When I step onto the green, I get the same feelings I got when I did the first time. Am I going to do well? Do I belong here? Should I be wearing funny golf t-shirts? The answers are always the same, really. I will do better than I did last time; I most certainly belong here; and I will wear whatever I darn well please. This is a game that has been dominated by upper-crust snobs for years. The common man is slowly taking it over, because that is what we do best. This is America, and exclusionism is not our way.
The fact that you see more middle class folks out on the green these days is most likely a sign of economics in motion. The courses learned a few years ago that everyone can love golf. It isn’t something that should be held away from the reaching hands of the public, just so rich people have a place to go to feel special. The more the course let in people who wore funny golf t-shirts instead of polos, the more money they made. Now private golf courses are going extinct because they just aren’t generating the revenue that public courses are.
Tiger Woods may not be the type of fellow to wear funny golf t-shirts, he is certainly a golf hero to me and a few million other fans of the red-shirted miracle man. He grew up playing golf from the insanely-young age of two. Two years old and playing golf! Can you even imagine that? I had trouble getting my kids to use the toilet at two, let alone learn golf. The man is amazing, and he came from the same kind of background that many of us did. He should be an inspiration to all, not just people who swing the iron.
Golf is genuinely a game for gentlemen, despite the fact that idiots like me who wear funny golf t-shirts love the game anyway. I make jokes, but golf has taught me much about life outside of the game. It has taught me to treat others with respect, and that what they are doing in their game (or life), is just as important as anything I am doing. It has taught me to be patient with myself and to know that skill will come with much practice. Above all, golf has shown me that it is okay to have tiny balls, as long as you are swinging a long club.
There are many things that I take for granted in my life, but golf will never be one of them. I cannot go out to a course every weekend, but I rejoice in the moments that I have. Every swing takes me back to me dear father showing me over and over, with patience and love, how to perfect my form. I am a good man, but golf has made me better than I ever would have been without it. I am a golfer, and I have the funny golf t-shirts to prove it.
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