Golf – just one of many

Visit a chain or independent bookstore. Bookstores are often harbingers of what subjects and products people are interested in buying. Walk to the sports section first and examine the titles for the different sports. There used to be a large selection but the numbers are dwindling, just like the number of golfers on courses. I used to compare it to the number of football books found on shelves and golf used to win hands down. Not any more. The NFL is trumping golf. Golf is over par.

I believe golf has become just one of many popular pastimes. Golf has ben relegated to a lower category and is being lost in the shuffle. In my younger days there were few games or sports to compete with golf. In fact, I was seen as an outlier for wanting to play “the old man’s game”. There was baseball or softball, tennis, arcade games at the local sub shop to vie for one’s attention. No cell phones were around to distract my mind. Just play outside. But because in present day, there are digital gadgets with their screens, triathlons, fly-fishing, mixed martial arts, Netflix and other minutiae to fill the day, golf is being pushed aside. Yes, people say it takes too long to play the game. I think simply that there is so much choice in the world that golf is just one of them, no longer a dominant one.

Next saunter to the magazine rack. My gosh, there is a huge selection of every topic you can think of. I went to the golf magazine section and counted 5 different titles. Then I went to fly fishing and found more than this. Then there was hiking, running, boating and any number of other offerings. Even tattoo magazines surpassed golf magazine numbers. I won’t even mention the mixed martial arts, video games and digital device magazines that expound how these gadgets haven taken over people’s time and make our lives easier. Perhaps that is why golf is no longer “Tier One” — because it is a hard game to play. A patient game to play. A time consuming game. Golf is a Leo Tolstoy novel in a short story world.

We all know that time has remained constant and individuals often have choice of how they want to spend their time. This opportunity cost has shifted from the long way to enjoy a sport like golf to snippets, small engagements that suit today’s always going mode. An hour hike, a bicycle race, Facebook surfing and Netflix bingeing.