target and go for that, but having the topography and hazards makes for a different experience.
Driving ranges also don't have the same sort of socialization and competition aspect.
I agree with the first thing you said, but there's no reason why you can't socialize or compete at a driving range. It would be the same sort of competition as an archery or shooting competition- how accurately can you hit your target? And driving ranges have all the people doing it parallel to each other, so there's no reason why you can't talk to the person next to you. Yes, it is not exactly the same as golf, but it's more environmentally friendly and less of a barrier to people with lower income because you don't have to pay country club fees.
Fwiw golfers talk while they walk/cart around and such, and specifically are mad if anyone talks during their swing, the swing which is "the only thing you do at a driving range," so talking is a little less accepted there.
I live in Indiana, so there's (generally) no shortage of rain. The golf courses in this town still water the entire grass of the course every day. Even if it rained the day before. Even if it's raining right then and there. There aren't water shortages here, but what a waste.
Most courses use man made ponds as both hazards and as retention ponds so they can use that rain water.
You know what uses three times the amount of water per acre? Corn. And almonds use about ten times more water than corn. And people have only just started caring about lawns, that use two orders of magnitude more water, fertilizer, and land than golf courses.
Golf courses really aren't that bad from an ecological point of view when compared acre per acre to other large man made structures. They're generally pretty small when compared to other large landscaping projects at 30-80 acres. The issue is when a city has like twenty courses just for the purpose of driving up housing prices.
Would that land be better as a park? Probably, but this is the US, someone would see an unprofitable "empty" plot of land and throw million dollar houses on it.
You get nothing of value from golf. I don't play either so neither do I, but this very much comes off as "stop liking things I don't like" rather than something that is actually important.
At least in the southwestern US most of them are a moot point. The vast majority of golf courses are being redeveloped because the course went bankrupt over the last decade or so. A few are managing to stick around, but I wouldn't be surprised if over 90% of the historical courses are gone in the next few years.
Most of the US corn crop goes to animal feed, so no you don't get food from it. At least not directly. If you totaled up all of the land used by golf courses, you'd be at .1% of just the amount of land used for animal feed. And about 1% of the land used by home lawns.
They're not that bad, there are much worse enemies than golf courses in general. Again, courses that are in the middle of a city that do nothing but increase property value are terrible, but most are perfectly fine and use way less water than you think.
Well I admit I haven't seen the entirety of those courses, but based on what I've seen, and considering they're surrounded by either businesses, houses or, in one case, a hospital, I don't know where those retention ponds would be. The hazards they have absolutely wouldn't be big enough to cover the amount of water I see sprayed on them.
I have never seen a golf course next to a hospital... Maybe it's regional, but near me, most courses have many made ponds that hold rain water and you can smell the pond water when the sprinklers come on. The ponds can hold several Olympic swimming pools worth of water.
I just don't understand the need for so many courses, I played golf as a kid on the same one for 10 years, the local environment allowed it to maintain itself for the most part.
Eh, the OP is the one that made it a ratio of destruction to fun. Would have had the same impact if it said "Lunatics leveling miles of nature to thwhack a ball with a stick." but they chose to make a value judgment on the fun quotient of golf.
Golf is boring to watch. But for most players it is a social game. It's like going to a bar with a few friends, but getting a little exercise.
And they don't do a ton of leveling. Costs too much, and using the land the way it is, is what makes a course unique and interesting.
That said, it would be easy to find a sport that destroys more natural land. Ever see a football, baseball or soccer stadium... including all the parking. Then realize how many baseball fields their are in america (or soccer fields in other countries). They are several times the number of golf courses, and they all need more parking each than one golf course.
it's really not in a large part of the country. In a desert sure. But even there they take measures like using recycled water and not pottable water and such. And of course agriculture makes every other water use pale in comparison.
The vast majority of golfers are regular people. Teachers, and people who do shift work have free time during the normal workday are some. Retires from all sorts of jobs are the rest of the majority. Most golf courses aren't as fancy as you see on tv, and they don't actually cost that much to play on. Wall street bailouts would never be caught dead on the average golf course.
I don't know a single regular person who can afford to spend 9 hours on a weekend golfing. The only people I know who can afford that are people who inherited millions of dollars.
You don't need to be a millionaire or need 9 hours to play golf. I used to have a game on an evening with my dad in the week, we were not at all wealthy.
Must be an incredible amazing coincidence that literally everyone I know who plays the game inherited piles of money. And all those greens being maintained and watered and cared for cost nothing so it's super cheap to play.
My buddy is a teacher in a poor district. He joins a golf league every year. Plays weekly at least when the weather is decent. My uncle plays weekly. Several guys on my softball team play. Not one of them has a million dollars. I play every few years or so. With no equipment meant it runs me $30 to $50 depending on where it is. Would be less if I owned clubs, or had a membership... haven't played since the pandemic, so I am sure the price has increased, but plenty of people spend more on drinks for one weekend.
yes in the desert they do. But most courses aren't in the desert. Plenty used to only water the greens in the middle of the summer in the northeast where I grew up. People usualy picture only the high end golf courses. Most are not that. Some used to just shut down for a while if it got too dry rather than water.
I think his point about the damage environmental damage golf courses cause pale in comparison to other sports that need arenas.
Have you seen a golf course? Most of them aren't made from scratch to fit some grand vision. They're usually set up working with the environment rather than against it.
I've been fishing on an old golf course that's no longer in use and it was mostly the same except the grass wasn't cut as low. Great outdoors spot for families.
I thought he was just saying there's way more stadiums than there are golf courses and that would be incorrect. I don't have a problem with golf courses except for the excessive amount of water they seem to waste.
Devil's advocate, in a dense suburban setting it keeps that land from being paved over and turned into a commercial zone. But when it is in a rural setting, absolutely.
I don't agree. It's not like the land being used in that urban setting is home to wildlife. It's not filled with trees. It's a giant lawn that gets watered every day and if you want to be there, you have to pay. I don't see that as being an improvement to anything else in a city.
Golf courses, at least the ones I've been to, have tons of trees. They're usually densely forested in the areas between holes to make a sort of barrier. And I certainly see more wildlife on a golf course than in, say, the parking lot of a strip mall.
I guess this is the internet and being deliberately obtuse is just to be expected. Pretty much every golf course in a highly urban area would just be more buildings if they didn't exist.
Look at what people in NYC and north east NJ call suburban, then look at what someone in upstate NY calls suburban. Density is very different. Look at it as a scale. Dense Urban, Urban, light urban, dense suburban, suburban, etc. I am specifically pointing at places like in NJ where it would more likely be turned into a mall than a park.
What if it is slightly less dense than what you call dense? Then it's still the most dense suburban area possible. Clearly there are still varying levels of density within areas not dense enough to be urban.
I live in upstate New York, just about every town has a golf course. I personally love the game, but I honestly don't think their that bad for the environment up here. For many people it's their third place.
Like we get plenty of rain, and most I've been to are nestled near the edge of the forests. The APA regulates the shit out of what you can do. And it's really not much of a waste of land. If I want to go for a hike or trail run, I have dozens within biking distance and maybe even 100 within 30 minutes of driving.
It's farms and their cow shit fertilizer releasing gass and it's runoff polluting the watershed that's doing the most damage around here. But like I say, the APA does a pretty good job most of the time.
I don't think you've seen how NEON GREEN the Adirondacks are. I get that they fertilize it. But really I don't think the environmental impact is particularly great around me.
What environmental impacts are there that I'm not thinking of for my area? And how severe are they? The way I see it, this area is one that can afford to have golf courses.
Because of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, you fucking ignorant dolt. This is a REAL FUCKING PROBLEM even for you fortunate assholes up in the mountains.
The fertilizers still run down stream into the Raritan Bay watershed, LIS, hell every fucking waterway in the northeast.
Some of these fertilizers are critical to growing our fucking crops to feed people, so set aside your FUCKING INANE AND STUPID HOBBY for a moment and realize we gotta keep using them, we simply can't keep spraying them on putting greens so it runs down to the creek, into river, on into the bay or lake.
Look, I get it it's the Internet, but why all the insults?
I read the links and it seems to me that I was entirely correct. Runoff from farms is the primary source of nitrogen and other fertilizers in the waterways. I drive through Addison Vermont every day for work. You can smell the putrid rotting shit they spray on the fields. Vermont has rules around when you can spray shit, so that's why it smells worse than New York farms. Because it ferments in a pit or tank for a while before use.
I also did a preliminary search and it seems that golf courses have been reducing the amount of fertilizer used over the past couple of decades.
So yes fertilizer is a problem. Farms need to figure out a way to reduce the runoff they produce. I probably just didn't read hard enough but how much of a problem are golf courses? How do they compare to other polluters?
So you're completely aware of the harm being done to play a fool's game, the waste of space and resources, the impact to the watershed, and your response is "yeah well how does it compare to other pollution" - FOR A FUCKING GAME?
AND YOU WONDER WHY I INSULT YOU?
if we have any descendents that live through the next millennium, they're going to wonder why it was so hard to just stop killing the planet, and one of the biggest reasons will be fuckwits like you who stood in the way. for fucking games.
The environment has a capacity to handle some pollution. If the pollution caused by golf courses is negligible then why should I care about something that pales in comparison to that which is causing real and apparent harm.
I see a couple of acres of grass that makes people happy. I see thousands of acres that are clearly damaging the environment that i love. Why should I care about the little bit that gets people outside enjoying the outdoors? Why do you sling insults instead of changing my mind? I'm open to change my mind, just have a conversation with me.
Are you a conservationist or a preservationist? Do you believe humans should enjoy the land we protect, or should humans be kept away from the natural world to protect it?
I'm a fucking rationalist and a realist. You're a delusionist apparently.
there's so many resources, we can spend them foolishly on bullshit that benefits few, or we can devote our energy, space and production to saving our own asses.
do the fucking math, and please, stop trying to convince me your milquetoast excuses are anything but "fuck you, I don't care" - because your indifference and petty justifications communicate loud and clear dipstick.
Two golf courses nearby have closed down and are being rehabilitated by the National Park that claimed the land or however they got it. IIRC one of them was family-owned for four generations, but the last owner was in his mid-twenties and got in way over his head, and committed suicide on one of the greens.
Sucks about the circumstances, but otherwise I love to see it
The problem is its not worth the fight. Its an issue that's for sure pushed by fossil fuel industry because how many people you will piss off. It's devastating but if you want action on this you need to actually ignore it for now and instead get golfers to see it themselves in other ways. Its a good game and its most peoples thing they do to fuck off from lifes bullshit. Coming at people and saying you'll take that away is something fossil fuel industry would love for people to do
This meme is just discussing how wasteful golfing is. No one here is forming a secret plot to do away with all the golf courses, like. Golfing is one of the many ways in which the 1% disproportionately destruct the planet. I think bringing attention to that is important.
I doubt it's as harmful as you think. Maybe in desert areas. I don't golf, but I know people from every economic group who love the game. Definitely not just a rich person's sport.
Ah so we want all the negative sentiment for saying we want to end golf but none of the positive effects of doing so? Fantastic plan!
I guess at best it might help push some courses into adopting ecologically sustainable management practices just to attract the green minded player.
It think it's more likely to foster resentment and distrust 'give the greens an inch and before you know it they'll have it's all locked in shoe boxes eating bugs' mentally that is so hard to fight against.
It think it’s more likely to foster resentment and distrust ‘give the greens an inch and before you know it they’ll have it’s all locked in shoe boxes eating bugs’ mentally that is so hard to fight against.
a very active imagination you have going there. you were going to list the positive effects, go on.
please enumerate the pro's from golf. The harms are manifold - everything from profligate water waste, terrible issues w/ fertilizer runoff, enormous amounts of land that could be used for housing, promoting a historically racist and classist sport, the harms are obvious and many. What pro's do you have that outweigh any of these cons?
Audubon International estimates that the average American course uses 312,000 gallons per day. In a place like Palm Springs, where 57 golf courses challenge the desert, each course eats up a million gallons a day. That is, each course each day in Palm Springs consumes as much water as an American family of four uses in four years.
don't merely consider the water used - think about the power used to pump it, the power used to filter it, in the millions of gallons per day, and justify this shit.
This record-setting total includes 25.6 million people who played on a golf course and another 15.5 million who participated exclusively in off-course golf activities at places like driving ranges, indoor golf simulators, or golf entertainment venues like Topgolf and Drive Shack.
So only about 8%... or 12%, if you include those who participate in "off-course golf activities" alone.
Those numbers seem off. Everybody in my entire life I'm probably 1/2 of the people I've met are golfers. Every city IVs lived has been able to support multiple golf courses.
Your anecdotal evidence says a lot more about the kind of people you surround yourself with than anything else. 60% of people in the US are still living paycheck to paycheck; many don't have the time or the money for even the cheaper entry fees, especially when you consider having to buy/rent clubs.
Plus... why would an organization like the NGF downplay the number of golfers when their goal is literally to research and promote golfing?
Why is everybody here behaving like a bunch of cunty redditors.
All I've said is I know a lot of golfers and every city I've lived supported multiple courses. And that some battles aren't worth fighting. One guy called me racist.
It sucks because it's such a big sport here in Scotland, it's strange that people use the defense other things are worse to make it seem like it's not a problem. It's mainly stupid since there are plenty of other spots that have the similar qualities, without the masses of land lost and wasted water.
I also think it's funny just how much it costs to go golfing, some courses here in Scotland have a membership system with like silver, gold and platinum.
It feels like a very elitist way to price a sport, and no I would rather not spend a months wage per year to hit a ball down a field for a year, mini golf is much cheaper, more enjoyable and environment friendly, and I'll be just as shit as I would be at golf.
IMO, rectangle sports are the most boring sports in existence. It's literally a rectangle and always a rectangle every time... And everyone stands around watching the exact same shit happening inside the perfectly constructed rectangle. It's the same thing, over and over. Not only that but millions of people say they love sports, but they don't even play, just stare at a glowy rectangle and watch people in a rectangle run around. You can't define a more boring sport than that. At the very bare minimum, to spice things up, how about introducing some goddamn obstacles randomly placed in the rectangle. Add some actual dynamic scenarios that keep the players on their toes and trying to come up with new strategies.
Motocross and enduro racing are sports and so is golf. Golf courses are all different, they unique, dynamic change depending on temperature, weather, grass length, wind, dew point, hole location.
But I do agree in general, golf courses are very big waste. Especially when placed in the middle of deserts or places that require significant resources to maintain.
Dude you can describe anything this way to make it sound boring, but that doesn't even get close to reality and I think you know that deep down. I don't even like sports and this is a senselessly reductive way of framing the discussion.
IMO, rectangle phone screens are the most boring screens in existence. It's literally a rectangle and always a rectangle every time... And everyone hold it around watching the exact same shit happening inside the perfectly constructed rectangle. It's the same thing, over and over. Not only that but millions of people say they love their phone, but they don't even post, just stare at a glowy rectangle and watch people in a rectangle posts around. You can't define a more boring screen than that. At the very bare minimum, to spice things up, how about introducing some goddamn obstacles randomly placed in the rectangle. Add some actual dynamic scenarios that keep the owners on their toes and trying to come up with new strategies.
Soccer fields are affected by temperature, weather, state of grass, wind, etc. too. So are football and baseball fields. Baseball fields are all unique. Cricket fields are round.
That said, there are obstacles in those identical rectangles. But unlike golf, these obstacles can move and think! They are called opponents and believe it or not, they can often be more dynamic than a tree or pond!
Soccer doesn't even have the entertaining fights that hockey has. The soccer players just crumple to the ground screaming in (fake) pain as soon as anything remotely touches them. Every time.
I've always wondered why we don't really have hooligans in the US. Not just for soccer/football, but any sport. I wonder if Hockey fans' thirst for violence is quenched by the fights in hockey, and that's why there is no Hockey hooligans or something.
There's a university not far from me that regularly burns couches for big games. Two years in a row, fans have taken uprights from football stadiums and thrown them in lakes/rivers. There's usually a game or two per year that cars get flipped or other vandalism.
The NFL is really good at killing reporting, but fights among fans are fairly common and people have died this year from them.
Fair points. Yea I guess we just got our own breed of them. I think the only reason it's really different is that most of the fan bases are too separated to do the gang fight thing like they do in some places.
Lmao you are right. It's the same thing just dumb drunk fans doing dumb things. The difference is that our obnoxious fans are spread out enough that they don't meetup and have gang fights too often. Ours mostly just fuck their own cities up.
While horrible that still sounds nothing like hooligans that will literally contact each other and arrange a meeting somewhere near the stadium before/after the match to beat each other up with home made weapons.
I think the true reason is that in the US that would just immediately devolve into gun shootouts and that's probably too much for anyone.
Bruh Philadelphia burns down every time they win something big
Plenty of college football stadium goalposts are designed to be easily replaced because fans will storm the field and take them down/home with them after big wins
Yea I know all about this. It's still a different thing than gangs forming around teams and then meeting up to have a large scale fight. I guess guns and the fact that the fan bases are spread out kind of keep everybody from considering that idea in the US.
I'm not a fan of watching sports myself, but you're ignoring a big part of it: The strategy behind it and its execution. But apart from that, I think most people just want to feel like a part of something and cheering on a team is an easy way to do that.
Soccer on a square field, four teams playing against one another, scoring in the nets closest to yours gives one point, in the net facing yours gives 2 points. Imagine the chaos!
Esports is considered an activity rather than a sport according to my states school system. What is the difference between a sport and an activity? I couldn't find their definitions lol.
I would say activity is a huge encapsulating word that all sports, games, clubs, etc fall under.
Sport to me is an intensive competitive activity.
I would like to also say team based, but wrestling, track, and swimming would be absent from such a definition.
Similarly, if you were to say outdoors most winter sports would be excluded.
With my definition you could argue for games like Chess to be intensive and competitive. I’m unsure. I think it changes depending on the level of play. At the end of the day, the only people who really care about exact definitions are those in administration deciding what activity gets what.
Is your kitchen outdoors and carpeted in lush green grass? Do you have a lawn mower come through your kitchen every two days? Do you have sprinklers that douse your kitchen lawn at 5 o'clock every morning?
No need to worry. As soon as real estate prices go up those golf courses will be repurposed for other needs.
Don’t underestimate the capacity of rich people to flaunt their excesses, while the people are suffering in scarcity.
Nothing to do about the rich.
Though my comment was made moreso as a tongue-in-cheek type of comment, I'm also just stating facts that I've actually seen with my own eyes.
I live on a part in the planet that used to have plenty of golf courses (and movie drive-ins for that matter), and now they're all gone, because as more population moved into the area, more real estate was needed for housing.
Out of curiosity, did the golf courses use to be more affordable back then?
I couldn't tell you if land back then was less expensive, or that land today is worth so much that you make more money selling it to build houses on it versus running the golf course.
I know this thread is a bit old, but I used to be an irrigation tech at a 27 hole golf course. Just wanted to throw some numbers out there for anyone interested. This was in a hot climate for reference. During the wet season, we would pump out anywhere from 200,000 gallons to 600,000 of water per night. During the summer or droughts, we would pump 750,000-1,500,000 gallons of water PER NIGHT. During the day, especially during droughts, I had to go around spot watering everything all day. I could easily pump 150,000 gallons during the day on top of what we pumped at night. During a hot week with no rain, our average was around 10.5 million gallons of water. Our course used "reclaimed water" but the majority of the water was supplemented by the city supply. We only got the reclaim license because of some favors and shady deals to lower our taxes.
As someone that lives in the second flattest state and is surrounded by corn and soy field, and doesn't play golf, this doesn't affect me one bit. Bye.
Lol Lemmy is officially scraping the bottom of the barrel to ensure nothing in society unrelated to giving your whole self to another lazy person is left. hahaha
The original game as invented by bored semi-drunk Scots was, I’m sure, a good laugh several hundred years ago with wee sticks and a random round thing.
The modern game and all its hideous capitalist/ classist cultural connotations is fucked.
Robin Williams did a great bit on this.
https://youtu.be/14NQIq4SrmY?si=kv-5NtoSsdtBs3p0
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/14NQIq4SrmY?si=kv-5NtoSsdtBs3p0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Good Bot!
Thanks I’ll have a look.
I have it on good authority that golf was in fact invented by Bandrobas Took during the Battle of Greenfields.
🙄 modern home is just as accessible as any sport that requires gear eg hockey. Even more so. You folks just looking for enemies.
Cope harder
Tell me that you're poor without telling me that you're poor.
Tell me you're an asshole without telling me you're an asshole.
Tell me you're American without telling me you're American.
Hating poor people is as American as you can get. You should fit right in.
Well, not American, but I can tell you are a Classist asshole.
Uh, what?
How dare someone be poor! Anyone who makes that choice is doing it to be offensive!
Why does it matter if they're poor or not?
Didn't you know? If you're poor, you're supposed to be ashamed of it because it means you didn't try hard enough to not be poor.
Jesus HATES poor people. It’s the American Way!
Drag’em, squiddy
Basically what they're really saying here is that anyone with money would agree with them and have no issues with the negative impacts of golf because it's something that all financially well-off people enjoy. Therefore, if you have any issue with golf in any way, it must be because you don't have the money to enjoy it, because every single person that ever lived is in love with golf, and the only reason anyone might have for not golfing is lack of funds.
Of course the nonsense needs no explanation, but that's the angle they were going for, and why they're rightly being ridiculed for it.
For someone who spends so much time talking about growing up in poverty, this is a surprisingly callous thing to say.
Poverty sucks. Don't be poor.
Depression sucks. Don’t be depressed.
Does that work too?
Ofc.
You have to be joking.
tell me you're a classist prick with more money than sense, oh no, wait, you've already done so.
Well, I recently learned of the existence of Excel competitions, so I’m not sure about the ‘most boring’ part.
Some people really excel at spreadsheets.
Jus' gonna leave this here:
https://youtu.be/xubbVvKbUfY
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/xubbVvKbUfY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
If you don't see the beauty in the orchestrated beauty of Excel macros and formulae, then there's no helping you.
What about VBA? Remote data? Python?
Nope, this is better than golf.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Nope, this is better than golf.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
That's horrifying, if you have the forbidden knowledge of what people only program in excel is capable of
I don't know if there still are, but back when you texted on a 12-button phone keyboard, there were texting competitions.
Mini-golf is actually kind of fun.
It's a lot of fun, and you don't need any nukes to enjoy it either.
Maybe not need...
True enough.
There's always that one hole where you have to hit the ball hard enough so it goes around the vertical loop ramp but not too hard so that it then bounces at the right angle to get anywhere near the area of the hole that's blocked by a whole bunch of strategically placed pieces of wood.
On that hole I would consider using a nuke.
Speak for yourself
The mini-golf nuclear proliferation organization has spoken.
Mini golf is superior and should be the default golf. As in, it shouldn't have a descriptor. It should just be called golf.
And what is called golf now should be called big golf or field golf or something like that to show how nonsensical it is.
Most of the times I played it, my group is enjoying themselves on holes 1-5, is getting tired of being held up by the group in front of us for holes 6-12, and is getting noticeably bored by hole 13, but feel like we have to finish it. It's a game that starts fun and becomes obligation.
I'm told Top Golf is fun too.
Wait until you hear about the laws in place that guarantee them access to water their fields no matter the drought. Nobody has heard of an unkempt golf course.
Not just that, but I found a few golf courses in my city where natural habitats used to be. These place could have easily been changed into nature parks for the local residents to go wind down a bit, but noooOOOooo. Some rich assholes had to buy the land and destroy the ecosystem so they could whack a ball around some fucking grass into a little hole.
Would there be a difference to the sport if a part of the land was just left natural? I expect it would make the sport more interesting, atleast to the spectators.
It was invented in Scotland. Where there's grass everywhere and almost no trees. Why not just play in natural landscapes that are suited for the game?
IMHO sport is a misnomer. "Game" seems more fitting to me.
I'm always interested in this take. By definition,.it's clearly a sport.
How do you define sport and how does it not meet the definition? It's a game of physical skill, mental concentration, and competition.
I have always viewed it as a sport involves and active defensive player and an overall greater level of physical movement
What about non-team sports, like running, cycling, surfing, skiing, etc. maybe there’s a defensive strategy but there’s no active defensive player. Are those also not sports?
Interesting point, i know they are definitely sports so it kinda throws my point away haha
Not really. They meet your qualifier of greater amount of physical activity/movement.
Sport has connotations of fast paced physical activity.
Games like Solitaire and Golf can be done by yourself and for most people won't be spiking your heart levels to a runners high.
Motorsports have no defensive player and do not involve much physical movement (unless you count the car's movement).
Giving a cat a bath involves a defensive player (the cat) and significant physical movement (depends on the cat's mood).
Giving the cat a bath (other than the weird one I had that loved water) is classified as a blood sport.
Part of the definition of a sport is that it accomplishes absolutely nothing useful at all, other than entertainment, thought about it and perhaps fitness. Bathing a cat is not a sport because it actually has a useful goal, I.e. cleaning a cat.
I would say that getting healthier and fitter is absolutely useful, and so is entertainment.
But anyways, some sports can be useful for training purposes (Ever heard of the Firefighter Olympics? It's really cool).
Also there's also stuff like people jogging/biking to go places, and sailing maybe can also fall into this category though I don't think it's a thing anymore. (IIRC in the 1700s there was a sort of sport where ships would race each other across the Atlantic to deliver stuff as fast as possible. Not sure though, take with grain of salt.)
There's still people who sail to get to a destination. It's a bit of a rich person thing, though. Even without a motor, boats are holes in the water that you sink money into. More so if it has to be ocean-going.
Fuck that, I'm starting a competitive cat bathing club.
Fishing has entered the chat.
Definitely a defensive participant and an offensive participant, but way less physical activity like 90% of the time.
Sport shooting as well.
sport fucking
You haven't played golf with me. Better watch your balls as you have your legs open to swing.
Is this is a suggestion that golf doesn't take physical skill?
masterbating takes more skill
I guess I can see how someone who struggles to find their tiny dick might find masturbation to be very difficult.
My dick is heavier than a golf club.
I can see how that would also make it extremely difficult.
Where do you draw the line between sports and games? Are sports competitive where games are fun? Is poker a sport? Are video games capable of being sports? What could be done to golf that would make it a sport? Are all sports games if not all games are sports?
These are the questions that keep me up at night.
Not saying I hold this opinion myself but I think people that say this usually draw the line to physical exertion being required.
When I think of sport I think of anything where one sweats due to physical exertion.
I sweat playing rocket league and working on my car, but they're not sports.
If you can play it while drinking a beer it isn't a sport.
Any sport can be played while drinking a beer if you put your mind to it and believe in yourself.
Ever hear of Beer league hockey, sport?
Chess is a sport, and one can absolutely play chess drunk
No it isn't.
I mean you can believe what you want, but you're factually incorrect
I would piss my colleague off by telling him he's got a nice hobby...
Good. They need to accept reality.
Oh that just made him angry, I always added that no sport has the winner of a major tournament in their mid 40s.
I mean... Tom Brady was a super bowl MVP in his 40s.
Chris Chelios won a Stanley Cup in his 40s.
But your point is well taken nonetheless.
But that's a team sport though. If we compare that to tennis the oldest tournament winner is Rosewall in the 70s at 37 years old and more recently Federer in 2018 at 36 years old.
Definitely a fair point.
Sports that are more based on endurance than sprinting tend to have older people who do well. Mid-40s is pushing it for championship level, but you can still be competitive at that stage, and still participate well into old age if you don't have any major health/injury issues.
I actually get exhausted playing golf - but that's because I'm BAD at it. Apparently I put too much force into my swing. Every time I've tried to play I get told to relax and "let the club to the work".
So they literally have these weighted sticks to reduce the amount of frickin effort required to hit the ball.
It's not a sport. It's an ANTI-sport. The less you try the better you'll be.
Can you imagine if we had an Olympic running sport to see who the slowest runner was? That's what golf is. Get the weakest, limpest, vitamin-defficient humans and see how accurately they can hit a tiny ball into a hole.
It was invented by the Scots as a joke against the English while they all go and compete in proper sports like caber tossing and hammer throwing.
Or to keep it short, know that John Daly is one of the greats of the sport. Look up a picture of John Daly dated any time in the last 30 years, and you'll know how hilarious that is.
And people complain that Starcraft isn't a sport.
Is chess a sport?
As much as assaulting fish is a sport. Much more reasonable and intellectual though
Do you move a lot during chess (yourself, not the pieces :P)?
I move my balls, but that's a different story.
The golf course near me has spent the last month about a foot underwater.
I have never been so smug. I hope it's ruined.
every golf course could be a lovely botanical garden/park or arboretum, with little paths every which way and carefully crafted scenery to make you feel like you're inside a disney movie
You see this?
I used to hike along the coast there quite regularly but someone decided it was much better to turn the whole thing into a gulf course and to illegally block access to locals.
Edit: Of course they also chose the driest part of the island.
Where is this? California has strict regulations about the actual beach access. So e.g. Pebble Beach is in one of the most beautiful locations in all of Northern California, ridiculously expensive and nearly impossible to play as a mortal, but you can still go drive around 17 mile drive through the course and walk along the coastal trails for free.
It's in st Lucia in the Caribbean.
There is regulations for beach access too here where all the coastline need to be accessible to the public.
So far with this particular resort they are doing everything they can to discourage people from coming in and showed a strong disdain for the local community.
Maybe they should be on the lookout for people pouring cement into the golf holes.
AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING ON EACH SIDE. Seattle estimated they could solve the housing crisis by closing a handful of their muni courses (leaving multiple municipal and a dozen private courses in the area) and building medium density housing there. Solving a critical need by getting rid of a few locations for a dying sport:
https://www.theurbanist.org/2019/06/12/unlike-seattle-golf-really-is-dying/
It's a waste of space otherwise.
Most of the golf courses near me are pretty much this - densely forested areas with meticulously landscaped little gardens, which happens to have some holes built in.
A lawn is not a garden.
Correct. I'm not talking about lawns.
Golf courses are lawns.
So you just didn't read my first comment in this thread then
Please post a picture of this golf course with no lawns
Oh I get it now, your reading comprehension is just poor.
This.
Please. For the love of God don't let this lazy comment cliché migrate to here.
Las Vegas has something like 70 golf courses wasting inordinate amounts of water. Of course most houses also have outside private swimming pools too.
As an environmentalist, fuck Kentucky bluegrass, fuck golf, and fuck lawns while we're at it
I don't care for golf and wish golf courses were better used spaces, but the thing about golf that makes it interesting is the meditative practice of being able to swing the club in just the right way to make the ball go where it needs to.
I like archery and you have the same sort of thing going on there. You have to have your positioning, movements, focus, and smoothness of action to hit the target. You can tell how you failed before the arrow hits the target. Working on fine tuning your actions is enjoyable.
I shot in highschool and it was the same thing. I loved it. You get into this extreme zen state and.become hyper aware of your own body. It was a lot of fun.
archery doesn't carry a racist history and waste giant tracts of land. they can putt-putt or get fucked.
They make driving ranges for that. They take up much less space.
It isn't the same sort of thing though. Yes, you can pick a target and go for that, but having the topography and hazards makes for a different experience.
Driving ranges also don't have the same sort of socialization and competition aspect.
I agree with the first thing you said, but there's no reason why you can't socialize or compete at a driving range. It would be the same sort of competition as an archery or shooting competition- how accurately can you hit your target? And driving ranges have all the people doing it parallel to each other, so there's no reason why you can't talk to the person next to you. Yes, it is not exactly the same as golf, but it's more environmentally friendly and less of a barrier to people with lower income because you don't have to pay country club fees.
Fwiw golfers talk while they walk/cart around and such, and specifically are mad if anyone talks during their swing, the swing which is "the only thing you do at a driving range," so talking is a little less accepted there.
I live in Indiana, so there's (generally) no shortage of rain. The golf courses in this town still water the entire grass of the course every day. Even if it rained the day before. Even if it's raining right then and there. There aren't water shortages here, but what a waste.
Most courses use man made ponds as both hazards and as retention ponds so they can use that rain water.
You know what uses three times the amount of water per acre? Corn. And almonds use about ten times more water than corn. And people have only just started caring about lawns, that use two orders of magnitude more water, fertilizer, and land than golf courses.
Golf courses really aren't that bad from an ecological point of view when compared acre per acre to other large man made structures. They're generally pretty small when compared to other large landscaping projects at 30-80 acres. The issue is when a city has like twenty courses just for the purpose of driving up housing prices.
Would that land be better as a park? Probably, but this is the US, someone would see an unprofitable "empty" plot of land and throw million dollar houses on it.
And we get food out of that input, unlike a golf course where you get nothing of value.
Have you seen a golf course before? They're literally lawns.
You get nothing of value from golf. I don't play either so neither do I, but this very much comes off as "stop liking things I don't like" rather than something that is actually important.
At least in the southwestern US most of them are a moot point. The vast majority of golf courses are being redeveloped because the course went bankrupt over the last decade or so. A few are managing to stick around, but I wouldn't be surprised if over 90% of the historical courses are gone in the next few years.
Such is the way of the free market.
Most of the US corn crop goes to animal feed, so no you don't get food from it. At least not directly. If you totaled up all of the land used by golf courses, you'd be at .1% of just the amount of land used for animal feed. And about 1% of the land used by home lawns.
They're not that bad, there are much worse enemies than golf courses in general. Again, courses that are in the middle of a city that do nothing but increase property value are terrible, but most are perfectly fine and use way less water than you think.
Wtf do you think happens to those animals who eat the corn stalks?
Well I admit I haven't seen the entirety of those courses, but based on what I've seen, and considering they're surrounded by either businesses, houses or, in one case, a hospital, I don't know where those retention ponds would be. The hazards they have absolutely wouldn't be big enough to cover the amount of water I see sprayed on them.
I have never seen a golf course next to a hospital... Maybe it's regional, but near me, most courses have many made ponds that hold rain water and you can smell the pond water when the sprinklers come on. The ponds can hold several Olympic swimming pools worth of water.
You’re really comparing growing food to some entirely useless recreation activity?
I just don't understand the need for so many courses, I played golf as a kid on the same one for 10 years, the local environment allowed it to maintain itself for the most part.
What kind of parties are you going to?
Well at least the radiation outfits come in very radiant party colors.
Louis Slotin's place. Were you not invited?
...that's probably for the best
For those who don't get the reference.
Eh, the OP is the one that made it a ratio of destruction to fun. Would have had the same impact if it said "Lunatics leveling miles of nature to thwhack a ball with a stick." but they chose to make a value judgment on the fun quotient of golf.
Uh... is nuclear armageddon fun?
How about a nice game of chess?
Depends on how much of you survives the bombs I guess
Well, that would very much depend on whether is a Mad Max style future or something else with fewer muscle cars...
Golf is a dying sport. Courses where I live have been closing, some have been turned into parks
Golf is boring to watch. But for most players it is a social game. It's like going to a bar with a few friends, but getting a little exercise. And they don't do a ton of leveling. Costs too much, and using the land the way it is, is what makes a course unique and interesting.
That said, it would be easy to find a sport that destroys more natural land. Ever see a football, baseball or soccer stadium... including all the parking. Then realize how many baseball fields their are in america (or soccer fields in other countries). They are several times the number of golf courses, and they all need more parking each than one golf course.
More than leveling the ground, watering it is the main environmental issue
it's really not in a large part of the country. In a desert sure. But even there they take measures like using recycled water and not pottable water and such. And of course agriculture makes every other water use pale in comparison.
Agriculture is food. We need food. We don't really need a way for a bunch of Wall Street bailouts queens to have a social activity.
sure we need food. But the way we water it is one of the more inefficient ways possible. But it is inexpensive. They could use almost 80% less water than they do. If you are worried about water use, start there. https://ag.umass.edu/vegetable/fact-sheets/irrigation-drip#:~:text=A%20properly%20installed%20drip%20system,subsurface%2C%20near%20the%20root%20zone.
Ok good. Start your own farm and do that. Golf isn't suddenly good because some farmers suck
The vast majority of golfers are regular people. Teachers, and people who do shift work have free time during the normal workday are some. Retires from all sorts of jobs are the rest of the majority. Most golf courses aren't as fancy as you see on tv, and they don't actually cost that much to play on. Wall street bailouts would never be caught dead on the average golf course.
I don't know a single regular person who can afford to spend 9 hours on a weekend golfing. The only people I know who can afford that are people who inherited millions of dollars.
You don't need to be a millionaire or need 9 hours to play golf. I used to have a game on an evening with my dad in the week, we were not at all wealthy.
Must be an incredible amazing coincidence that literally everyone I know who plays the game inherited piles of money. And all those greens being maintained and watered and cared for cost nothing so it's super cheap to play.
My buddy is a teacher in a poor district. He joins a golf league every year. Plays weekly at least when the weather is decent. My uncle plays weekly. Several guys on my softball team play. Not one of them has a million dollars. I play every few years or so. With no equipment meant it runs me $30 to $50 depending on where it is. Would be less if I owned clubs, or had a membership... haven't played since the pandemic, so I am sure the price has increased, but plenty of people spend more on drinks for one weekend.
Cool story bro
Golf courses use a shit ton of water, especially in areas where grass isn't supposed to fuckin grow
yes in the desert they do. But most courses aren't in the desert. Plenty used to only water the greens in the middle of the summer in the northeast where I grew up. People usualy picture only the high end golf courses. Most are not that. Some used to just shut down for a while if it got too dry rather than water.
There are 15,500 golf courses in America.
There are just over 900 stadiums in America.
I think his point about the damage environmental damage golf courses cause pale in comparison to other sports that need arenas.
Have you seen a golf course? Most of them aren't made from scratch to fit some grand vision. They're usually set up working with the environment rather than against it.
I've been fishing on an old golf course that's no longer in use and it was mostly the same except the grass wasn't cut as low. Great outdoors spot for families.
I thought he was just saying there's way more stadiums than there are golf courses and that would be incorrect. I don't have a problem with golf courses except for the excessive amount of water they seem to waste.
Size of Old Trafford Football Stadium and all parking nearby: 20.8 hectares.
Size of my local small golf club: 53.3 hectares.
And that's one of the largest stadiums in the country, vs one of many, many golf courses.
Edit: For decimal place fuckup.
That is an absurdly massive golf club. Nowhere near average.
https://asgca.org/faq-how-much-land-do-i-need-to-build-a-golf-course/
Hang on, I've got my decimal point one over. For some reason I thought a hectare was 1,000m², and it's 10,000m².
So 20.8 vs 53.3 hectares.
But a basic bog-standard golf club is still over twice the size of one of the largest football stadiums in the country.
I guess having absolutely no idea what the fuck you’re talking about has benefits.
Nice job adding nothing to the discussion. Go back to reddit, they miss you.
This entire thread is a blight on Lemmy. One of the seriously most shitty and disturbing things I’ve seen on the system.
Devil's advocate, in a dense suburban setting it keeps that land from being paved over and turned into a commercial zone. But when it is in a rural setting, absolutely.
I don't agree. It's not like the land being used in that urban setting is home to wildlife. It's not filled with trees. It's a giant lawn that gets watered every day and if you want to be there, you have to pay. I don't see that as being an improvement to anything else in a city.
Golf courses, at least the ones I've been to, have tons of trees. They're usually densely forested in the areas between holes to make a sort of barrier. And I certainly see more wildlife on a golf course than in, say, the parking lot of a strip mall.
I found a squirrel's nest on one course with about a hundred golf balls in it. And I've gotten chased off my tee shot by a bull elk.
Those animals are there despite the course, not because of the course. Golf courses are not wildlife habitats.
Take a look at New York City and tell me where the animals are.
The High Line Park for one. There's also another huge park in central Manhattan you may have heard of, but the name escapes me.
I guess this is the internet and being deliberately obtuse is just to be expected. Pretty much every golf course in a highly urban area would just be more buildings if they didn't exist.
You mean like those two parks I mentioned? Just more buildings?
First of all, this...
...is an oxymoron.
Second, in the hierarchy of urban greenspace, golf courses are only one step up from the very bottom (just above private lawns).
Look at what people in NYC and north east NJ call suburban, then look at what someone in upstate NY calls suburban. Density is very different. Look at it as a scale. Dense Urban, Urban, light urban, dense suburban, suburban, etc. I am specifically pointing at places like in NJ where it would more likely be turned into a mall than a park.
not all suburbia is north american ffs
So? Whether it's North America or elsewhere, if it's dense it's "urban," not "suburban."
What if it is slightly less dense than what you call dense? Then it's still the most dense suburban area possible. Clearly there are still varying levels of density within areas not dense enough to be urban.
If you want to preserve the land then make it a public park where everyone can enjoy it not just the rich jerks who can afford to pay to be there
Many towns have public courses which are just as described.
Ideally sure, but we are dealing with capitalism. In a high populated area people will want to find a way to profit over every inch.
I live in upstate New York, just about every town has a golf course. I personally love the game, but I honestly don't think their that bad for the environment up here. For many people it's their third place.
Like we get plenty of rain, and most I've been to are nestled near the edge of the forests. The APA regulates the shit out of what you can do. And it's really not much of a waste of land. If I want to go for a hike or trail run, I have dozens within biking distance and maybe even 100 within 30 minutes of driving.
It's farms and their cow shit fertilizer releasing gass and it's runoff polluting the watershed that's doing the most damage around here. But like I say, the APA does a pretty good job most of the time.
lol this moron thinks they don't fertilize the NEON GREEN grass that makes up almost every course.
goddamn that's dumb
I don't think you've seen how NEON GREEN the Adirondacks are. I get that they fertilize it. But really I don't think the environmental impact is particularly great around me.
What environmental impacts are there that I'm not thinking of for my area? And how severe are they? The way I see it, this area is one that can afford to have golf courses.
Yeah, I KNOW HOW NEON GREEN YOUR LAKES GET WHEN THE ALGAE BLOOMS COME IN.
https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/a-lake-in-crisis
Because of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, you fucking ignorant dolt. This is a REAL FUCKING PROBLEM even for you fortunate assholes up in the mountains.
https://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/67239.html
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/53/4/357/250240
https://harvardforest1.fas.harvard.edu/publications/pdfs/Driscoll_Environment_2003.pdf
The fertilizers still run down stream into the Raritan Bay watershed, LIS, hell every fucking waterway in the northeast.
Some of these fertilizers are critical to growing our fucking crops to feed people, so set aside your FUCKING INANE AND STUPID HOBBY for a moment and realize we gotta keep using them, we simply can't keep spraying them on putting greens so it runs down to the creek, into river, on into the bay or lake.
Look, I get it it's the Internet, but why all the insults?
I read the links and it seems to me that I was entirely correct. Runoff from farms is the primary source of nitrogen and other fertilizers in the waterways. I drive through Addison Vermont every day for work. You can smell the putrid rotting shit they spray on the fields. Vermont has rules around when you can spray shit, so that's why it smells worse than New York farms. Because it ferments in a pit or tank for a while before use.
I also did a preliminary search and it seems that golf courses have been reducing the amount of fertilizer used over the past couple of decades.
Source:
https://gcmonline.com/course/environment/news/nutrient-use-and-management-on-u.s.-golf-courses
So yes fertilizer is a problem. Farms need to figure out a way to reduce the runoff they produce. I probably just didn't read hard enough but how much of a problem are golf courses? How do they compare to other polluters?
So you're completely aware of the harm being done to play a fool's game, the waste of space and resources, the impact to the watershed, and your response is "yeah well how does it compare to other pollution" - FOR A FUCKING GAME?
AND YOU WONDER WHY I INSULT YOU?
if we have any descendents that live through the next millennium, they're going to wonder why it was so hard to just stop killing the planet, and one of the biggest reasons will be fuckwits like you who stood in the way. for fucking games.
I am asking, how bad is it?
The environment has a capacity to handle some pollution. If the pollution caused by golf courses is negligible then why should I care about something that pales in comparison to that which is causing real and apparent harm.
I see a couple of acres of grass that makes people happy. I see thousands of acres that are clearly damaging the environment that i love. Why should I care about the little bit that gets people outside enjoying the outdoors? Why do you sling insults instead of changing my mind? I'm open to change my mind, just have a conversation with me.
Are you a conservationist or a preservationist? Do you believe humans should enjoy the land we protect, or should humans be kept away from the natural world to protect it?
I'm a fucking rationalist and a realist. You're a delusionist apparently.
there's so many resources, we can spend them foolishly on bullshit that benefits few, or we can devote our energy, space and production to saving our own asses.
do the fucking math, and please, stop trying to convince me your milquetoast excuses are anything but "fuck you, I don't care" - because your indifference and petty justifications communicate loud and clear dipstick.
Two golf courses nearby have closed down and are being rehabilitated by the National Park that claimed the land or however they got it. IIRC one of them was family-owned for four generations, but the last owner was in his mid-twenties and got in way over his head, and committed suicide on one of the greens.
Sucks about the circumstances, but otherwise I love to see it
Lets replace golf courses with mini-golfs and parks!
Golfers play baseball?
This post is somehow managing to offend on a personal level almost everyone.
The only benefit to society I can see for golf is that it provides a reliable source of consistent standardized ammunition for my golf ball cannon.
Americans: What the fuck is "kilometers"?
Great places to pitch tents.
A good walk spoiled and they won't even let you walk on a number of courses. Have to use the little electric cars.
So... I actually really like golf. I think it's fun. Haven't played in over a decade, but I look back on my memories playing pretty fondly.
That said, I have zero issue recovering a lot of that lost land and water usage to put them to better use.
I'd be very interested to see a version of golf that is less ecologically destructive and less water intensive.
Hectares or acres
They dont level tho, I saw some of them playing with pond in between💀
It would be more challenging if they left the trees in place anyway.
The problem is its not worth the fight. Its an issue that's for sure pushed by fossil fuel industry because how many people you will piss off. It's devastating but if you want action on this you need to actually ignore it for now and instead get golfers to see it themselves in other ways. Its a good game and its most peoples thing they do to fuck off from lifes bullshit. Coming at people and saying you'll take that away is something fossil fuel industry would love for people to do
This meme is just discussing how wasteful golfing is. No one here is forming a secret plot to do away with all the golf courses, like. Golfing is one of the many ways in which the 1% disproportionately destruct the planet. I think bringing attention to that is important.
I doubt it's as harmful as you think. Maybe in desert areas. I don't golf, but I know people from every economic group who love the game. Definitely not just a rich person's sport.
They wanted to buldoze a rare ecological area in my province to create one because it would crate about a dozen jobs and the area was "barren".
And yes it is a rich person's game. How many kids from disadvantaged neighbourhoods do you hear making the PGA?
Every youth sport costs a lot to participate in, and kids from disadvantaged neighborhoods rarely make it in any professional sport.
Ah so we want all the negative sentiment for saying we want to end golf but none of the positive effects of doing so? Fantastic plan!
I guess at best it might help push some courses into adopting ecologically sustainable management practices just to attract the green minded player.
It think it's more likely to foster resentment and distrust 'give the greens an inch and before you know it they'll have it's all locked in shoe boxes eating bugs' mentally that is so hard to fight against.
a very active imagination you have going there. you were going to list the positive effects, go on.
please enumerate the pro's from golf. The harms are manifold - everything from profligate water waste, terrible issues w/ fertilizer runoff, enormous amounts of land that could be used for housing, promoting a historically racist and classist sport, the harms are obvious and many. What pro's do you have that outweigh any of these cons?
The U.S. Geological Survey’s most recent water use data for Utah shows the state uses about 38 million gallons of water on golf courses per day. https://www.deseret.com/2022/3/22/22988989/an-illogical-oasis-golf-course-water-usage-st-george-golf
Audubon International estimates that the average American course uses 312,000 gallons per day. In a place like Palm Springs, where 57 golf courses challenge the desert, each course eats up a million gallons a day. That is, each course each day in Palm Springs consumes as much water as an American family of four uses in four years.
https://www.npr.org/2008/06/11/91363837/water-thirsty-golf-courses-need-to-go-green
don't merely consider the water used - think about the power used to pump it, the power used to filter it, in the millions of gallons per day, and justify this shit.
No... not most.
According to the National Golf Foundation, 41.1 million Americans played golf – BOTH on-course and off-course – in 2022.
So only about 8%... or 12%, if you include those who participate in "off-course golf activities" alone.
Those numbers seem off. Everybody in my entire life I'm probably 1/2 of the people I've met are golfers. Every city IVs lived has been able to support multiple golf courses.
Your anecdotal evidence says a lot more about the kind of people you surround yourself with than anything else. 60% of people in the US are still living paycheck to paycheck; many don't have the time or the money for even the cheaper entry fees, especially when you consider having to buy/rent clubs.
Plus... why would an organization like the NGF downplay the number of golfers when their goal is literally to research and promote golfing?
Lol wtf they're not all playing 100 year old country clubs. Every town has municipal owned courses and a pawn shop
For someone named touching grass you sure are completely disconnected from reality
Why is everybody here behaving like a bunch of cunty redditors.
All I've said is I know a lot of golfers and every city I've lived supported multiple courses. And that some battles aren't worth fighting. One guy called me racist.
Username checks out.
no it's not, objectively it's inane, historically it's racist and the apologetics in this thread are abjectly depressing.
Everything historical was racist. Relax
Everything?
The Underground Railroad.
Next stupid response? Don't worry, I'm gonna block you, I won't see it much less bother.
No need to announce this stuff. I'd prefer if you did.
I thought cricket was the most boring sport in existence.
It sucks because it's such a big sport here in Scotland, it's strange that people use the defense other things are worse to make it seem like it's not a problem. It's mainly stupid since there are plenty of other spots that have the similar qualities, without the masses of land lost and wasted water.
I also think it's funny just how much it costs to go golfing, some courses here in Scotland have a membership system with like silver, gold and platinum.
It feels like a very elitist way to price a sport, and no I would rather not spend a months wage per year to hit a ball down a field for a year, mini golf is much cheaper, more enjoyable and environment friendly, and I'll be just as shit as I would be at golf.
IMO, rectangle sports are the most boring sports in existence. It's literally a rectangle and always a rectangle every time... And everyone stands around watching the exact same shit happening inside the perfectly constructed rectangle. It's the same thing, over and over. Not only that but millions of people say they love sports, but they don't even play, just stare at a glowy rectangle and watch people in a rectangle run around. You can't define a more boring sport than that. At the very bare minimum, to spice things up, how about introducing some goddamn obstacles randomly placed in the rectangle. Add some actual dynamic scenarios that keep the players on their toes and trying to come up with new strategies.
Motocross and enduro racing are sports and so is golf. Golf courses are all different, they unique, dynamic change depending on temperature, weather, grass length, wind, dew point, hole location.
But I do agree in general, golf courses are very big waste. Especially when placed in the middle of deserts or places that require significant resources to maintain.
Dude you can describe anything this way to make it sound boring, but that doesn't even get close to reality and I think you know that deep down. I don't even like sports and this is a senselessly reductive way of framing the discussion.
IMO, rectangle phone screens are the most boring screens in existence. It's literally a rectangle and always a rectangle every time... And everyone hold it around watching the exact same shit happening inside the perfectly constructed rectangle. It's the same thing, over and over. Not only that but millions of people say they love their phone, but they don't even post, just stare at a glowy rectangle and watch people in a rectangle posts around. You can't define a more boring screen than that. At the very bare minimum, to spice things up, how about introducing some goddamn obstacles randomly placed in the rectangle. Add some actual dynamic scenarios that keep the owners on their toes and trying to come up with new strategies.
Soccer fields are affected by temperature, weather, state of grass, wind, etc. too. So are football and baseball fields. Baseball fields are all unique. Cricket fields are round.
That said, there are obstacles in those identical rectangles. But unlike golf, these obstacles can move and think! They are called opponents and believe it or not, they can often be more dynamic than a tree or pond!
Yeah i might enjoy soccer if players got to run around with roman candles firing them at each other
Goalies get three mortar shells per match
Soccer just needs to adopt some rules from hockey and it would be more entertaining.
Soccer doesn't even have the entertaining fights that hockey has. The soccer players just crumple to the ground screaming in (fake) pain as soon as anything remotely touches them. Every time.
The fans more than make up for the players
I've always wondered why we don't really have hooligans in the US. Not just for soccer/football, but any sport. I wonder if Hockey fans' thirst for violence is quenched by the fights in hockey, and that's why there is no Hockey hooligans or something.
We got Raiders fans who are pretty close, though.
There's a university not far from me that regularly burns couches for big games. Two years in a row, fans have taken uprights from football stadiums and thrown them in lakes/rivers. There's usually a game or two per year that cars get flipped or other vandalism.
The NFL is really good at killing reporting, but fights among fans are fairly common and people have died this year from them.
The US has hooligans.
Fair points. Yea I guess we just got our own breed of them. I think the only reason it's really different is that most of the fan bases are too separated to do the gang fight thing like they do in some places.
It's like you don't even believe in Philadelphia sports teams.
Lmao you are right. It's the same thing just dumb drunk fans doing dumb things. The difference is that our obnoxious fans are spread out enough that they don't meetup and have gang fights too often. Ours mostly just fuck their own cities up.
A man was recently killed in the Patriots stadium after an away fan sucker punched him. US sports definitely have "hooligans".
While horrible that still sounds nothing like hooligans that will literally contact each other and arrange a meeting somewhere near the stadium before/after the match to beat each other up with home made weapons.
I think the true reason is that in the US that would just immediately devolve into gun shootouts and that's probably too much for anyone.
Bruh Philadelphia burns down every time they win something big
Plenty of college football stadium goalposts are designed to be easily replaced because fans will storm the field and take them down/home with them after big wins
Yea I know all about this. It's still a different thing than gangs forming around teams and then meeting up to have a large scale fight. I guess guns and the fact that the fan bases are spread out kind of keep everybody from considering that idea in the US.
They could just use the old rules
Like what happened in Pasadena, 1994.
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I'm not a fan of watching sports myself, but you're ignoring a big part of it: The strategy behind it and its execution. But apart from that, I think most people just want to feel like a part of something and cheering on a team is an easy way to do that.
You just gave me an idea...
Soccer on a square field, four teams playing against one another, scoring in the nets closest to yours gives one point, in the net facing yours gives 2 points. Imagine the chaos!
Aussie rules football is all that you describe, but on an oval.
Oh my god the ball goes in the hole, such complexity noooo my brain is going to explodeeeeeee.
It's a sport?
I mean... E-sports exists so I guess the word "sport" doesnt actually mean physical exercise, just competitive elements, apparently
Esports is considered an activity rather than a sport according to my states school system. What is the difference between a sport and an activity? I couldn't find their definitions lol.
And we out here just lost in the mix. lol
I would say activity is a huge encapsulating word that all sports, games, clubs, etc fall under.
Sport to me is an intensive competitive activity.
I would like to also say team based, but wrestling, track, and swimming would be absent from such a definition. Similarly, if you were to say outdoors most winter sports would be excluded.
With my definition you could argue for games like Chess to be intensive and competitive. I’m unsure. I think it changes depending on the level of play. At the end of the day, the only people who really care about exact definitions are those in administration deciding what activity gets what.
I think your definition is great, wrestling is sort of team based and you still have an active opponent
I like to think of golf, bowling, and esports as competitive pastimes.
I mean, you technically move your body when you're hitting the ball and then when you walk to the golf cart.
I do that when I go to the kitchen to eat something. I move my body and walk to the kitchen
By definition, that's a sport. :D
Hey, it takes skill to scoop ice cream. That's why you have to do it for kids. Getting ice cream from your freezer is a sport.
Is your kitchen outdoors and carpeted in lush green grass? Do you have a lawn mower come through your kitchen every two days? Do you have sprinklers that douse your kitchen lawn at 5 o'clock every morning?
It might be. You don't know that.
Christ, this acktually again 🤦♀️
Honestly, I never thought of it as a sport. That was actually a genuine question 😂
I MUST KEEP BIGGERING I'M TINKERING ON BIGGERING AND BIGGERING IS TRIGGERING MORE BIGGERING
No need to worry. As soon as real estate prices go up those golf courses will be repurposed for other needs.
Don't underestimate the capacity of rich people to flaunt their excesses, while the people are suffering in scarcity.
Nothing to do about the rich.
Though my comment was made moreso as a tongue-in-cheek type of comment, I'm also just stating facts that I've actually seen with my own eyes.
I live on a part in the planet that used to have plenty of golf courses (and movie drive-ins for that matter), and now they're all gone, because as more population moved into the area, more real estate was needed for housing.
This is interesting. Out of curiosity, did the golf courses use to be more affordable back then?
I couldn't tell you if land back then was less expensive, or that land today is worth so much that you make more money selling it to build houses on it versus running the golf course.
Yeah, I've watched two golf courses within 30 minutes of me make way for multifamily residential, some for age restricted residential.
The majority of courses in my area are built on old farms, though.
https://youtu.be/Z4w7H48tBS8
Ahh, beat me to it.
We miss ya, George.
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HOW BAD CAN I POSSIBLY BEEEEEEEE????!!!!????
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/28/golf-good-walk/
I know this thread is a bit old, but I used to be an irrigation tech at a 27 hole golf course. Just wanted to throw some numbers out there for anyone interested. This was in a hot climate for reference. During the wet season, we would pump out anywhere from 200,000 gallons to 600,000 of water per night. During the summer or droughts, we would pump 750,000-1,500,000 gallons of water PER NIGHT. During the day, especially during droughts, I had to go around spot watering everything all day. I could easily pump 150,000 gallons during the day on top of what we pumped at night. During a hot week with no rain, our average was around 10.5 million gallons of water. Our course used "reclaimed water" but the majority of the water was supplemented by the city supply. We only got the reclaim license because of some favors and shady deals to lower our taxes.
It's green space conservation. Always nice to see in the urban jungle.
I am playing https://stickwarlegacyapk.net/
Hating a sport for rich people is not classist holy shit xD I guess I've gotta watch my language or I might offend a person of means
It does, it's not my fault if you didn't get it
I'm so sorry, I'll try to be more civil with PoMs next time <3
Grass, when it's the only thing in a lawn, is not good for the ecosystem.
Worth it
As someone that lives in the second flattest state and is surrounded by corn and soy field, and doesn't play golf, this doesn't affect me one bit. Bye.
Thank you for sharing
🤓
Lol Lemmy is officially scraping the bottom of the barrel to ensure nothing in society unrelated to giving your whole self to another lazy person is left. hahaha