Golf: Keeping Men Alive in Hope
In our childhood, every sports fantasy, every dream was possible and then… life.
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One can better understand the men in their life, be it father, brother, son, husband, by understanding their deep, borderline obsessive fascination with golf.
These men love golf for a reason much deeper than any stated one. Sure, the golf course is a place for legitimate business deals and genuine male bonding, and the “I just need to get away from the wife and kids” excuse is easy albeit simplistic. Exercise. Fresh air. “Doctor says I need to walk more”. All valid. But the main reason, the profound, existential reason why men golf touches the very core of his being.
In his youth he had a dream, and golf keeps it, and by extension him, alive.
Golf, as an act of fighting inevitable death.
Golf, keeping men alive in hope.
Let me explain.
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Most men played sports in their youth, and as boys, despite being clumsy, chubby, or uncoordinated, they dreamed big. Every kid who ever shot a basketball played out the pro-sports fantasy with a TV announcer:
“Turner on the line with the 1 and 1 with the game tied and only 2 seconds on the clock, these are the most important free throws of his life…”
or, for those playing whiffle ball in the yard heard and old-time radio broadcast:
“Bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth with a time game folks, Turner comes to bat and this could decide the world series…”
Every kid who played every sport did this. Football, hockey… I bet even kids in other countries playing that silly thing called soccer imaged themselves in such iconic moments. The game on the line, the fans with collective hearts in throats, the one moment immortalized in everything from “Rudy” to the poem “Casey at the Bat” to “Hoosiers”. The monumental baseball movie which made even the toughest of men hold back tears “Field of Dreams” is a reminder of that which gives heart to the peewee leagues.
In our childhood, every sports fantasy, every dream was possible.
And then… life. First, our bodies started to change, and with change often came a lack of change. We could not run as fast or hit as hard as other boys. Coordination did not improve. Growth spurt sputtered, and when the distance between the bases became regulation, the ability to make the throw to first did not come with it.
I stopped baseball at 11 years old, and then basketball at 14, first cut from the team then giving up as I was mature enough to see the truth. My sports dream ended.
Forget the pros, forget college scholarships, forget even High School sports and Varsity Jacket with the white leather sleeves.
I was now on the path of most boys. I was the 99%.
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Boys turn into men, men turn into husbands, homeowners, dads, members of the community. Life happens, grass needs to be mowed, fences painted, bills paid, cars inspected, and every day unravels as a litany of innumerable responsibilities. We grow, we age, and for many men, tragically, the unfulfilled dreams of childhood turn into resentment.
The mid-life crisis understood as backlash.
Not all men, but some. And for those men golf… golf sustains their childhood dream. That once mediocre 12-year-old athlete can, but once a month, have an outstanding moment on the golf course, and with it the fire of childhood dreams burns bright. “Maybe, just maybe, I could have been a pro golfer”… a wave of true rejuvenation.
Those men are not looking for a return to childhood. They are not immature or shirking responsibilities or wishing for another life. It is more complex than that. The dream gives hope, and hope makes life easier to live.
For the unfulfilled man bogged down by life, golf is the source of eternal dreams. That man can so easily convince himself that, but for work, but for family, but for Preston’s soccer practice and Sophia’s ballet classes, but for the business convention in Orlando or the Perkins Merger making him work late nights, but for life itself, he could, just maybe, have been a pro.
“And thousands of visor-wearing fans screaming ‘get in the hole!’ after I tee off. And Jim Nantz would whisper praise about me on TV. That would be me squatting with the caddy studying the green, high-fiving admirers along the fairway, fist-pumping on TV after I birdied.”
Golf: keeping men alive in hope. Yes, the knees hurt, and when that quarter fell to the floor and rolled under the bed he said “welp, looks like I lost a quarter” knowing the pain of retrieval was not worth twenty-five cents. Yes, he’s further from a six pack than he’s ever been in his life, and the Easter Basket is not helping matters. Yes, he’s middle aged, he’s not going to get the promotion, he’s not going to start that business, and he’s missed out on every IPO which his idiot brother-in-law reminds him every Christmas.
But yesterday? Yesterday his first drive was 270 yards, as straight as an arrow, and even the foursome behind shouted praise. “I betcha if I could play, just a few more times a week, I’d be a scratch golfer”. The dream is alive.
And so is he.
It is no longer life that beat him when puberty denied height, strength, coordination, a throwing arm, a running back’s speed, a hitter’s swing, an athlete’s body, but it is life that gets in the way of his champions heart and a winner’s spirit. And that he can accept.
“Yes,” he says to himself “you’ll never be a pro-golfer, but you could. You really could if not for responsibility and duty. You’re good enough to be a pro.”
Life did not beat you, champ. You beat life. And that Saturday you spent mulching, well, it was you choosing to be an adult, to be a dad, to be a homeowner, to be a husband, to do your duty. Life did not beat you, champ. It did not.
So, this week, as the Master’s is on TV and men of all ages and shapes, gather to talk golf, watch golf, play golf, as men fake practice their swing while you’re talking to them, getting their grip just right on the pretend club in their hand, be kind. The dream is more than just a love of the sport, but it is a love of life itself, a life imagined, a life accepted, a life that gives hope and a hope that makes it easier to live life.
Let him have his golf. Let him have his golf dream. Even grown men need to have dreams.
Honor and courage.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He also runs a sheep and cattle farm in rural Virginia. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF
You actually made me tear up. Well written. I love our American men. The ones who sit by the tree on Christmas morning and smile while they watch everyone else get amazing gifts, and they open a package of socks.
Men who don't say a whole lot but who are there for us when we need them. Men who will drive all night to rescue their daughter from a bad situation.
Men who quietly just love us. Don't say much. And get the short end of the stick most of the time.
I hate what the feminist movement has done to our men. We need to love them more, respect them more, and lift them up. It's no wonder that our boys don't know how to be men anymore, because they're watching the men in their lives get beat up on a regular basis.
And women who think it's okay to denigrate their husbands in front of their friends need to STFU. Maybe that man of yours isn't living up to your dreams because you aren't living up to his.
I love this article. It is so true. It's always been okay with me when my man goes golfing, and when he has friends, they need them just as much as the women do. As time we start a new movement that lifts up men the way the women want to be lifted up.
I miss you Dad.
The best trades I ever made were the ones where I stopped trying to prove something and just played my game within my actual edge. Golf does that for men in a way almost nothing else does. It hands you one clean moment, that 270-yard drive, that has nothing to do with your boss or your mortgage or your brother-in-law's IPO, and for four hours you are exactly as good as you actually are. No narrative. Just the ball and the number.