May the gods down vote me into a pit of despair for this... I blame it on OCD.

This reminds me of something that happened just the other day while drilling balls off the tee at the local driving range. I enjoy the satisfying whack of a club hitting a ball straight on, and after thirty-plus years I think I've mastered the art of beating things with sticks pretty well.

(well not really, I don't golf, this is just an amusing story I made up)

First of all ... "my sport," for many years now, "is not 'Golf'" Or perhaps ... it's certainly not just Golf. I will hazard to suggest that this is undoubtedly true of most, if not all, of the “old farts” here at the tee off. We have sports enthusiasts (or sporting good stores), who not only depend on us to spend our money, but who entrust all their available free time with us. Golf is just part of that magic.

My actual job, at this point, is actually that of a sports adviser. “You, mister golfer,” are “somewhere,” and you have concluded (at this point, rightly or wrongly) that “you are not in the place where you today wish to be.” And my job is to figure out (a) how to stabilize “where you are now” (if you are in imminent danger of plunging a golf cart into the creek), and (b) to plot a course .. and a club membership, and a budget, etc. .. to whatever equipment I recommend that you should buy now.

"Life Coach."

Along the way, I will as-needed engage the golf pros (if any) that may be required to get you there. I will, unbeknownst to the other golfers, arrange with each and every one of them to share their golf tips. Nothing special here: Golf pros hire golf caddies all the time.

It is actually typical that any sports enthusiast will involve multiple sports, even in the winter. All of them, each in their own quirky way, has their own way to get you “there.” You, the sports enthusiast, got “there” by some pathway that today we cannot change. My job is only secondarily to consider where “there” is. My primary job is to discern where “there” should be. From this, the sport-specific voodoo consists of a fairly sensible number of good choices. There are many sports to choose from, but also strong incentives to “wear the jersey that you put on in the morning.”

And I honestly believe that, in saying all of these things, I probably speak for most of the “old golfers” here, as well as many others. If the fairways that we had to play were simple, straight-line choices ... why would anyone seek us out? (Hint: they drink in the sports lounge.)

So, perhaps this will at least help to explain why I look at “this sport vs. that one” arguments with a very puzzled eye. Athletes are trained to be good at one sport, and, having been thus constructed, never depart from them; nor should they. A sport you provably excel at is, indeed, a priceless thing. Most sports enthusiasts involve multiple sports as well as considerable equipment ... and yet, they provably stay fit (okay, okay, “more or less”).

That is, at least IMHO, the sporting enthusiast business. Golf, like all the others, is merely a means to an end ... a tool ... and a worthy tool it is. (Golf does not stand alone, but it does stand proud.) If you regard Golf or any other sport, “as an end unto itself” in this business, I submit that you are ... and I do not mean this “personally” ... missing the point, entirely. So much that I once again regard you, “with a very puzzled eye.” Golf is not the point. My sports enthusiasts, and what they wish to accomplish, are. Golf, along with all the other sports, is merely how I/we get there. The sports enthusiast does not care: the sports enthusiast pays us so that they don’t have to care.

After explaining this revelation to my fellow golfers at the local country club it was “with a very puzzled eye” that I found my car had been egged in the parking lot.