If golf did not exist, and I were to cut a 4¼” hole in the ground, give you some metal sticks and a small ball, put you 400 yards from that hole, and tell you that a decent “player” of this new sport would expect to get the ball in the hole in about four strokes, you’d surely laugh.
Sometimes, I struggle to fathom “golf.” I play to less than a 9 handicap. I break 80 fairly regularly on a course sloped at 135 or so. In fact, I am disappointed if I don’t break 80. 80 strokes to bash a little ball with metal sticks over four miles, holing it 18 times along the way.
A long home run might travel 450 feet. That’s a 7-iron for many people, and good players expect to hit their “home run” 7-irons to within three to four bleacher seats of the hole. I stand in awe sometimes, not of my own ability, but of mankind’s. Of a beginner’s ability to get their first par, of Tom Kite’s ability to get up and down from nearly anywhere inside of 100 yards, and from Daly’s or Woods’ or Kuehne’s ability to blast a ball. 300+ yards. On the fly.
With a metal stick.
Yeah I agree with you. Golf is awesome.
What struck me the most reading that is the fact that people want pin-point accuracy with their 7-iron and most pros expect it. To imagine that Barry Bonds could even possibly pin point the landing point of one of his home runs to that kind of degree is unthinkable. Then again, I’ve never played baseball. It just struck me.