[Viking Golfer]

A good friend of mine

[Richie3Jack]

Up until I was 10 years old my family lived in the city. I got into sports at an early age, like 5 years old. And from 5-10, every day I would pretty much go to school...play with friends (usually sports, usually baseball)....eat supper and watch some TV and go to bed. Then we moved to the suburbs and about a couple of miles from the golf course. The kids in the suburbs would go to school....and watch TV and do homework. There's only so many times you can shoot some hoop by yourself before you get bored so my old man took me out to the golf course. Before that, he would take me out to the golf course with him about once a year and I would hit a few shots...but nothing major. Anyway, I was your typical god awful my first time out and it was your typical frustrating event. However, I think that's what got me into the game. Also, I liked the singularity of the game. At the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn...I was a helluva baseball player. But back then one of the things that drove me nuts about baseball was you had teammates that could screw up. I had plenty of games where I would throw a 2, 3 or 4 hitter and lose the game because of errors made by teammates. Certainly a bit selfish, but that drove me NUTS. At that age, I liked that in golf if you lost it's because you were not good enough and screwed up. I just loved that aspect of the game (now I'm more interested in the team aspect of sports). So I wound up going to the golf course every day during the season, practically living at the course from sun up to sun down.




3JACK

[potatofu]

2 good friends influenced me to go to the driving range with them. This was a couple of years back...and I thought I could take up the game and make more business connections.

Today I might be more addicted to golf than any of my friends... I just like to hit a good shot and look at the ball flying through the air... even if it's just on the range. Golf is therepeutic for me...

[bambooluv]

Back in middle school my moms old boyfriend Carl, (south paw'r) was a moonlighring golfer that got back into when work friends got him back into it. Well because of Carl I got intrested even though the only right handed club he had was a putter i swung anything that had a handle on it back then. I eventually got a set of clubs, and carl and m mom over one christmas got me a lot of golfinf stuff. I really didnt start serious golfing till about 5-6 years ago but have always been to the range every few months before then. Now I am a ho like the rest of my Gwrx family.

[patvball]

I was tagging along with my future wife at a Playboy Golf outing. Was amazed at the lack of skill shown by golfers that had paid 5 hundy a head to play and decided I would give it a shot. I had always avoided the game because I thought it was an elitist waspy game. Bought a complete set of Wilson clubs at a local Modell's and it's been downhill ever since...

[artfulgolfer]

I played baseball and hockey in vacant lots/ponds in Chicago from 9-11 years old, got a job at 12 pumping gas, then didn't play another sport until I was 35 - which is when I picked up snowboarding and roller hockey... I quit hockey at 45, picked up golf at 46. Played once a week the first year, then started playing 2-3 rounds rounds per week after my first year! now playing hockey again, but my passion is golf. I'm a nerd that sits at a computer all day -- love the opportunity to get outdoors and meet people!

[homergolf]

When I was a kid, 12 or 13, some of my friends started playing at our local Metropark courses. A par 3 (Little Met, $2.50 for 9) and an 18 hole regulation course (Big Met). They dragged me into it. We would get rides from our mothers on summer afternoons to go play 9 holes. We were so bad that we laughed our a$$es off. We had so much fun on those rounds. It carried over through high school and college, to the point that now, at the age of 52, some of us are still playing together, laughing our a$$es off and hopelessly addicted to golfing.

[63Brummie]

flubbed_it, on Nov 5 2008, 04:10 PM, said:

I played football at a reasonably high level and broke my back in 96. Never played again. After operations etc I started golf in 2000, looking for something to replace the competition and found that it also maintains a good muscular structure around my back which is a bit dodgy. I have found golf much more of a passion than football was which is saying something.

I quite agree, even though I love my team..only my shots disappoint me, the ball and the clubs are blameless ...
63Brummie
fairways and greens

[NEVA3PUTT]

MY BROTHER GOT ME INTO PLAYING OVER 2 YEARS AGO
I BOUGHT A BOX SET OF CLUBS FROM SPORTS AUTHORITY
SANK A HOLE IN ONE WITH THOSE CHEAP CLUBS THE FIRST TIME I WENT OUT
AND THEN BECAME A CLUB HOE EVER SINCE

[One_Putt_Blunder]

NEVA3PUTT, on Nov 6 2008, 11:54 AM, said:

MY BROTHER GOT ME INTO PLAYING OVER 2 YEARS AGO
I BOUGHT A BOX SET OF CLUBS FROM SPORTS AUTHORITY
SANK A HOLE IN ONE WITH THOSE CHEAP CLUBS THE FIRST TIME I WENT OUT
AND THEN BECAME A CLUB HOE EVER SINCE

hole in one your first time out, niceley done. Man I want to quit now I have played a little over one thousand rounds and still have the big fat zero for hole in ones. I would be hooked to if that happened to me. Oh well at least i am saving money by not having to splurge on drinks

[ZombieDave]

My dad made me play when I was about 10. MADE me. I really didn't want to do it. But after one successful hit I thought "hey this is fun". Plus I liked watching Seve on tv.

Luckily for me, 4 or 5 of my classmates all started playing at the same time. 25 years later, we all still play together at the same club we started at.

[flaun]

Always played sports, mostly baseball. My Grandfather played a lot, but he lived far away. Any time that I went to visit he pulled me out of bed at 6am to go to the course. Didn't really like it that much then, don't remember much about us playing. Then he passed away while I was still playing baseball through school.

Finally burned out on baseball, and lost the passion for good when the steroid scandal came out. Got married and my father-in-law was a golfer. I decided to pick up golf a little more to play with him. Actually asked him if I could marry his daughter out on the course. Said "Sure, you seem to make her happy" Hah!!! Then just as I picked up golfing more, he was diagnosed with cancer and only made it 4 months. Gave me his clubs after what he knew would be his last round at his home course.

I'm the only one in my family who plays now and I love it. Has definitely renewed my passion for competition. Now I just have to make time for golf while my sons are young. Soon enough they will be playing with me. I hope to pass that on to my boys. Just wish my Grandfater and Father-in-law were still around to play with......

[63Brummie]

stianvm, on Nov 4 2008, 03:56 PM, said:

Because golf irritated me, and i wanted to put golf in its place...A never ending work in progress i wouldnt want to be without

Nice reply...
Isn't it funny how we take sport in general and golf in particular so personally?
63Brummie
fairways and greens

[MS1]

Wow some great stories. I am 40 and never played as a kid, but played lots of other sports. Well two years ago my wife and I and my two young boys were at a vacation place in VA that had free rounds as part of the deal. Had actually been there on 3 prior years but felt guilty and a bit embarrased to play, becuase the boys were too small to come - (did not want to leave them for a half day on our vacation - plus I did not know how to play). But last year I got my nerve up and rented a set and booked the latest t time I could get. Went out on the course alone and proceed to lose about 11 balls, probably more it's just that in looking I found others. It was like meeting that beautiful girl in HS that you could not stand personality wise - an instant love/frustration that just got under my skin. I refused to believe that I could not just get he ball to fly where I wanted it to fly. When we got home I bought a set of clubs and played only to get completely hooked. Am playing in the 80s and just as frustrated!

This year for my early 40th bday as we were drving to SC again to vacation, my wife and kids had a "surprise" for me and we drove off course and ended up in Pinehurst. This is a woman who never picked up a club and thought she would be spending 3 days babysitting in the sticks while her husband had his ultimate Bday. Do I have a great wife or what? Well she go it half right. It was beyond words - the golf the people, the town, the food, everything. On day 3 I managed to talk her into taking the kids out on number 8 as they were offering a family golf deal for nine holes in the late afternoon.

Imagine us: me a novice, my wife who never touched a club and my 6 and 9 year old sons on Pinehurst 8... alone. It was magical and a time I will never forget. The part my wife got wrong was that she never expected what happened on that course that day. She fell in love with the game, being on a beautful course outdoors and the challange of that little white ball. Don't know if I will get back to Pinehurst any time soon, but it was a lifechanger. Can't really afford the sport, especially with 2 golfers (or more) in the family, but wouldn't trade it for the world.

[MS1]

Wow some great stories. I am 40 and never played as a kid, but played lots of other sports. Well two years ago my wife and I and my two young boys were at a vacation place in VA that had free rounds as part of the deal. Had actually been there on 3 prior years but felt guilty and a bit embarrased to play, becuase the boys were too small to come - (did not want to leave them for a half day on our vacation - plus I did not know how to play). But last year I got my nerve up and rented a set and booked the latest t time I could get. Went out on the course alone and proceed to lose about 11 balls, probably more it's just that in looking I found others. It was like meeting that beautiful girl in HS that you could not stand personality wise - an instant love/frustration that just got under my skin. I refused to believe that I could not just get he ball to fly where I wanted it to fly. When we got home I bought a set of clubs and played only to get completely hooked. Am playing in the 80s and just as frustrated!

This year for my early 40th bday as we were drving to SC again to vacation, my wife and kids had a "surprise" for me and we drove off course and ended up in Pinehurst. This is a woman who never picked up a club and thought she would be spending 3 days babysitting in the sticks while her husband had his ultimate Bday. Do I have a great wife or what? Well she go it half right. It was beyond words - the golf the people, the town, the food, everything. On day 3 I managed to talk her into taking the kids out on number 8 as they were offering a family golf deal for nine holes in the late afternoon.

Imagine us: me a novice, my wife who never touched a club and my 6 and 9 year old sons on Pinehurst 8... alone. It was magical and a time I will never forget. The part my wife got wrong was that she never expected what happened on that course that day. She fell in love with the game, being on a beautful course outdoors and the challange of that little white ball. Don't know if I will get back to Pinehurst any time soon, but it was a lifechanger. Can't really afford the sport, especially with 2 golfers (or more) in the family, but wouldn't trade it for the world.

[onehitah]

Here at work I was pondering why I took this game up again:

If I had pictures with me I'd post them. But I'm curious as to what makes you come back. Even if its just pictures of places you've played or wanna play.

For me it's personal goals.

Travel. Played in the states and some places overseas. There's something to be said for that feeling you get when you're somewhere you've never played.

The people I've met. Golfers generally seem to be good people.

And last but not least, get my mind off things and just be myself and enjoy life. That's the way I
look at golf these days anyway.