What did you give up once you got addicted to golf?

[mcanadiens]

Probably watching football on tv. I'll admit I'm letting the grass grow a little longer now as well.

[Wisguy]

Cycling. The summer I started playing golf, I was doing 15-20 mile rides 3-4 nights or mornings a week on my road bike and would do a 50-70 miler both Saturday and Sunday mornings with a club that had a lot of fun people right at my level. Then I moved and partially from golf replacing cycling, partially from a new cycling club that seemed to be filled entirely with people who were either too casual or too competitive of cyclists and weren't fun to ride with, I was down to maybe 30 miles a week on average the following summer. The past few summers, I've had my road bike out only about 4 times a season. Having a kid cut back my golf tremendously. A decade ago I played probably 4-8 times a month. The first three years after my daughter was born, I think I played a round by myself on Father's Day and then maybe 1 to 3 rounds on a week-long annual family vacation, and that was it for the entire year. Last year I played maybe 12-15 rounds, more than doubling the annual amount of golf I played. This summer with a whole bunch of vacations and out-of-town trips clogging up my schedule, I probably played only about 6 or 7 18-hole rounds and maybe another half dozen 9-hole (or fewer) rounds with my daughter, who has been playing for two years now. If I was really industrious about it, I could probably have played a bit more, but I don't regret one iota devoting my time to my family instead of golf. The way I figure it, I've got a few short years to enjoy with my kid before she becomes a teenager who is too busy with her own extracurriculars and friends to want or be able to spend much time with mom and dad (I've gotten her into golf to provide at least the potential for spending time together on the golf course throughout her youth). I'll have decades after she's off to college and out of the house to play more golf, but I've only got a finite amount of time to spend with her enjoying her childhood. Sure I could probably have begged out of some of those trips to the zoo, the library, to a nature center or state park, to her various sports, music and dance lessons or recitals, to an apple orchard, or just spending a few mornings teaching her how to play checkers and chess, and played golf away from the family instead. Sure I could have tried to lower my scores, which have grown worse, not better, over the past decade, but hitting a few more greens wouldn't give me as much satisfaction as seeing my daughter's excited smile as she picks some really unique pumpkins out of a 20 acre pumpkin patch. I bet a lot of the dads who play a lot more golf than I do get to hear "You're the greatest dad in the world" just once a year in a Father's Day card. That's not a worthwhile tradeoff for me.

[rkim291968]

I'll admit I'm letting the grass grow a little longer now as well.

A lot longer for me and finally decided to hire a hand.