Well its only what we all know. But golf with its Institutional stereo type thinking is on the road to oblivion in some regions. The sport/club discriminates in its elitist thinking, with its head buried in nostalgia of bye gone days, when women were subservient and children were not heard.
As a young man I remember being scared to even go in the pro shop at my local municipal club.
The golf pro would growl at young men as we approached, even to hire a putter. Looking us up and down dismissing our long hair.
I took the game up properly at the age of 50, joined a local club. But as a disabled player was treated with contempt. My ride on golf buggy was frowned upon as was my prothstetic leg. I would recieve e-mails complaining of members attitudes towards the buggy being out in wet conditions and the greens committee having it on the agenda for the next meeting.
Unless I had found the Disabled Golf Association I think i would have given the game up. I have since moved to a more proactive and positive club.
But I still visit the odd club entrenched in knee length socks with knee length shorts, walls covered in Hickory shafted putters inscribed with how 'Colonel Syngene Smyth' won the Calcutta Cup during a bomb raid. At one club the golf pro asked me why I was using a 'buggy' I replied I was an above knee amputee! Pah he replied pointing at a sepia image of a one legged chap leaning on a golf club!
"Leg torn off at Gallipoli, club champion for years...went round on crutches he did, no 'buggies' needed in his day" ...god help us.
Golf as a sport in the UK has to wake up, the coming of Golf Centres is a start, equipment that is designed to help the older/younger player not Rory McIlroy. The US is awake to that the fact that the majority of golf players are over the age of 50 when are we going to do the same?
Rant over, I'm so pleased to have found TSG and the DGA and golfers who want to go forward and not live in some tartan edged black and white silent movie!
