Equal Parts Hobby and Sport

When Tiger Woods was penalized for an improper drop this past April, he was docked two strokes during the middle of my slumberous Saturday morning. Friends texted me, asking what Tiger did wrong and assuming oft-forgotten golf rules would halt his chase at another major victory.

It was extremely tough to explain (and for some, it was not a worthy answer) that the world’s best player should have probably known better. Alas, the replies saddened as what I received generally leaned toward, “That’s why I don’t really like golf.”

It’s true; the firm rules of golf can turn the passive golfer into a non-golfer. As a golf writer, I should be preaching the hard, fast, strict rules of the game, but golf doesn’t have to be a sport where rules serve as a means for not playing or disgust. That’s because golf can many times be less of a sport and more of a hobby. This is part of its global attraction.

Football, for example, classifies as a sport just about 100 percent of the time. No sane person I know takes to the gridiron each week, running plays as a hobby. Golf, on the other hand, is probably a sport closer to half of the time and hobby or educational tool for the other half.

There is competition in golf when there needs to be competition. Many times, it’s friendly competition, but competition nonetheless. Underlying that competition is the hobby of smacking a dimpled ball across acres and acres of well-clipped grasses and shaped landscapes.

Last week’s Golf Page glorified the competition side of golf, but in the end, there is so much more to the game than hitting a ball into a cup and abiding by the 34 numerals of rules and their lettered subsections.

Golf as a hobby is the reason there are top 100 course rankings, detailing the best places to play. They show which courses are so beautiful and tempting that they actually help distract us from the shrinking amount of balls in our bag.

Golf as a hobby is the reason there’s a clubhouse, halfway house and beverage cart enticing you with drink offers every hour spent on campus. It’s the reason there are foursomes that play every Sunday morning at 9:40 am. It’s also the reason those foursomes turn into a one-some as the sun sets over Green Bay.

Golf as a hobby is also the reason I can whisk into adulthood with the golf clubs my grandfather gave me nearly a decade ago, riding in same cart as Grandpa Zak as he tries to make birdie for the first time in 2013.

For every moment that golf is a sport, it is a hobby just as much. The competition side of golf should be appreciated, but no more or less than the relaxing pastime aspect.

When your playing partner asks you to take a drop after your great drive trickled inches beyond the out of bounds line, remind him that golf is a hobby. Oblige to his rule wishes (remember, golf is a sport). Just make sure he buys you a sandwich later from the food cart.