Golf is, by nature, a selfish sport. You are, in all but a few instances, out on the golf course alone, battling for number one. You will have playing partners, but you play your own golf ball, have your own objectives and experience your own successes and failures.
I like the personal challenge, being in charge of my own destiny. One problem though, as I have learned from years of golfing, is that nobody else cares about your game or your score.
You might think it was a monumental moment when you holed that par putt on the 14th, but your playing partners barely noticed.
I know my golf is no more important than the next person’s and I think most of my golfing friends and acquaintances are aware of their own relative insignificance.
But these realisations seem to do very little to prevent me, and many of those I know within the game, from talking ad nauseum in an utterly selfish fashion about the matchless successes and terrible misfortunes that we “alone” have celebrated and suffered on the fairways.
There’s a sort of desperation in it. “What about me?”, “Wasn’t I good/bad/unlucky?”
My colleague Nick Bonfield asked me to think about why this would be. He wonders, is it simply human nature and basic egotism? Or are golfers uniquely self-important?
To answer this question, I must (selfishly and in a self-important fashion) look inwardly. Physician, diagnose thyself!
To start, I think, owing to the fact golf is a solo sport and such a personal battle, it’s inevitable that participants are focused on themselves to a greater extent than those who participate in team sports and activities.
Nobody else can play the shots for us. When it comes to the crunch, we alone can initiate a golf swing to begin the arduous task of shifting a small orb from a tee to a distant cup.
We must adopt a selfish attitude to do this most effectively. The blinkers must come up and we must retreat into our own world to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune this game will always send in our direction.
I am guilty of allowing this selfish approach to golf to occasionally spill over into self-importance. I am not alone in letting this happen.
Off the fairways, I have been known to bore others senseless with tales of my 'bad luck' and my 'wonder shots'. You have to try to get some recognition, don’t you? I take great personal pride in golfing achievements, but it’s always nice if someone else acknowledges them too.
That’s why I think all golfers are prone to talk about their own golf despite knowing it will fall on deaf or more likely, bored ears.
You’ve given your heart and soul out there. You’ve been to the heights of euphoric sporting delight and to the pits of golfing disillusionment. You simply must try and share it!
I think it’s fair enough to let it all out when it comes to tales of derring-do on the fairways. If people don’t want to hear it, they can just think about something else while smiling and nodding.
What about other golfing topics though? Are we self-important through and through? I know I can go on a bit when it comes to a subject within golf I feel strongly on – golf club matters in particular!
As per the headline, I am a former golf club captain. As a former captain, I have a decent idea about what’s going on at the club and if I make a comment to someone on club matters, it might need to be pointed out that I do have some experience to base my opinion on.
See, I’m banging on about it. I can’t help it! Boy, I’m self-important. Can I just digress briefly and tell you about how wonderful it was to have my own parking space? No? What? Self-importance you cry. Maybe.
I think one of the reasons I might talk about being an ex-captain and having my own parking space is that I’m rather proud of it. It was hard work and it took up a lot of my time for no financial reward. Someone had to do it and for a couple of years that someone was me.
Rather than being a self-important role, I would say it was more of a thankless task. Perhaps I, and others bang on about it because we’ll take any “thanks” we can get… even years after the event.
There may be a degree of self-importance I guess, but I would have thought anyone who holds a position in any field that they are proud of is likely to mention it in conversation.
Also, anyone who has anything cool, like a really fast motorbike… or their own private parking space perhaps, will like to talk about it occasionally.
I had my own parking place when I was club captain. How cool is that?!
In writing this, I have realised my golfing life has been one of a fair bit of significance. I think I might be a little more important than I had previously realised.
To finish, I’d like to take a moment to tell you about the 68 I shot in the Winter Meeting at my club last Saturday. On the 6th, I made an eagle… A blistering drive down the left side and then… Hey, stop smiling and nodding and looking vacantly at the screen. I’m saying something terribly important here!
There. Does that answer the question Nick? It comes from within.
