Golf Is A Contact Sport

Golf:  A non-contact sport?

Golf.  According to Wikipedia, it is “a non-contact sport, first played in 15th Century Scotland.”

Are you kidding me?  Wiki, what in the name of Padraig Harrington are you thinking?  I sincerely beg to duffer.  For me, golf is most definitely a contact sport—Consider the contact between ball and player.  Or how about between player and the ground?  Or even still, between club and good old terrain?

Example number one: “Knock-knock.” “Who’s there?”  “Mr. Golf Ball.”  Contact reared its ugly head the time I was in a foursome on a warm, sunny day.  We were “warming” up on the practice putting green by using every club in the bag except the putter.  While we were busy giggling, two teenagers nearby at the driving range ripped screaming drives off their Big Berthas.

Just as I was lining up a 20-footer with a left-to-right break by using the end of the shaft of my 9 iron, one of the juveniles smoked a sideways drive off the tee.  The Titleist Pro V1, flying at warp factor ten, smote me in the leg.

Thwap!

Ow!

The other three in my group laughed hysterically.  I bent over—appendage afire—picked up the offending orb, wound up, and nearly released at my own partner’s leg when he yelled:

“Dad, it wasn’t me!”

I turned and glared at the driving range as one of the morons yelled, “Sorry!”

Glancing down I noticed a swelling bruise forming in the shape of a golf ball, as if someone had teed up a 300-yard drive that was stopped 250 yards short by some unsuspecting soul’s calf.

Golf is a non-contact sport?

Here is example number two of why golf is most definitely a contact sport: “Pardon me, is this spot on the ground taken?”

One day I realized entertainment was lacking in my life, so I visited the local driving range.

The ball machine rejected my well-worn dollar bill.  I happened to have more pieces of paper with Washington’s mug on them, but I opted instead to shove the reject back into the machine.  The machine said “no” and spit it out again.  This happened three more times.

Finally, I grabbed a different bill and this time I heard a “clunk”.  White golf balls rapidly began to fill the bucket.  On reflection, this would be the only time all afternoon that the golf balls would do what I wanted.

I completed my pre-golfing exercise routine (twisting around from right to left to see who would be in viewing range of my horrible swing).  I grabbed my nine iron, dropped a ball in front of me, drew a deep breath, and promptly swung and missed.

“Ah, that was just a practice swing,” I thought as I looked around to see who had watched Mighty Whiffy at the Driving Range.

Swing number two produced much better results as the ball really flew.  “Flew” as in four inches off the ground for a whopping ten feet before it died a horrible death.  The good news was that if this kept up, I wouldn’t have far to walk to replenish my bucket.

I looked over my shoulder and noticed my father-in-law, Art, jogging toward where my son Ryan was teeing off.  Just as Art reached Ryan, he made an attempted soccer scissor kick in an effort to dump Ryan’s bucket.  But unfortunately for the Pele wannabe, his scissor mimicked my nine iron and he whiffed.  Miserably.

To add to his miss, “Not Pele’s” right foot hooked the back of his left leg and he had to go down like a painted clown.  I have to give Art credit though.  He hopped on that one leg for several feet before gravity took over and he slowly started his descent to Mother Earth.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

“Wham!”  As Art landed, his hat shot off his noggin.

It looked extremely painful.

We ran over to check on the Galloping Golfer and thankfully, “Not Pele” was fine.  His shorts were now grass stained, but he seemed no worse for wear.

Again I ask:  Golf is a non-contact sport?

The final example of golf being a contact sport:  “Has anyone seen my Hybrid? It was   here just a minute ago.”
I was breaking in a relatively new Hybrid.  “Breaking” was the key word in the previous sentence.  The ground was dry due to a lack of precipitation, the ground barely starting to turn green as I began to empty the wire basket.

After bombing a few off the tee and then off a few rooftops, I reached into the bag and extracted my 3 Hybrid.  A couple of air swings later, I made contact with the ball.  But unbeknownst to me, before contacting the ball, I had contacted the hard ground of the driving range. Evidently I contacted quite a bit of terra firma because as I scanned the sky to track the flight of the golf ball I had just launched into orbit, I saw the head of my club chasing the practice range smiley for all it was worth.
It was a short-lived race.

The ball lazily landed 15 yards ahead of me while the head of the 3 Hybrid sailed on by, waving as it went, finally tumbling to a halt 30 yards down wind.

And poof, just like that, my relatively new club bit the proverbial dust both literally and figuratively.

Golf is a non-contact sport my Hybrid.