HEALTH & LIFEST YLE
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Send us your letters, giving us your views, opinions or articles of interest (max 500 words). The most interesting letter will be published in the next edition of SA golf Trader.
WINNING LETTER Dear Shane
To the Editor I feel that golf is a lazy sport. All that’s involved is swinging the club and bending down to pick up the ball. There’s also the walking in between the holes, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the competition itself. A “sport” is defined as being competitive by nature, and there’s no competing going on whilst walking from one hole to another. Some people even use golf carts to go everywhere. Lazy people who want to play a sport take up golf since it doesn’t involve much activity. However, I suppose that no sport can be considered as being really lazy as long as there is physical activity involved. That part of the definition is what sets “sports” apart from “games” such as poker. So, compare golf to other sports you know of. There’s less physical activity involved. Ping pong is more physically active than golf, because players move their hands at extremely frequent rates and sway back and forth to get optimal swings. In golf, they just hit a ball three to seven times and move onto the next hole, resting their arms in between. It isn’t “lazy” since you’re still getting out and about, but there are much more active sports than golf.
Thank you for writing in. I have to wonder though, whether you have ever played 18-holes of golf? Certainly there are different levels of fitness needed for different sports but whereas many sports are over in say an hour, 18-holes can take several hours to complete. One needs to possess endurance, physical strength and an enormous amount of concentration. Riding in a cart definitely makes it easier but it would be unreasonable to call it lazy. I would encourage you and anyone out there who hasn’t yet played the game to visit your local driving range. Spend an hour just hitting balls and see how you feel? Gary Player, Tiger Woods, Rickie Fowler, Billy Horschel to name but a few are some of the fittest guys around. Golf is undoubtedly not a lazy sport but I do agree that there is misconception amongst some of those who have not played the game before that it is. Regards
Regards Shane Tomlinson
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May | June 2017