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When did you fall in love with golf?

When I was about 6, my dad took me for a walk on the golf course behind my grandmother's house. He was carrying a golf club, and soon found a ball in the woods. He brought it out onto the fairway and hit it onto the green from (in my mind looking back) about 200 yards. The flight of that ball had me hooked immediately, and I begged him for golf clubs. When we got back home, he cut down 3 of his old clubs and let me play a few holes, and I've been in love with the game ever since.
 
After the first time I went on a course, it was a small pitch and putt, we shared his old set of copper clubs. Just really enjoyed it
 
I was 50, and my son was 12 and he got interested in it. It was love at first slice. I was god awful, but stuck with it. Now at 63 I am somewhat adequate. Never a long hitter, i practice my short game incessantly and it doesn't require youth or athleticism to develop a good one.
 
It was about three years ago that I fell in love candidly. I had dabbled early on in my life, but money and time constraints prevented me from putting too much time into it. Then I quit competitive softball and needed something to do in order to keep the juices flowing, and decided I wanted to take up golf seriously. At that point I was hooked and here I am.... Really wish it would have happened earlier in my life, but I'm having a blast with it now.
 
While I like and enjoy golf I personally don't think I could ever go as far as to say I fell in love with golf. Love is too strong of a word for my like and enjoyment of the sport. There are even some things about golf that I don't love. But hey that's just me.
 
Summer of 1994. I'd been playing intermittently with friends for about 3 years. I enjoyed it, but never really made that connection with the game. That summer, I decided to take a week off for my birthday, and determined I would play a quick round every morning at a favorite (then only 9 holes) par 3 course. I don't think there was a specific moment that caused it, but at some point on the third day, as I was walking from the tee to my approach shot on one of the par 4s, it struck me, and I thought, "Damn, I'm really enjoying the sh*t out of this. I could do this every day."
 
Thread has inspired me to go back to where I had my first round on Sunday. I say round it was 6 holes.
No dad though he only ever played for work
 
June 1999. MrsOG, being Filipino, wanted to try playing. If you play in the Philippines, you're considered rich so she always had wanted to try.

I borrowed a set from a friend and we went out to the Par 3, 9 hole course on Hickam AFB. I was hooked from the beginning. She didn't play enough to get beyond the beginner's frustration and gave up.

Now that our kids are getting bigger, I'll likely get her a lesson or two one day and try to get her motivated again.

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My Pop would play 9 holes most work days after work & I'd join him to pull his cart and watch him. I was 14. One day after a few holes he asked me if I wanted to hit the golf ball. He had brought along Moms 5 iron & wood shafted mallet putter for me to hit. I was knocked over by him surprising me with what he did. First couple swing weren't even close, but putting was easy and I took to putting like a fish to water. The next hole he dropped another ball and when I addressed the ball he gave me some swing advise, ball position and swing speed advise. The swing advise was "don't try to kill it, this ain't baseball, its golf. Take away slow and just watch the ball". Impact felt great, and when I looked up the ball was flying, at least to my eyes, grear and was a good shot. The smile on Pops face is burnt into my memory. That was it, I was hooked. Pop even said "well looks like I have playing partner". That's when my golfing started.

I cherish, and think of all the great playing days we had together for the next 48 years till Pop past.
 
I started playing at at age 11 and my dad and brother soon took up the game.
My freshman summer of college, after dinner I would go to the course where we were fortunate to belong. The purpose was to play the 3-4 toughest holes for me using 3-4 balls on each shot.
Handicap dropped from a 13 to a 5.
 
I was 5 when my grandfather cut down two old clubs for me... a hickory shafted 4-iron and a steel shafted 9-iron from the '60's. He taught me to chip in his raspberry garden, then I played on course a time or two with my parents and grandparents, and the hook was set for life. We moved to NY from Oregon the next summer after he cut those clubs down for me, and a year or two after that he passed away without my being able to see him again. Being so young, I have only a few memories of my grandfather, and they all revolve around his cutting those clubs down for me and teaching me how to hold the club. I am so thankful that my memories of him are so vivid, and his love for golf is a lifelong gift passed down to both my father and myself.

I can remember playing Progress Downs in Portland OR at age 5 in 1983. And practicing on the range. Today Progress Downs is called RedTail Golf Course.
 
I rarely golfed at all growing up maybe once or twice a year in high school and college. Then about 4 years ago some buddies invited me to go on a golf trip and and we golf 36 holes each day of the weekend, after that i was hooked.
 
We had a nasty fight on Saturday but fell in love again on Sunday. Can't say it is a healthy relationship. We need couples therapy.
 
Late Spring - 1974- Harrington Golf Club- Harrington, Washington

I was 16 years old, working at a Chevron gas station in a small farming town (Reardan, WA) after school and on weekends to make money to buy a car. (yep, back in those days parents didn't always buy the car for their kids)
The mechanic (Herm Wagner) introduced me to the game. He offered to take me to the 9 hole course in Harrington, another small farming town 18 miles away.
We drove to the course on a sunny and warm Spring day where I rented a bag of clubs and bought 2 sleeves of Top Flite balls. Herm said I would need a lot more than that, but he had a bag of shag balls with him and would keep me playing for the round with them.
We hit the driving range to see if I could even make contact with a golf ball. I played a lot of baseball and tennis in high school, so I had pretty good hand eye coordination as it turns out.
Big ole' banana slices, one after another on the range started the flames lightly flickering. When we hit the course and I hit the first drive, it actually when pretty straight about 150 yards down the fairway and my passion for the game ignited into a raging inferno.
Herm took me for another round the following weekend and I knew....I had to play this game.
Two weeks later I took a chunk of my savings and got my dad to drive me to Pay-n-Pak where I bought a set of Spalding Championship clubs(1-3 wood, 3-5-7-9 irons, blade putter) a bag, a glove, some tees and a dozen Jack Nicklaus Golden Bear balls. (the car could wait)
For the next 3 years, Herm and I played almost every weekend and sometimes we would get off work early on Wednesdays and get 9 holes in.
Herm passed away several years ago and it really pains me as an adult that I never really thanked him enough for introducing me to the game of golf.


That inferno still burns as hot today as it did in 1974.
 
I was 9 or 10.... playing with my grandparents, who taught both my brother and me. Never a day goes by I don’t think of them them.

I’ll never be great.... but the game is.
 
It was probably 5 or 6 years ago, I had started playing golf pretty regularly that summer and I really found a new respect for the game. A while after I found THP and the rest is history...
 
Probably when I was 25. Had been playing very irregularly two years, maybe just a handful of times during the summer and only at an executive course. Never practiced, just liked to goof around and hang with the guys.

When the good shots became less and less of an accident, then I was hooked.

Although an admittedly low percentage of the time, but when I managed to pull off nearly exactly what I'd intended, I was gobsmacked by a welling addiction. Because the competitor within me just knew that I could figure it out.

Shame on me, that same competitor within me very much wanted to figure it out on his own, though. So I very stubbornly embarked upon my own personal quest to decipher the mechanics of the swing, learn to develop and rely on feel, then actually play the game of golf, sans formal instruction.

It's been a ride.
 
Now I'm just a beginner in golfing. But I used to play golf once per month at least. I really enjoy this game because nothing else except golf could make me feel so good. I try not to skip a game. For a beginner, I already know quite enough about the game. And to me, I've found the most useful information about golf here https://golfclubguru.net/the-best-golf-clubs-for-tall-men/ . It has helped me to choose the golf right equipment and other things for golf.
 
Played it since I was 12 or so. Spent summers at the local club in London, KY. I would literally get dropped off at 9 am at the swimming pool with my golf clubs, a towel, and some swim trunks and hang out there till my mom picked me up on the way home from work at 5. I would play 9, then swim or vice versa, but I really just enjoyed hanging with my buddies. When I turned 15 I started working in the pro shop and I could start driving a cart. I grew up in Eastern, KY so walking our course was possible, but not desirable. At that point I reall started getting into playing because it didn't seem like such a chore anymore. That's when I fell in love with the game. I also fell in love with equipment then too. While I worked there the Big Bertha War Bird, TaylorMade Burner Bubble, Mizuno MP-14's, and Titleisdt DCI's were all released and people came in and out of the shop with them all. I traded clubs a lot and hit nearly everything from that era.
 
Playing in the summer in my early teens. A friend and I would get dropped off at the club by our parents on their way to work then we'd play 18, have lunch and play another 18. I'd kill to have the time to do that now.
 
Golf and I went out on a few dates, but I was a kid. I couldn't be tied down to just one sport. I was a player!!! I needed a bit of everything because I didn't know what I wanted in a sport. I dabbled in basketball, volleyball, baseball and football, but golf, well, there was just something special about her. She probably had my heart from the 1st round around 1980, but I kept leaving her. I would go chase another hobby, but I always came back to that little ball of love. And sometime in my 30's I committed to her and I knew that it was a relationship that was going to last. Sure, we have had our ups and downs, our ins and out, our lost and found balls, but we are in this thing for the long haul now. It is me and golf until they bury me with my clubs!!
 
Well my dad started me when I was 7ish but i wasn’t really playing or practicing till probably after 10years old. I fell in love with golf probably around 8/9 years old and although some of you are mentioning specific shots.....I fell in love with golf when my dad was taking me with him to league night every Monday in the summer. He’d let me hit a few shots here and there, get out and putt, maybe hit a drive. It wasn’t so much the act of golf itself but it was the time I was getting to spend with my dad. Getting to see how much he loved the game and then the inclusion he allowed me to have as a kid was paramount to me falling in love with the game. He never forced it on me. He never made me practice. He just wanted me to be able to enjoy just like he did. To this day...my absolute favorite time to go and play is when he is riding along in the cart with me, just the two of us. He’s 87 years old now and can’t play due to his ailing back and knees. But, it is basically heaven on earth when I get to take him out with me just the two of us. He’s the sole reason I fell in love with this game


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Its funny to me because growing up I always thought golf was the dumbest game except maybe tennis. I always swore there was no way in the world you would catch me trying to play the game. I think part of it was as a youngster I had this image in my mind of a goofy guy wearing funny pants and hats that I would not be caught dead in. It started for me when I realized I am not getting any younger and I had a baby at the time. I knew I was getting too old and would be limited what I could do sportswise with him as he grew older. I also knew golf is a game for all ages so I figured what the heck. It didn't hurt that I had a career change and picking up golf was a logical move to help with that. I kinda took to it instantly and I have heard ever since I started from multiple people(including a couple local pros) that I had some sort of natural ability and they have always been impressed with how quickly I pick things up and learn. I guess I just sort of suddenly realized how much I was enjoying myself and now am totally addicted.
 
I was 57, 8 years ago. A business associate dragged me out to a range..he wanted my business, I didn't want to golf. Previous excursions had been painful. I hit lefty and was facing him and for some reason I started to pay attention to what he was doing. I started hitting the ball. I was hooked
 
Loved the game since I first started playing about 40 years ago but truly became obsessed with it about 10 years ago.
 
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