Reader TTS

I’ve grown up knowing two things about golf. First, that I love it. Second, that most people seem to hate it. And they really do. No other sport seems to attract quite the same reaction as

golf. It’s for toffs, old farts and masons — a “Margot and Jerry” sport in a “Tom and Barbara” world. When the news broke that golf would once more be allowed, UK political Twitter erupted

in a snort of collective derision. One wag commented, “Real shame the government hasn’t taken this opportunity to ban golf entirely and forever.” To which another replied: “It’s not golf I

want to ban. It’s golfers.” As a golf nut, you get used to this sort of thing and learn to ignore it. There’s no chance I could ever argue the golf sceptics round, so I gave up trying long

ago. But it’s unusual that a sport should have such an iffy reputation. It’s also remarkable that the decline in golf’s broad standing has coincided with its disappearance from British

political life. Up in the Lobby in the House of Commons, there are shelves full of books no one ever reads, large amounts of wood paneling and cabinets full of silverware. One of those

trophies is the old Lobby Correspondents’ golf tournament cup. But no name has been etched onto its silver pediment for decades. There’s no Lobby golf tournament now. It wasn’t just the

political hacks who played, but the politicos themselves and it was a game for both right and left. Harold Wilson played. Edward Heath, though a sailor, was keen to associate himself with

the game. Denis Thatcher loved the game so much, he even managed to convince the Iron Lady to retire to a house just behind the third tee at Dulwich & Sydenham. And who could forget the

historic match, held at Royal St George’s, Sandwich on 1st April 1905, between the Fishermen of Inverallachy and a team from the House of Commons? The House side was captained by Prime

Minister A.J. Balfour. The game was in the veins of the British polity — but somewhere along the line, golf got it wrong. Something changed, and the game failed to change with it. No modern

British politician would ever want to be seen as “a golfer”. It would be impossible to imagine Blair, Cameron or Johnson playing. The same goes for Starmer. Corbyn, I assume, does not favour

the game. Not so in the US, where golf remains closely associated with politics. George W Bush, the Republican, played throughout his presidency, as did the Democrats Barack Obama and Bill

Clinton. And yes, there is Trump, perhaps the most golf-obsessed man ever to hold the presidency, even more so than Eisenhower.  Trump’s association with golf could well render it toxic in

US political life. After him, will any president want to be photographed on the golf course? The question remains — why did golf become so politically unacceptable in Britain? The sexism of

the club-house rules didn’t help, and this put the game horrendously out of step with the social shifts that came in the latter part of the twentieth century. But cricket was just as bad,

and hasn’t suffered anything like the same fall in its standing. Perhaps the greatest societal problem golf faced was the amount of time that’s required to play it. This went against changes

in attitude towards family life, which deemed it no longer acceptable for a man to work at the office all week and then spend the weekend on the golf course. Professional men have ditched

golf in droves and gone out in search of different pastimes, for example cycling, which takes less time, requires little skill and has a “keep fit” appeal. The “Middle Aged Man in Lycra” is

an unfortunate and unsightly consequence of the decline of golf. The rise of the bike has also coincided with the greater urbanisation of British society — more people live in cities than

ever before and the political character of Britain has changed accordingly. We now have city mayors with devolved powers. Not only that but the high-profile national politicians of the last

thirty years have all been urban creatures. Blair, Cameron and Johnson are all metropolitans, all in their ways products of the city and inheritors of various of its values. They weren’t

golfers. Instead, Cameron and Johnson both played tennis, a culturally much less freighted game. Blair’s defining sporting moment was when he headed that football back and forth with Kevin

Keegan. And so golf, a fundamentally provincial game, fell away from the heart of British metropolitan political life. It had come to seem too out of step with the changing face of the

nation. As a devotee, I have to accept that in some ways, the sport has failed to keep up with social change. But the high profile examples of outright idiocy in the game are deceptive. Most

golf clubs are nothing like the snooty old establishments of the old days. Instead, most are so strapped for cash that anyone can turn up and play, usually for about the price of a decent

round of drinks. But even so, the idea persists that golf is somehow socially degenerate, that it’s a game for the selfish and the out-of-touch. I think that’s a great shame. Golf is a great

game, invented in these islands and played here for over six hundred years. That makes cricket, football, rugby and all the rest _arrivistes_ by comparison. It’s a difficult sport, which

works against it, and all those world famous golfers aren’t necessarily the most inspiring sorts. But still, it’s an incredibly revealing game, one that exerts its own peculiar pressure on

the player. In no other sport do you play against not only your opponent, but also the natural terrain and the elements. In a game of golf, the wind can determine the winner. There is

something unusual and I think very beautiful in that. The people who don’t play will never know.