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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To loathe golf and golfers?

GetOrfMoiLand · 2010-04-30T10:07:50+00:00

It is AWFUL. A few reasons: - Tiger Woods. I mean, look at him. - The clothes they wear. - Every week I have to sit at work and listen to golfers talk about their wondeful round they went on last weekend, and the brilliant links they are going to the following weekend. And they talk about their handicap. And their fucking 5 irons. They BRAY very loudly about it like it is some wonderful thing to do. - I have a woman colleague who is a golfer. She pays the same membership fees as the men, however she is not allowed to play golf on Saturday mornings as 'that is when the men who have worked all week get to play'. Women must play in the week. This makes me so angry I want to spit. - I work with blokes, and have a lot of meetings with people, and at the start of every meeting they start talking about golf. I am asked (cursorily) at the start of the meeting 'do you play golf'. I say 'no' you boring cliched bastard. I then sit there (hatchet faced) whilst they ramble on. - I work in engineering procurement, so with a team have to select suppliers/partners with whom we are gpoing to spend sometimes millions of pounds. Because I am HONEST I will not accept as much as a pen from a supplier as a 'gift'. My colleagues this morning have accepted a bloody golf day at the buggering Belfry whislt we are in the middle of a tender, which to me is not on. If I wasn't leaving the company I would kick up shit because this is completely unethical. - anyway, back to golf. I can't think of any more reasons, but it is a bag of shit anyway.

55 replies

GetOrfMoiLand · 30/04/2010 11:07

It is AWFUL. A few reasons:

Tiger Woods. I mean, look at him.

The clothes they wear.

Every week I have to sit at work and listen to golfers talk about their wondeful round they went on last weekend, and the brilliant links they are going to the following weekend. And they talk about their handicap. And their fucking 5 irons. They BRAY very loudly about it like it is some wonderful thing to do.

I have a woman colleague who is a golfer. She pays the same membership fees as the men, however she is not allowed to play golf on Saturday mornings as 'that is when the men who have worked all week get to play'. Women must play in the week. This makes me so angry I want to spit.

I work with blokes, and have a lot of meetings with people, and at the start of every meeting they start talking about golf. I am asked (cursorily) at the start of the meeting 'do you play golf'. I say 'no' you boring cliched bastard. I then sit there (hatchet faced) whilst they ramble on.

I work in engineering procurement, so with a team have to select suppliers/partners with whom we are gpoing to spend sometimes millions of pounds. Because I am HONEST I will not accept as much as a pen from a supplier as a 'gift'. My colleagues this morning have accepted a bloody golf day at the buggering Belfry whislt we are in the middle of a tender, which to me is not on. If I wasn't leaving the company I would kick up shit because this is completely unethical.

anyway, back to golf. I can't think of any more reasons, but it is a bag of shit anyway.

OP posts:

Blu · 30/04/2010 11:16

YADNBU.
Golf courses take up so much space and are very bland, unnatural and unattractive to look at, and ecologically probably a bit barren.
It is an aesthetically disastrous 'sport', all that land just so people can amble round hitting balls.

Blu · 30/04/2010 11:18

HOWEVER as a source of mirth it pays it's way - I remember a MN-er once reporting that her neighbour had his brand new Golf parked in the drive and was red in the face and screaming "why call it a a Golf if you can't get your clubs in?" beause his full set of clubs would not fit in the boot .
Owners of Polos sympathised....

digsy28 · 30/04/2010 11:21

DecorHate · 30/04/2010 11:22

I also used to work in an engineering based industry so heavily male-dominated. I was the only woman doing my role, about a dozen men doing the same job. They would regularly book days off to go playing golf together, I always felt it was sort of having sneaky meetings without me!

So I completely understand how you feel!

A friend gave me good advice though - if someone asks you if you play golf, smile sweetly and say, "No, I am not old enough to be interested in a middle-aged sport" (sadly I am actually old enough now but still not interested!)

QueenOfToast · 30/04/2010 11:24

YANBU.
If someone tells me that they play golf, I assume they're an idiot (or dull at best).

skihorse · 30/04/2010 11:37

YABU

The clothes they wear? Oh, polo shirt and chinos - very offensive.

Tiger Woods "extra-marital affairs" have feck all to do with his sport. c.f., David Beckham and anyone else ever to don an england top.

Original poster

GetOrfMoiLand · 30/04/2010 11:41

Decorhat - thanks I will remember that comment.

Ski - no trhe clothes are not offensive, but they are vile. You can't defend polo shirts (in a fetching shade of pale mint natch), or chinos, or sun visors surely

OP posts:

MintHumbug · 30/04/2010 11:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Blu · 30/04/2010 11:45

nice polo shirt

Blu · 30/04/2010 11:46

smart, sexy and practical

skihorse · 30/04/2010 11:48

getorf Not sure where you live, but you've not been to any golf courses I've been to. Not that I've seen any blokes wearing pastels or lilacs anyway... If your friends have bad taste in clothes that's an entirely new topic.

*I don't play - but OH does. It's perfectly normal to play in Scotland. It's only walking a few miles in the hills - nothing sinister.

Original poster

GetOrfMoiLand · 30/04/2010 12:30

Oh I have heard ski that golf is viewed completely differently in Scotland and doesn't have the hideous class/money connotaions that the English have imbued it with.

I think in england to qualify as a golfer you need to have an overbite/paunch/honking laugh.

OP posts:

TarheelMama · 30/04/2010 12:42

I was never much interested in golf (and still not really), but I went to a driving range, to give it a fair chance. I found it very satisfying when I connected with the ball and sent it flying off into the distance. If you haven't tried it, you shouldn't judge. Sounds to me like you have issues with the people who play golf, rather than the sport itself, which is an entirely different matter.

mayorquimby · 30/04/2010 13:10

yabu
tiger woods is a legend and every golf club that I've ever played that has women members also has a specified womens day for golf aswell.

Iklboo · 30/04/2010 13:11

DS has gone to his 'come to school as a sportsman' day dressed as a golfer. He looks really cute!

At least he's different from the 27 Rooneys

bobdog · 30/04/2010 13:30

Yanbu, I'm from engineering background annoyed me that the main society used to offer Golf weekends as part of it's activities.

Since I have to drive/cycle/walk round a massive local links golf course (stolen from the common townspeople ages ago)to get to school I have no love for them.

Everytime I've snuck across it, 100m tops, some early retired, failed middle management man shouts at me and tells me about the 'correct' way to go which is at least a 25min detour.

Also have mad theory that 'mens' sports take up lots of room ie golf, football pitches, etc. whilst ladies get pushed into small sports like knitting and netball - and how many local councils provide for them.

Original poster

GetOrfMoiLand · 30/04/2010 13:33

I used to jog across Saunton Sands Golf course. It is a public right of way, but I used to send a load of mustachioed middle age golfers in a tizz by jogging across their path.

OP posts:

mayorquimby · 30/04/2010 13:34

shouldn't walk across the golf course tbf

bobdog · 30/04/2010 13:39

We're not talking crazy golf here, it takes up a huge area and splits the town in half with one miserable footpath at the wrong end.

Ooooh I've gone all angry just thinking about it, will have to lie down awhile.

stealthsquiggle · 30/04/2010 13:46

GetOrdMoiLand - I have every sympathy with the business ethics one - it would make me back the other bidders to the hilt when it comes to evaluation

However, personally, on the whole, I find pre-meeting golf talk slightly less boring and annoying than the football variety, so I tolerate it.

..and DS loves golf, so I can't hate it too loudly!

bobdog · 30/04/2010 13:54

Club membership was not intended for the local townspeople but for an exclusive group of officer class in-comers and local gentry.
Exception was made for wealthy city business people who spent their summers in xxxxx but membership was denied
not only to 'commerce and trade' but also to doctors and solicitors. 'Ladies' however formed a substantial part of the early membership.

The first course was laid out on land that had been regarded by the people as common land for walking and pleasure.
The land for the course was leased to the club for 2s 6d a year by the local landowner. This caused friction
with the townspeople and also with a local farmer who had a long standing agreement to graze his sheep.

The landowner wrote in 1893 'There are other people in town besides the members of the
golf club and I must consider their interests. There is a general craze for golf now but no one can say how long that will last'.
the landowner subsequently became a member of the golf club and is commemorated by 'The Cup'.

Public access remained a continuing source of trouble and in 1902 landowner took high court action against 14 residents for trespass onto the downs. Prior to the hearing the defendants signed an undertaking not to trespass in future and agreed to pay the landowners costs. Following this agreement the golf course was fenced off with spiked iron railings that remained in place until they
were removed for scrap in the Second World War.

TheSmallClanger · 30/04/2010 14:52

YADNBU. I hate golf for all the reasons mentioned above: the huge eco-black holes used to facilitate it, the horrible fashion, the casual sexism, the all-boys-together chumminess, all having a nice break from the wife and kids on the course.

DH, in one of his hobby sprees, took up golf once, and it's the closest I've come to hating him. It might be irrational, but it's true. He'd disappear off with some twatty blokes from work and always came back with this weird attitude, which I think was from the people, not golf itself. At least when he went climbing, he'd go for most of the weekend and be done with it, and I'd make other plans, but golf used to start off as a couple of hours, then turn into whole days. Grrrr.

ooojimaflip · 30/04/2010 14:58

YANBU - It's a cunts game for cunts. Therefore all the players are cunts.

Except for the ones I am friends with obv.

mumwifemaggie · 30/04/2010 15:14

My DH is a pro-golfer in Scotland and I don't play at all. He tried to teach me once but didn't enjoy it and its never been a problem. He likes to explain all the courses he's ever play on, hole by hole, club by club. He knows I've learned to tune him out.

As its our livelyhood I can't really say anything about it, but I personally think the course is lovely, a really nice family walk (he's a fast player so we just walk and he plays).

The sexism is the only thing I don't like about golf, the woman are treated like 2nd class citizens. They get to play on a Wednesday afternoon, whoop!

You get all sorts playing golf, the toffs who think they own the place and the normal people who just enjoy it. My DH defo prefers the people who enjoy it, the toffs are a pain.

btw, I absolutely love the golfing shirt, not for style but so much easier to iron than work shirts.

MorrisZapp · 30/04/2010 15:45

YABU

My DP is golf obssessed and he is hot as anything. The gear he wears is super hot too - he gets it all on trendy golf. com and wears it with total panache

He gets so much from it, he can't wait for the season to begin and then I get the bed to myself both weekend mornings all summer as he's out raising his game and loving every minute.

He's got loads of friends who play golf, they are just normal intelligent guys just like anybody else, not cunts at all.

It doesn't appeal to me at all but that doesn't mean I have to hate the people who enjoy it.

I even get to go along with him and enjoy shopping etc in fab places like St Andrews while he plays a round - what's not to love.

Maybe if your DP was also fit as fuck and tanned from May to October you'd like it too

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