Golf - The Sport For All Ages.

The other day I was talking with our neighbor, Art, and once again realized what an incredible sport Golf is. Art, you see, is 86 years old and still plays golf about once a week. As he said, he doesn't hit it very far anymore, and he usually doesn't finish all 18 holes. But, he loves every minute with a golf club in his hand, swinging away at that little white ball.

After my conversation with Art, I thought it would be good to point out here on Golf Talk how fortunate we are to have golf in our lives. It is an activity that we can enjoy with our spouse, kids, friends, business contacts or colleagues...or complete strangers. What's really great is that they may be strangers at the beginning of a round of golf, but they'll be buddies by the end of it. What other pursuit in life can you say those things about? There may be one, but I'm not familiar with it.

Heck, you don't even have to play the game in order to enjoy it. Many of the millions of viewers who tune in to watch Lorena, Tiger, Anika, Jack, Paula, Arnie, Phil, VJ and all the other magnificent PGA and LPGA golfers have never swung a golf club in their life...never felt that little thrill each of us gets watching a golf ball getting smaller sailing down the fairway after we struck it cleanly. Those fans still appreciate the skill and discipline it takes to play really good golf. Watching the people at the Frys.com Open recently was a graphic illustration of just how much we enjoy watching the best players execute their art.

What professional sport - other than golf - offers the opportunity to stand a few feet away from its best players in the world, almost within arms length sometimes, while he or she sets up out on the fairway to hit an approach shot to the green? The closest one I can think of is basketball - if you can afford to spend a thousand bucks for a front row seat.

One of my regrets is that I wasn't playing golf when our kids were small, so I didn't have the chance to teach them the grand old game. Now that they are grown up with careers and children of their own, it's difficult for them to get the time and interest. But I'm workin' on 'em.

So, here's to Golf, Art, and my old buddy Dick in California who has been playing golf "only on days that end in Y" since WWII.

Hit ‘em long, straight and often!

Thanks for stopping by Golf Talk.


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