Golf is like life

A good walk spoiled?

Photo by ping lee on Unsplash

I was driving home from the golf course several weeks ago musing about my round and all those missed opportunities, when it suddenly struck me that golf is a bit like life. How incredibly perceptive I thought until a search later revealed that golfers and writers alike, came to the same conclusion a long time ago. I even found poetry on the subject, although rhyme seems to denigrate the meaning a bit.

Famous thoughts

Bobby Jones, who won the golf grand slam in 1930 (the 4 major events at the time) said a now famous quote.

Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots — but you have to play the ball where it lies.

This sounds like a golfing version of making your bed and then having to lie in it.

John Updike (US author of the Rabbit series, Witches of Eastwick, to name a few) was a keen golfer who once said,

Golf would be truly like life only if, some players were using tennis rackets and hockey pucks, some were teeing off backward from the green to the tee, and some thought the object of the game was to spear other players with the flagsticks.”