How is golf considered a real sport?

[Siamese Dream]

What kind of physical exertion or training goes into trying to hitting a ball 4 times into a hole? You're skilled if you do that. But does it make you an athlete?

Inb4 someone posts the Sports Science video with Tiger Woods

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

Inb4 someone posts the Sports Science video with Tiger Woods

Won't somebody think of those who have their ignorance challenged!

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

But, but, but, there's no physical athleticism or dexterity! Derp.

 

[Ceremony]

Pro darts is the ****ing ****. I wish I lived in England.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMSDUpQYVas

 

[RayP]

Won't somebody think of those who have their ignorance challenged!

Oh please. No one is making him swing that hard to ruin his knees. Plenty of fat ass golfers on the tour who have hit the ball just as far without ruining their knees.

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

Oh please. No one is making him swing that hard to ruin his knees. Plenty of fat ass golfers on the tour who have hit the ball just as far without ruining their knees.

There's more to golf than just hitting the ball far. Shaping it, hitting off different lies etc all subject the body to different stress. During his prime, nobody hit the ball farther than Tiger. Nowadays quite a few can hit it 300+ thanks to technological advances in golf ball and driver technology. He could've modified his swing to take less pressure off his legs and reduce the torque on his back but I'm not in the business of questioning a legendary athlete. Daly, who had an incredibly brief period of success is a red herring people bring up to discredit golf, but he was never close to being one of the top golfers in the world.

Look at the general fitness of golfers today. Upper body wise, the top golfers are far more ripped than hockey players with similar body fat percentages.

 

[Siamese Dream]

Won't somebody think of those who have their ignorance challenged!

You realise those sports science videos are mostly nonsense?

Like the one when they "proved" that hitting a softball was harder than hitting a baseball because they had a woman throw an underarm softball pitch at a pro baseball player and he couldn't hit it because he's used to the ball being thrown overarm on a different line of trajectory

And when they "proved" that sumo wrestlers couldn't be hockey goalies because they had George Parros shoot at a fat guy who stood deep in the net on the goal line and in an incorrect stance.

 

[RayP]

There's more to golf than just hitting the ball far. Shaping it, hitting off different lies etc all subject the body to different stress. During his prime, nobody hit the ball farther than Tiger. He could've modified his swing to take less pressure off his legs and reduce the torque on his back but I'm not in the business of questioning a legendary athlete. Daly, who had an incredibly brief period of success is a red herring people bring up to discredit golf, but he was never close to being one of the top golfers in the world.

Look at the general fitness of golfers today. Upper body wise, the top golfers are far more ripped than hockey players with similar body fat percentages.

Seems to me to be more of a trend of trying to make golf cool, than them being ripped having a significant impact on their golf skill.


Equipment and technique will always make more of a difference in your power in golf terms vs being ripped. Come on.

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

You realise those sports science videos are mostly nonsense?

Like the one when they "proved" that hitting a softball was harder than hitting a baseball because they had a woman throw an underarm softball pitch at a pro baseball player and he couldn't hit it because he's used to the ball being thrown overarm on a different trajectory

You realize that all those facts and figures are easily quantifiable when it comes to measuiring the velocity and impact of a golf swing, right?

 

[RayP]

Phil Mickelson doesn't look like he's been hitting the weights ever.


Seems to be doing just fine on the tour.

 

[Siamese Dream]

You realize that all those facts and figures are easily quantifiable when it comes to measuiring the velocity and impact of a golf swing, right?

I'm not saying it's wrong but Sports Science in general as a channel are absolute ****ing garbage and their videos should be taken with a pinch of salt and aren't exactly official proof of anything and the end of an argument

 

[RayP]

I'm not saying it's wrong but Sports Science as a channel are absolute ****ing garbage and their videos should be taken with a pinch of salt and aren't exactly official proof of anything and the end of an argument

The golf video just came across as a bunch of fancy ways to say what we can all see in that Tiger Woods can swing a golf club really really hard.

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

Seems to me to be more of a trend of trying to make golf cool, than them being ripped having a significant impact on their golf skill.


Equipment and technique will always make more of a difference in your power in golf terms vs being ripped. Come on.

I don't entirely disagree, except Tiger did that already mostly by himself for the current generation.

Hell, Tiger's injury troubles stem mostly from the fact of how much he bulked up upper body wise. No reason to be benching and lifting some of the weights he's put his body through.

 

[Soliloquy of a Dogge]

I'm not saying it's wrong but Sports Science in general as a channel are absolute ****ing garbage and their videos should be taken with a pinch of salt and aren't exactly official proof of anything and the end of an argument

Fair enough. I've only ever watched a few and don't usually resort to posting them. The golf one is a little different because people here always say it requires no athletic ability which is patently false.

 

[stan the caddy]

The funny thing is people use John Daly to say that golf doesn't require athleticism but he was one of the few people who could hit it past Tiger. He's like a one in a million freak athlete. He's 50 and can still his 6 iron well over 200 yards. He would have had a pretty amazing career if it wasn't for all the cocaine, booze, and pizza. The guy's combination of power and flexibility was pretty amazing despite his physique.

 

[DonskoiDonscored]

Let's think what golf is

You line up and swing a stick at a ball. Then you walk to the ball. Then you swing again.

It's a competitive activity. But it's not a sport.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport

What kind of physical exertion or training goes into trying to hitting a ball 4 times into a hole? You're skilled if you do that. But does it make you an athlete?

There is no universal hard-set definition of what is and isn't a sport.

Hell, your own link proves that if you read thoroughly.

 

[ecemleafs]

if baseball is a sport then golf is a sport. prob burn twice as many cals playing golf as u will baseball.

 

[Panteras]

I love golf, don't care if it's considered a sport or not, it is to me.

 

[CycloneLaunch]

I don't get why golf fans passionately care about it being declared a sport. It's a game like darts or snooker , get over it!

 

[Ceremony]

I don't get why golf fans passionately care about it being declared a sport. It's a game like darts or snooker , get over it!

I'll not have you comparing snooker to darts.

 

[CycloneLaunch]

I'm sorry Ceres! I want Snooker in the 2020 olympics as much as the next mans!

 

[Goonzilla]

It perhaps harder to drive a golf ball with a beer in one hand than it is to throw a dart whilst holding.

I gotta suggest darts might require greater precision than golfing; a lot less room for error, though playing golf must burn more calories.

Golf is a very hard game, but I think it could be easier to become proficient at golf than darts.

 

[MrFunnyWobbl]

If golf isn't a sport than a good majority of the olympics aren't either.

 

[Goonzilla]

If golf isn't a sport than a good majority of the olympics aren't either.

There are plenty of Olympic sports that shouldn't be.

 

[Whiplash27]

No one is going to just go out there and be great on the first time. It requires lots of practice and training just to be able to drive the ball straight and far, let alone learning how to do it with all of the different types of clubs and understanding when to use them and how to hit the ball less far than "as far as I can it hit." It requires athletic ability... there's a reason why guys like Tiger Woods are so fit. Maybe back in the old days the stereotypical golfer was a guy with a big gut, but these days you'll get left in the dust by players who are more fit. Two guys with the same swing, the one who's more fit will be better.