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GOLF, what does it mean to you?

Tadashi70

Tadashi70

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I was thinking about the various games of the people o play with or have played with over the years. And it made me wonder what golf meant to each person. I know what it means to me but never asked what it meant to others. I've assumed but never really knew.

So what does golf mean to you? Is it a personal challenge? Is it time away from everyday activities? Is a form of business? Is it just to hang with the peeps you enjoy?

I think it's important to know so everyone can have a great time. If you know gambling is fun for guys in your group and you, then the experience could be enhanced. If you know your partner is just enjoying the company and course, then being intense won't work. Golf means something to everyone, what does it mean to you?
 
Its a way of life.
Don't Just Play Golf, Live It :D
 
Relaxation and fun. Last year preparing for the MC it became work and my wife told me one day "You arent enjoying golf anymore." Took that to kind of slap me in the face and wake me up. Golf has always been a way for me to get away and just enjoy time alone or with friends and have fun.
 
I think you already nailed most of my points, Mr. Kong.

Time away from the trials of life. Spending time with good friends (and because of THP, doing that with people from around the country). The challenge of a game impossible to play to perfection.
 
Its my passion. I love the game. I like to enjoy myself out there, but I am also competitive in nature and I strive to do well.
 
Relaxation, fun with friends and the personal challenge. In my previous job it was a stress relief for me. People would head to happy hour on a Friday night, I would head to the golf course as it helped me get rid of the work week. I later found the personal challenge within golf to push me even more. But in the end golf is always better when you share it with friends.
 
My grandparents taught me the game early as it was a way to connect with them growing up. It's very personal in that aspect and they used the game to teach me how to be respectful and honest. I wish I took it seriously growing up and played more, but I never really started trying to get better until recently.

As for the game itself, I love that it's a game you can never perfect, and that even if you play alone, you're still playing against the course. I am very competitive and it is a great outlet I can use for hopefully long into my life.
 
I was hooked on golf the moment I saw my dad hit a ball. We had just moved to Forest Oaks CC in Greensboro, NC and my dad was taking my brother and I for a walk around the course (I was 7). He was carrying an iron and found a ball in the rough. He plopped it on the ground and just hit it down the fairway. I was blown away!

When we moved to Orlando a few years later, I knew I wanted to play golf in school. So I bought a set of MacGregor MT irons and a 3-wood at a garage sale for $5 and started practicing the Summer between 7th and 8th grade. By the time 8th grade started, I was good enough to play for the team. I played all the way through high school but never was I good enough to even contemplate playing college.

Anyway, I've never stopped playing and I've never stopped loving this game! Golf to me mirrors life: you get out of it what you put into it. And no other sport can reveal a person's character like golf.

Golf provides highs and lows, rewards and frustration. I guess I could write several books about what golf means to me. To make it short and sweet, I'll just say that golfing with my good friends, gambling, laughing, trash talking and admiring the incredible shots they can all make... it's just one of the sweetest joys in life for me.
 
The game of a lifetime. A sense of history.
I like the fact you can never play perfectly...always room to improve.
 
KellyBo and I were discussing this yesterday. Golf is strictly a source of entertainment outside of our home. She still plays a good bit of tournament golf but still keeps the game in perspective. I still want to have a good ball striking day and seek to do so and at the same time realize my best scoring rounds will be far and in between. With that said golf is an activity to enjoy friends, beautiful days in a beautiful setting and getting out of the house. Kelly was telling me of a guy on facebook who was stricken with a rare form of cancer. The guy stated that he even missed cutting grass and other tedious activities he once despised because can't do anything. I've had my health days off from golf and just the small amount of time I was away, raised the awareness of how fortunate we are to have access to a hobby we enjoy doing. Golf is an outlet we sometimes take for granted.
 
A few thoughts, in no particular order:

I'm an introvert. "Alone time" is refreshing for me. I really enjoy walking the course on my own early in the morning. Gives me time to think, relax, detox.

As a kid and a teenager I LOVED sports and tried out for every team I could - and got cut every time. Sports just don't come easy to me. Thankfully I found the guitar in 1990 and 25 years later I still play every day.

All that said - I've never really dedicated the time and effort required to excel at any sport the way I dedicated time and effort to learning the guitar. Golf appeals to me as a new challenge. This is the first time I've dug in and committed to doing the work on anything other than music or my career and I'm really enjoying the challenge.

Lastly, introvert tendencies not withstanding, I enjoy a round with my buddies and I also enjoy meeting new people on the course.
 
Golf is my therapy from life, My way to spent time with friends, my way to relax, my time to think about life, my constant quest to improve. It has become my way of staying sane with everything life has thrown my way in the past two years. And now that I have developed the love I have for the game I couldn't imagine life without it.
 
Is it a personal challenge? Is it time away from everyday activities? Is a form of business? Is it just to hang with the peeps you enjoy?

All of these and more. It motivates me more than just about anything else to improve physically and mentally. Seeing where and I started and where I'm at now gives me both a sense of accomplishment and a panic to get better while I'm still young enough to do it.
 
This has changed for me recently.... Growing up I was better than most and it was a way to show off, to hang with the older guys and to keep me out of trouble

Now, it is a sense of therapy. A place to go to hang with my closest friends and disconnect from the world for a few hours. Its a place to go to find the satifaction in that shot that is struck perfectly and to test your mind in stressful situations. Simply put, I just love the game and respect all of my brothers and sisters who are out there with me
 
Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden

I kid I kid!!
 
I didn't realize what golf meant to me until I couldn't play for 9 months.

It really is a part of my life now. With my injuries and my body falling apart, it is the source of the majority of my exercise when I walk the course. It is also where I spend time with the few people that I actually call my friends. I look forward to any time I have left on the course and spending it with those people.

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk
 
For me, It means getting away to relax, have fun, challenge yourself and enjoy nature all at the same time.
 
Golf means two things. First, it is a chance to get away from life, enjoy the scenery and hang with friends. Second, it gives me personal drive, a chance to work at something and get better.

So it is both casual, and competitive, and I'd say my rounds are split about 50/50 between casual and competitive.

~Rock
 
It is something competitive (mostly with myself) that I really look forward to. I was a three sport athlete growing up, I played some small college football. I have always, since little league, looked forward to the game days on the calendar. Now setting tee times has really replaced that for me, having a tee time at the end of the week really gives me something competitive to look forward to.

I don't want it to sound like I don't look forward to the other things in my live, because I really do. I have been extremely blessed with a terrific wife, and three incredible children.

Golf has really replace all other sports as my competitive outlet, I love being on a golf course. Trying to make a golf ball do what you want it to do is pretty much the most difficult and most rewarding sporting activity I can think of.
 
It's an escape. It grounds me in reality.
 
Golf is just plain fun to me. I enjoy the challenge it presents, not only the challenge to beat your golfing partners, but also the challenge to beat your own personal scores.
 
Golf turned out to be much more important to me than I could ever imagine. When I started playing in the beginning of 2014 it started off as a joke. I was invited for a golf-holiday in Spain by some friends who have been playing for years. As I didn't want to sit in the buggy for a week, I bought a set. Not to really take up golf, but just to hit a couple of shots over there. But once started hitting, my life was never the same again...

Golf became a form of relaxation I can't find anywhere else. It's an escape from a really hectic work life, and an even more hectic personal life. I've had quite a rough year, and golf almost turned out to be some sort of therapy for me. When I'm on the course alone, I can reflect on the serious issues in life, without ever having negative thoughts. I can put things in perspective, see what I'm doing wrong, and make clear, well thought off decisions. I just enjoy being out there, having the me-time. It provides me with much needed fresh air, as I'm sitting in an office all day.

When I play with friends/colleagues, and there's always laughter, no matter what we're going trough outside of the course (i.e. divorces, lay-offs, deaths). We just enjoy the game and each others company. The jokes, conversations and general banter are just priceless.

In terms of the game-aspect: I just love the challenge the game gives. I've always been involved in high-level team sports, but I love the fact there's no one to blame but me in golf. There's only one person responsible for my result, for my progress, and that's something I really like.
 
I think folks have covered it well.

It's a chance to escape from life for a bit. There are few things that compare in this world to the feeling of being out on an early, quiet spring morning on a nicely manicured course.

The fun you have with great friends (especially THP friends) is hard to beat.

The challenge of trying to beat an unbeatable game.
 
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