so is golf seen as a goofing off activity or what?

[zeg]

I think some of the stigma is that golf can only really be played at times that conflict with "work time." A guy who goes to the gym can get his workout done and still be in the office at 9am. A guy who plays basketball has a pick-up game after 5pm and before dinner. Golf, even with an early start, probably ties you up until mid-morning. It's hard to find a ~4 hour block of time (maybe 5 or more including transportation and shower) that doesn't mean missing some of the 9-5 core.

[Cussin hacker]

I'm no Obama fan, but I say more power to him if he wants to play golf. We all need something to take our minds off day to day stress. I'm sure the President could use a few hours of golf to wind down once in a while like anyone else.

[dozu]

this game is indeed a past time for the retired.... having played tennis for the past 20 years and golf for the past 5, I have to say that golf is a little rediculous game compared to tennis.

With tennis, I can grab a buddy and run each other's ass all over the court for 1.5 hours and that is enough endorphine good for a couple of days. With golf, 1.5 hours you'd be luck you are on the 5th hole.

A game like tennis is more versatile- different shots require completely different techniques.. Golf is like having to hit a tennis forehand on a dime everytime.

The dimension of the tennis court is build more reasonable for the human brain. a slight miss-hit can still produce enjoyable results. the size of the racket and the ball are built more reasonable also. The golf equipment however, with the small ball and the small club head, and you are required to swing the thing at 100mph and hit the ball thru the gut of a worm (that's what golf courses look like on google earth). That's why at the driving range, all these people do look like goof-offs, they all repeat the same motion, over and over and over.

The reason why golf is so addicting, simply has to do with human brain's dopamine release mechanism - the release dose is the heaviest upon 'random' rewards.... in other words, if golf is designed to use a tennis racket size club head to hit a tennis ball size object into a tennis court like dimension of course, every shot will always be hit on the sweet spot with balls always land in the fairway, the human brain will lose interest, and the dopamine release will be much lower. We all have this experience, you can wack a bucket of balls left and right, and it's that 1 ball you drill on the screw straight and far that makes you feel like on top of the world and that makes you come back the next day.

That's what golf is... a game designed to be addictive for the goof-off people.