Just because I don’t play golf doesn’t mean I think people who do are shallow or have misplaced priorities or waste half their lives in a vapid, worthless, meaningless activity. And if I did think that, I certainly wouldn’t say it out loud or write it in a column, because there are lots of perfectly normal people – Alice Cooper and Tiger Woods come to mind – who are devoted to golf, and most of them don’t even dance with pythons or commit adultery with more women than live in Lithuania. Most of them are just normal people, like Donald Trump.
So I don’t judge people who enjoy playing golf – they have every right to fritter away their lives however they want. It’s just that I have approximately nine million things I want to do before I burn the time required to get proficient at herding a little ball into a hole with sticks. But that’s just me. It’s obviously a great game, judging by how many people watch it on TV and the huge cash prizes. The games are so tense (“terrifying approach,” “vicious greens,” “nightmarish meltdown”) and the stakes so high that advertisers pony up millions, which allows for the huge cash prizes and so on. And the great thing is that you can watch a round of golf in only five hours and don’t have to waste your whole day.
The action is literally nonstop. There are dozens of guys playing on the same course, so they can cut from a guy wearing white pants standing and looking at his ball and then squatting and staring intently across the grass at the hole, to a guy wearing plaid pants standing and looking at his ball and then squatting and staring intently across the grass at the hole. Sometimes a golfer will raise his leg and pump his fist, and everybody with a camera clicks like crazy, because that’s the most explosive movement you’ll see on the course all day. It will also be the two-second “teaser” the network shows so you’ll watch the highlights of the “action” on Sports Roundup later. 
Another great thing about the sport is that you can play at any age (a Seniors Tour in kick boxing or hockey would signal the end of our civilization even more certainly than, say, “Jersey Shore”). In fact, you don’t have to go through the agony of getting in top physical condition to play – even on the professional level! You can eat cheeseburgers and drink beer and smoke cigarettes all day long, then go to the course the next day and make half a million dollars if you can whack a ball straight and waddle to the next hole! Must make all those boxers and football players feel pretty silly training their butts off six hours a day and watching their diets when some of their fellow professional athletes can have chili fries and a beer halfway through a practice round. “Doh! I picked the wrong sport!”
The final great thing about golf: when I need to refresh myself with a good nap, nothing transports me to Sleepyland quicker than tuning in to a tournament, pressing the Mute button, and watching four or ... fi ...
Mack Dryden is a comedian and hilarious motivational speaker who once house-sat for David Letterman and fed his bone-head dogs. Visit www.mackdryden.com to see Mack in action.