Lazy Golfer Syndrome is Killing America
by Bill Simmons
Golf is for geezers. Right? Granddaddies’ golf. Respectably retired wrinkled old Methuselah’s swinging the sticks and bossing around the poor shlubs caddying for them.
But to hear tell, everybody from recent college grads to senior-middle-managers now organize their workweek and weekend schedules around their golf game.
So what happened?
Did I miss class the day the “Skip Work at Home and Office” cards were issued to the Under-50 crowd? Is there some secret discount Sam’s Club Golf package being sold through a multi-level marketing, pyramid scheme out there about which my friends and neighbors will soon contact me?
This isn’t an attack piece on golf. Is golf a sport? Are Tiger and Lefty athletes? Yes. I’ll give you that. Sort of. Heck, Tiger’s new, pumped-up pecs make him look like a dang NFL corner; maybe even a linebacker! Even Lefty has the look of an NFL lineman gone to seed.
I’m talking about real-life guys with mortgages, kids, and most especially, yard work to do.
Nowadays, it looks to me like a lot of the stuff American guys are supposed to be doing is simply going undone. And my Numero Uno Suspect is golf.
Drive down the typical street in your neighborhood and tell me you don’t see what I am talking about; yards uncut, trees untrimmed, hedges unhedged, and sidewalks un-weed-eatered. Our neighborhoods are starting to look like my boy’s room: let’s be reeeal generous and call it “unkempt.”
Why, it used to be you wouldn’t dream of driving to Sunday church without giving the old “Pride and Joy” a good wash and wax.
Here is my point. Today’s golfers apparently are outsourcing all this old–fashioned American Dad Weekend Work to the seemingly endless legions of grass-cutting work crews. Amazingly, these dads are oblivious to the joys of home improvement and quality turf maintenance altogether.
So, if you want to know the real reason for the economy’s recent case of the slows, just do the typical golfers’ math: Sub out your usual weekend To-Do list of chores, take out a second mortgage, visit your friendly neighborhood golfing equipment distributor, purchase(or lease-purchase) your Big Bertha Woods, Ping irons, Zing wedges, multiple sleeves (depending on how talented/inept you are); invest in a colorful assortment of self-wicking Tiger Woods golf shirts for those who self-sauce on the fairways; buy goofy linen checked shorts, pop for your country club dues, your greens fees(how apt is that?), and cart rentals. $7.50 club sandwiches! Four-dollar Beer!
Now factor in all the time wasted covertly golfing away the afternoon whilst there are sales to be made, papers to be filed, prospects to be called on, and finance departments to be appeased back at the office! Forget Big Oil and Bush-McCain. The golf “bidness” is sucking the marrow out of the American economy!
No wonder no one is buying cars and visiting Home Depot anymore; after the Nike Golf Cartel ponies up for its monthly bite at the old apple there’s not a thin dime to spare!
Isn’t it time our nation took a long, hard look at this alarming and growing Lazy Golfer Syndrome before it infects yet another generation?
Isn’t it time we gave the fairways back to the old geezers who can’t think of anything better to do than chase after a silly little white ball all day?
Now fishing, on the other hand, is a perfectly respectable and admirable pastime, soothing to the soul and good for one’s constitution. Especially bass fishing.
billdsimmons@comcast.net
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