Recently, while visiting friends, I was browsing through a ‘gamer’ magazine that belonged to their teenage son.\u00a0 Now I don’t normally read this kind of magazine, but, it was lying on the kitchen table so I decided to page through it to see what the ‘kids’ are up to these days.<\/p>\n
I found a small article from the editor (who, BTW, looked like he was 16 years old), in which he tried to come up with a valid definition of a gamer.\u00a0 He initially eliminated anyone who plays games on a phone or an ipad or a pc (guilty, Your Honor).\u00a0 He then axed anyone who played any of the popular, big-time games (Halo, Black Ops, etc.).\u00a0 His final conclusion was that real gamers played obscure, mostly independently produced games.\u00a0 In other words, non-mainstream.<\/p>\n
This got me to thinking.\u00a0 Who is a golfer?\u00a0 So I decided that maybe I could take the same strategy and\u00a0define who real golfers are.\u00a0 I’m sure I’ll offend lots of people, so please don’t take this personally.\u00a0 It’s all in fun and (like the cool people say) it’s all good.<\/p>\n
To begin, I am going to eliminate all professionals on any level from the PGA tour to the foreign and satellite tours and even collegians (who when you get right down to it are playing for scholarships and room and board which ‘ain’t nothing’).\u00a0 I have nothing against those who play golf for a living (I’m sure a lot of us wish we could do that), but, they are on such a different level it doesn’t even seem fair to lump us all together.<\/p>\n
OK, that leaves everyone else open to scrutiny.\u00a0 Let’s start with the easy ones.\u00a0 Anyone who plays golf a handful of times a year or only plays in a nine-hole once a week work league or may play a a few corporate or charity outings are not golfers.\u00a0 They are all well intentioned, but, sorry the axe has to drop somewhere and this group is way too obvious.<\/p>\n
The next group to go are country clubbers who use golf for socializing or for business.\u00a0 You can get the same results with a nice dinner and a few rounds of drinks.\u00a0 Next are the guys and gals who play once a week at one of the higher-end public courses and ride instead of walk (excluding those who have a medical reason for being in a cart) and more likely than not have a six pack (or more) in a cooler in the cart.\u00a0 They are probably borderline golfers, but, at the end of the day, I have to draw the line somewhere and sadly you fall on the wrong side of the line.<\/p>\n
That leaves\u00a0the real golfers and you all know who you are.\u00a0 You play as often as the wife or significant other will let you and then you trade household chores, shopping sprees or more time spent with the kids for that extra round of golf each week.\u00a0 You are the guys who look at rain as a means to clear the tourists off of the course.\u00a0 You are the people who browse the golf shops the same way women have a need to stop in every shoe store in the mall.\u00a0 You are those for whom golf has become way more than a hobby.<\/p>\n
So to all my fellow golfers out there, rejoice for we have found are passion and we will let nothing stand in the way of another day chasing that little white ball around the course.<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, while visiting friends, I was browsing through a ‘gamer’ magazine that belonged to their teenage son.\u00a0 Now I don’t normally read this kind of magazine, but, it was lying on the kitchen table so I decided to page through it to see what the ‘kids’ are up to these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ricos-rants"],"yoast_head":"\n