Many folk have pondered on the origin of the name of golf with some saying that it was an acronym that suited the game at the time: they said the letters stood for “Gentlemen Only; Ladies Forbidden.” This in turn has led others since then to offer their own acronyms for the word GOLF, which include: ‘Game Of Life First’, ‘Goal-Oriented Leadership Function’. ‘Global Oscillations at Low Frequencies’, ‘Gift Of Life Foundation’, ‘Go Out; Laugh Frequently’, ‘Great Outdoor, Lost and Found’ and ‘Get Over Life’s Failures’. Many a golfer can relate to many of those!
At the same time, many people have also looked at golf and described it in different ways. A.A. Milne, the author of the Winnie the Pooh stories, described it thus: “Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad.” James Barret Reston took a slightly harder stance on the matter when he defined golf as “A plague invented by the Calvinistic Scots as a punishment for man’s sins.” Dave Hill hinted at other aspects of the game when he said, “Golf is the hardest game in the world to play, and the easiest to cheat at”. However, many have reflected on how like life golf is. Someone once said that “Golf is life. If you cannot take golf, you cannot take life” while Gardner Dickinson mentioned that “They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them. It’s more complicated than that”. Arnold Palmer, one of golf’s greatest and most charismatic players, once explained golf thus: “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening — and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.”
Many will be familiar with the quote allegedly made by Einstein that: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (although it has been linked to novelist Rita Mae Brown) though a similar more credible quote by Einstein said, Two things are infinite, as far as we know – the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the universe. Someone has picked up on that and added that “If you keep doing the same thing, you’ll keep getting the same results, unless you’re playing golf. Results vary for no particular reason.”
P.G, Wodehouse the author, once declared that “To find a man’s true character, play golf with him.” Lee Westwood, a former World Number One golfer, once said about golfers: “You don’t see us jumping in the referee’s face when something goes wrong and waving our fingers at him trying to get the other player on the other side of the fairway carded. You don’t see us missing a putt and diving.” This was quoted following another golfer, Elliot Saltman's three-month ban for what was termed a “serious breach” of the rules at a tournament in January 2011. What was the “serious breach”? The alleged repeated gaining of approximately a centimetre on the putting green, by putting the ball down a little closer to the hole.
In recent weeks, the Ryder Cup between Europe and the USA provided much controversy on account of the behaviour of spectators, more than golfers, where players were subjected to abuse, even while playing a shot, which is completely against the spirit and etiquette of golf — indeed, etiquette is a crucial part of the Rules of Golf. Players will not move or make a noise when a fellow competitor is playing. They will make sure their shadow does not lie across the line of an opponent’s putt; they will not stand where their opponent’s putt may go; they will repair pitch marks. They will not damage the course, facilities or equipment nor hold others back; in short, they will do nothing that may gain them an unfair advantage over any other player.
Cricket, along with golf, used to be seen as a game with strong levels of etiquette but they are facing major problems there, be it with ball tampering, sledging or not walking. It is sad too that in tennis, Novak Djokavic, when questioned once about his coach who admitted that he coached during matches (against the tournament rules), argued that it would be wrong or “too strong” to say it was “cheating”. Standards slip. In a way, parents shouting out, waving money, walking around, in the formal scenario of school Speech Days is a further reflection of what we are sadly seeing in sport. The way we conduct ourselves, gentlemen and ladies, (as players, officials, supporters,) has far-reaching consequences and sport must teach powerful lessons. The game of life must come first.
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