The original game as invented by bored semi-drunk Scots was, I’m sure, a good laugh several hundred years ago with wee sticks and a random round thing.
The modern game and all its hideous capitalist/ classist cultural connotations is fucked.
The original game as invented by bored semi-drunk Scots was, I’m sure, a good laugh several hundred years ago with wee sticks and a random round thing.
Robin Williams did a great bit on this.
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I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Thanks I’ll have a look.
I have it on good authority that golf was in fact invented by Bandrobas Took during the Battle of Greenfields.
🙄 modern home is just as accessible as any sport that requires gear eg hockey. Even more so. You folks just looking for enemies.
Cope harder
Tell me that you’re poor without telling me that you’re poor.
Tell me you’re an asshole without telling me you’re an asshole.
Tell me you’re American without telling me you’re American.
Hating poor people is as American as you can get. You should fit right in.
Well, not American, but I can tell you are a Classist asshole.
Uh, what?
How dare someone be poor! Anyone who makes that choice is doing it to be offensive!
Why does it matter if they’re poor or not?
Didn’t you know? If you’re poor, you’re supposed to be ashamed of it because it means you didn’t try hard enough to not be poor.
Jesus HATES poor people. It’s the American Way!
Drag’em, squiddy
Basically what they’re really saying here is that anyone with money would agree with them and have no issues with the negative impacts of golf because it’s something that all financially well-off people enjoy. Therefore, if you have any issue with golf in any way, it must be because you don’t have the money to enjoy it, because every single person that ever lived is in love with golf, and the only reason anyone might have for not golfing is lack of funds.
Of course the nonsense needs no explanation, but that’s the angle they were going for, and why they’re rightly being ridiculed for it.
For someone who spends so much time talking about growing up in poverty, this is a surprisingly callous thing to say.
Poverty sucks. Don’t be poor.
Depression sucks. Don’t be depressed.
Does that work too?
Ofc.
You have to be joking.
tell me you’re a classist prick with more money than sense, oh no, wait, you’ve already done so.
Well, I recently learned of the existence of Excel competitions, so I’m not sure about the ‘most boring’ part.
Some people really excel at spreadsheets.
Jus’ gonna leave this here:
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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If you don’t see the beauty in the orchestrated beauty of Excel macros and formulae, then there’s no helping you.
What about VBA? Remote data? Python?
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Nope, this is better than golf.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
That’s horrifying, if you have the forbidden knowledge of what people only program in excel is capable of
Mini-golf is actually kind of fun.
Mini-golf is actually kind of fun.
It’s a lot of fun, and you don’t need any nukes to enjoy it either.
Maybe not need…
Maybe not need…
True enough.
There’s always that one hole where you have to hit the ball hard enough so it goes around the vertical loop ramp but not too hard so that it then bounces at the right angle to get anywhere near the area of the hole that’s blocked by a whole bunch of strategically placed pieces of wood.
On that hole I would consider using a nuke.
Speak for yourself
The mini-golf nuclear proliferation organization has spoken.
Mini golf is superior and should be the default golf. As in, it shouldn’t have a descriptor. It should just be called golf.
And what is called golf now should be called big golf or field golf or something like that to show how nonsensical it is.
Most of the times I played it, my group is enjoying themselves on holes 1-5, is getting tired of being held up by the group in front of us for holes 6-12, and is getting noticeably bored by hole 13, but feel like we have to finish it. It’s a game that starts fun and becomes obligation.
I’m told Top Golf is fun too.
Wait until you hear about the laws in place that guarantee them access to water their fields no matter the drought. Nobody has heard of an unkempt golf course.
Not just that, but I found a few golf courses in my city where natural habitats used to be. These place could have easily been changed into nature parks for the local residents to go wind down a bit, but noooOOOooo. Some rich assholes had to buy the land and destroy the ecosystem so they could whack a ball around some fucking grass into a little hole.
Would there be a difference to the sport if a part of the land was just left natural? I expect it would make the sport more interesting, atleast to the spectators.
It was invented in Scotland. Where there’s grass everywhere and almost no trees. Why not just play in natural landscapes that are suited for the game?
The golf course near me has spent the last month about a foot underwater.
I have never been so smug. I hope it’s ruined.
Las Vegas has something like 70 golf courses wasting inordinate amounts of water. Of course most houses also have outside private swimming pools too.
Vegas actually is a poor example, they have excellent water management policy even in spite of what is typically considered wasteful. Being so far down the Colorado River Basin kinda made being experts on the subject a necessity.
Of course it has excellent water management because otherwise they’d run out. Doesn’t mean that everyone having pools and so many golf courses is anyway defensible, or doesn’t put insane stress on the supply.
I don’t think they’re saying golf courses in the desert are defensible. I think they’re saying that Nevada does better water conservation job than other nearby states (I believe Utah is the worst per capita) and has not nearly as much impact on the colorado river, so there’s probably bigger fish to go after in terms of saving water than Las Vegas. When you get down to it like >80% of the water use out west is agriculture. If you’re going to make significant savings you have to tackle agriculture practices. Not that you shouldn’t clamp down on the golf courses too (I totally think they should, just deal with the artificial turf golfers if you want to golf in the middle of an arid desert and go golf in the scottish highlands if you want real grass), it just probably wouldn’t help all that much in the grand scheme of things even if golf courses didn’t exist at all. Surprisingly the best thing to do to conserve water would be to reduce meat consumption, most of what’s grown is for livestock feed not human consumption.
Right. Lake Mead is sure looking lovely these days.
Lake mead is being drained from the other direction into Utah and you’d have known that before commenting if you’d actually looked that shit up before going to say something that spectacularly unaware of what’s going on.
Vegas actually net zeros their allotment of the water share every year, as far as Mead is considered, Vegas almost doesn’t exist.
the whole “net-zero allotment of water shares” bit is about as accurate as “flint water is within regulation guidelines of lead”
Vegas got it’s “net zero” by appropriating the water shares of surrounding regions via the magic of lobbying
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every golf course could be a lovely botanical garden/park or arboretum, with little paths every which way and carefully crafted scenery to make you feel like you’re inside a disney movie
You see this?
I used to hike along the coast there quite regularly but someone decided it was much better to turn the whole thing into a gulf course and to illegally block access to locals.
AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING ON EACH SIDE. Seattle estimated they could solve the housing crisis by closing a handful of their muni courses (leaving multiple municipal and a dozen private courses in the area) and building medium density housing there. Solving a critical need by getting rid of a few locations for a dying sport:
https://www.theurbanist.org/2019/06/12/unlike-seattle-golf-really-is-dying/
It’s a waste of space otherwise.
Most of the golf courses near me are pretty much this - densely forested areas with meticulously landscaped little gardens, which happens to have some holes built in.
A lawn is not a garden.
Correct. I’m not talking about lawns.
Golf courses are lawns.
So you just didn’t read my first comment in this thread then
Please post a picture of this golf course with no lawns
Oh I get it now, your reading comprehension is just poor.
This.
Please. For the love of God don’t let this lazy comment cliché migrate to here.
As an environmentalist, fuck Kentucky bluegrass, fuck golf, and fuck lawns while we’re at it
BUT ITS SPORT BRO AND MY DAD PLAY D IT ONCE
I agree lawns are dumb but from an environmental perspective they can be net carbon sinks, which I found surprising. Though they are still bad for other environmental reasons.
Hey fuck environmental diversity, we’ve got carbon sinks. What a fucking joke.
Nothing can sink any more carbon than its weight plus any bits that fall or get taken and don’t rot. Worse, for most plants most of the weight is water, not carbon-containing organic compounds.
So lawns might be “net” carbon sinks only when compared to the extreme case of leaving the ground bare (or worse, asphalted), but only whilst they’re growing (they don’t really retain any additional carbon after grown and any grass mowned will just return the carbon back to the air when it rots and a lot of it will be Methane, a worse greehouse gas than CO2) and they’re a lot worse at it per unit of area than, say, trees or even just the natural ground cover in just about any land environment but desert.
Asphalt is definitely a carbon sink though since it’s a petroleum product!
It is if one does not count the heavy hydrocarbons taken from raw crude and used to make asphalt in the maths of carbon pulled out of the Earth originally when the oil is pumped out - in other words, if one blames the lighter stuff used in fuel for the actual oil extraction and then just goes with “well, now that we have this stuff out, might as well use the heavy stuff for asphalt”.
Otherwise its adds up to a carbon source because even though the fraction of crude oil that ends up used for asphalt has it’s extraction from underground sources offset by that stuff ending up back on the ground as asphalt, the various processes between it coming out of the ground and it ending back on the ground do emit CO2 and some light hydrocarbons.
Sure, nowhere as bad as fuel and gas, but still a net negative.
That’s why I dig up my lawn every year and bury it underground inside sealed plastic bags
I’m doing my part!
I mean if you want to talk about sequestering carbon, there’s all sorts of natural lawn options that aren’t actively planting an invasive species that has proven to be really bad at doing any sort of water filtration or absorption. In fact, I’d wager that planting (and letting grow) prairie or whatever your native biome supports probably sequesters more carbon, assuming your native ecosystems aren’t straight up desert. Even if they are, you’re now using so much less water that it’s a huge net win there.
I don’t care for golf and wish golf courses were better used spaces, but the thing about golf that makes it interesting is the meditative practice of being able to swing the club in just the right way to make the ball go where it needs to.
I like archery and you have the same sort of thing going on there. You have to have your positioning, movements, focus, and smoothness of action to hit the target. You can tell how you failed before the arrow hits the target. Working on fine tuning your actions is enjoyable.
I shot in highschool and it was the same thing. I loved it. You get into this extreme zen state and.become hyper aware of your own body. It was a lot of fun.
archery
archery doesn’t carry a racist history and waste giant tracts of land. they can putt-putt or get fucked.
They make driving ranges for that. They take up much less space.
It isn’t the same sort of thing though. Yes, you can pick a target and go for that, but having the topography and hazards makes for a different experience.
Driving ranges also don’t have the same sort of socialization and competition aspect.
I agree with the first thing you said, but there’s no reason why you can’t socialize or compete at a driving range. It would be the same sort of competition as an archery or shooting competition- how accurately can you hit your target? And driving ranges have all the people doing it parallel to each other, so there’s no reason why you can’t talk to the person next to you. Yes, it is not exactly the same as golf, but it’s more environmentally friendly and less of a barrier to people with lower income because you don’t have to pay country club fees.
Fwiw golfers talk while they walk/cart around and such, and specifically are mad if anyone talks during their swing, the swing which is “the only thing you do at a driving range,” so talking is a little less accepted there.
I just don’t understand the need for so many courses, I played golf as a kid on the same one for 10 years, the local environment allowed it to maintain itself for the most part.
I used to hang out with those types. It’s similar to country clubs, airline lounges, and first class travel. It’s not so much about the amenities of the luxuries as much as it’s about whom you meet. Or don’t meet. You become good at golf as part of an upper class social thing.
I live in Indiana, so there’s (generally) no shortage of rain. The golf courses in this town still water the entire grass of the course every day. Even if it rained the day before. Even if it’s raining right then and there. There aren’t water shortages here, but what a waste.
Most courses use man made ponds as both hazards and as retention ponds so they can use that rain water.
You know what uses three times the amount of water per acre? Corn. And almonds use about ten times more water than corn. And people have only just started caring about lawns, that use two orders of magnitude more water, fertilizer, and land than golf courses.
Golf courses really aren’t that bad from an ecological point of view when compared acre per acre to other large man made structures. They’re generally pretty small when compared to other large landscaping projects at 30-80 acres. The issue is when a city has like twenty courses just for the purpose of driving up housing prices.
Would that land be better as a park? Probably, but this is the US, someone would see an unprofitable “empty” plot of land and throw million dollar houses on it.
You know what uses three times the amount of water per acre? Corn. And almonds use about ten times more water than corn.
And we get food out of that input, unlike a golf course where you get nothing of value.
And people have only just started caring about lawns, that use two orders of magnitude more water, fertilizer, and land than golf courses.
Have you seen a golf course before? They’re literally lawns.
You get nothing of value from golf. I don’t play either so neither do I, but this very much comes off as “stop liking things I don’t like” rather than something that is actually important.
At least in the southwestern US most of them are a moot point. The vast majority of golf courses are being redeveloped because the course went bankrupt over the last decade or so. A few are managing to stick around, but I wouldn’t be surprised if over 90% of the historical courses are gone in the next few years.
Such is the way of the free market.
Most of the US corn crop goes to animal feed, so no you don’t get food from it. At least not directly. If you totaled up all of the land used by golf courses, you’d be at .1% of just the amount of land used for animal feed. And about 1% of the land used by home lawns.
They’re not that bad, there are much worse enemies than golf courses in general. Again, courses that are in the middle of a city that do nothing but increase property value are terrible, but most are perfectly fine and use way less water than you think.
Wtf do you think happens to those animals who eat the corn stalks?
Well I admit I haven’t seen the entirety of those courses, but based on what I’ve seen, and considering they’re surrounded by either businesses, houses or, in one case, a hospital, I don’t know where those retention ponds would be. The hazards they have absolutely wouldn’t be big enough to cover the amount of water I see sprayed on them.
I have never seen a golf course next to a hospital… Maybe it’s regional, but near me, most courses have many made ponds that hold rain water and you can smell the pond water when the sprinklers come on. The ponds can hold several Olympic swimming pools worth of water.
You’re really comparing growing food to some entirely useless recreation activity?
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I’m pretty convinced Golf is Scotland’s gift to mankind. It’s a fantastic prank - fooling rich morons into spending their days whacking a ball up and down useless terrain, only whack it again, and again, while wearing ugly clothes and paying people to carry your bag of clubs. Scotland sold this joke so well the world bought it, and if it weren’t for the ridiculous environmental impacts, I’d be all for keeping the joke going.
Because if you think golf is a sport, you’re a clown, and probably dress like one. Good work Scotland.
Golf is a dying sport. Courses where I live have been closing, some have been turned into parks
The one near me got turned into 500 houses. The water infra couldn’t cope and everywhere now floods when it rains.
Damn. If only we kept the golf course.
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The golf course absorbed a lot of rainfall in the soil, and I live downhill from it. Rainfall now goes into them stormwater system instead of into the soil.
Even though the new houses have drainage that is sufficient, it all runs into an existing pipeline that can’t handle it.
As bad as golf courses are for the environment, paving over it is 100x worse.
Well, yeah. Roads, houses and driveways don’t soak up rain. Probably whatever was there prior to the golf course did a better job at that. And the current key is “pipeline that can’t handle it”
Courses were over-built in the 90s.
Wall Street Journal: “Millennials Are Killing Golf Courses”
I wish they would at least let you walk on the cart paths before /after hours. I’ve seen one course that did that - allowed walkers once the sprinklers turned on in the evenings (signaling the end of play as well), but the majority don’t.
Golf is boring to watch. But for most players it is a social game. It’s like going to a bar with a few friends, but getting a little exercise. And they don’t do a ton of leveling. Costs too much, and using the land the way it is, is what makes a course unique and interesting.
That said, it would be easy to find a sport that destroys more natural land. Ever see a football, baseball or soccer stadium… including all the parking. Then realize how many baseball fields their are in america (or soccer fields in other countries). They are several times the number of golf courses, and they all need more parking each than one golf course.
More than leveling the ground, watering it is the main environmental issue
it’s really not in a large part of the country. In a desert sure. But even there they take measures like using recycled water and not pottable water and such. And of course agriculture makes every other water use pale in comparison.
Agriculture is food. We need food. We don’t really need a way for a bunch of Wall Street bailouts queens to have a social activity.
sure we need food. But the way we water it is one of the more inefficient ways possible. But it is inexpensive. They could use almost 80% less water than they do. If you are worried about water use, start there. https://ag.umass.edu/vegetable/fact-sheets/irrigation-drip#:~:text=A properly installed drip system,subsurface%2C near the root zone.
Ok good. Start your own farm and do that. Golf isn’t suddenly good because some farmers suck
Golf courses use a shit ton of water, especially in areas where grass isn’t supposed to fuckin grow
yes in the desert they do. But most courses aren’t in the desert. Plenty used to only water the greens in the middle of the summer in the northeast where I grew up. People usualy picture only the high end golf courses. Most are not that. Some used to just shut down for a while if it got too dry rather than water.
There are 15,500 golf courses in America.
There are just over 900 stadiums in America.
I think his point about the damage environmental damage golf courses cause pale in comparison to other sports that need arenas.
Have you seen a golf course? Most of them aren’t made from scratch to fit some grand vision. They’re usually set up working with the environment rather than against it.
I’ve been fishing on an old golf course that’s no longer in use and it was mostly the same except the grass wasn’t cut as low. Great outdoors spot for families.
I thought he was just saying there’s way more stadiums than there are golf courses and that would be incorrect. I don’t have a problem with golf courses except for the excessive amount of water they seem to waste.
Size of Old Trafford Football Stadium and all parking nearby: 20.8 hectares.
Size of my local small golf club: 53.3 hectares.
And that’s one of the largest stadiums in the country, vs one of many, many golf courses.
Edit: For decimal place fuckup.
That is an absurdly massive golf club. Nowhere near average.
https://asgca.org/faq-how-much-land-do-i-need-to-build-a-golf-course/
Hang on, I’ve got my decimal point one over. For some reason I thought a hectare was 1,000m², and it’s 10,000m².
So 20.8 vs 53.3 hectares.
But a basic bog-standard golf club is still over twice the size of one of the largest football stadiums in the country.
I guess having absolutely no idea what the fuck you’re talking about has benefits.
Nice job adding nothing to the discussion. Go back to reddit, they miss you.
This entire thread is a blight on Lemmy. One of the seriously most shitty and disturbing things I’ve seen on the system.
