Is Golf a Sport?

Is Golf a sport?

About 30 years ago I was riding in a car with my pompous ass sales manager when we drove by a golf course. "Golf isn't a sport" he said. "Nothing but a bunch of fat asses riding around in carts and drinking beer".

Obviously he didn't know I was a golfer. However thinking back on that jerk, maybe he did and was just trying to put me down. Thirty years ago I was not fat and I walked the course saving the cost of a cart so I could buy more beer. Okay so I fit one of his criteria, big deal.

He of course was a tennis player; the snottiest of the snobbiest.

But is golf a sport? Is walking, or riding, 6500 yards or so and wailing away with a club 80 or 90 times really an athletic activity?

According to Rose Center for Health and Sports Sciences in Denver, it is.

Neil Wolkodoff, the director of the center, examined the play of eight better than average players and and tracked their heart rate, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, and how far they were walking through a few rounds. Wolkodoff said "The study shows there's significant energy expenditure in golf, more than bowling and some other sports it's been compared to. "There are a lot of sports that don't have this level of energy expenditure."

Golfers who walk and carry their clubs burn about 720 calories in a round. The fat guys in carts burn about 410. That's more than an Olympic Curling player at 345. So if you measure it by the energy expended then it ranks higher than at least one Olympic sport.

I'm not sure that's the best way to look at it as I'm guessing pushing a lawn mower over a large yard and raking up the stuff afterwards probably expends more calories than golf. Last time I checked the sports section there wasn't a listing for professional or amateur lawn mowing.

Then there is the image problem. You've got a buffed up Tiger Woods, obviously an athlete; and then you have John Daly's beer gut.

So I guess it's a sport if you think it's a sport. I'm thinking that a Lacross player (another sport that is not in the Olympics) probably thinks those pansy asses in their cute white shorts playing tennis aren't really playing a sport either.