Campag4life

Funny...never heard of ya. I think the other guys are more recognizable.

ravenmore

sorry, couldn't resist.

ravenmore

Eh, I didn't say I was a famous athlete.

Campag4life

I didn't ask about your grip.
You're easy pickins.

Campag4life

You didn't have to.

ravenmore

exactly.

Campag4life

Me either. Arguing with somebody about whether golf is a sport when the guy who believes it isn't because he can't break a hundred....well....
Scratch players know different.

Campag4life

Here is a chance to vindicate yourself ravenmore.
First...have to ask...do you think tennis is a sport?
Follow up. Name the grip in tennis that is analogous to a strong grip in golf and why. What kind of grip do most net rushers, i.e. serve and volley players play with and why?
Lets see if you know just a little about sport.

ravenmore

there's nothing wrong with golf being a game of skill. There's no disrespect in that. It just isn't a game that requires athleticism and fitness on the level of cycling, basketball, football, swimming, or....sumo wrestling. Or especially swimming while playing golf and throwing a football.

Golf just requires a different kind of skill that is really difficult to master at the top level.

ravenmore

Dude, I'm having dinner and drinking wine w/my gf. Don't make me think right now. (she's on BF too on her laptop on the sofa)

I guess what we're after is the difference between a "game" and a "sport". (I think those are the words we're talking about?). Golf requires skill but not a lot of physical conditioning. For me at least that is telling.

edit: telling perhaps but I'm not knocking it. I have the slice from h3ll. Golf is hard to do well.

Campag4life

I grew up competively swimming, playing tennis and golf. I was into cycling casually when younger. Playing golf is as athletic as swimming, just a different form of athleticism. That is the point. Being a homerun hitter in baseball is an athletic feat as is driving a golf ball into a fairway 30 yards wide three football fields away. You didn't answer the analogy question about tennis and golf and therefore you really don't know what you are talking about do you?...with respect.

BarracksSi

All this talk about "sport", and everything mentioned so far has been a recreational activity... not a "sport".

Now, if you can get killed as a matter of course (which discounts BS like a heart attack on the green), such as taking a bowie knife to hunt a grizzly bear, then we're talking "sport".

Easy litmus test: can you say, "I'm going to play ______"? If so, it's a "game", not a "sport".

Campag4life

You will never have the physical strength or coordination to hit a golf ball 300 yards into a tight fairway. You do not possess the athleticism to do that.
That's OK.

ravenmore

Actually I did hit the back net of a driving range about halfway up one time. I think it was the only ball I hit straight out of two buckets but at least I got a piece of that one.

Look, golf is hard. But you can be an out of shape lard butt and do it well.

Speaking of - we are so far in the ruff I think as far as this thread goes...

ravenmore

I don't know all the technical terms. No big deal, I don't participate in those sports. I did play racquetball with my buddy Joe who is a tennis pro at a club in Houston. First game I won. 2nd game I barely one. Third he kicked my @ss. He started putting a f'ing top spin on the ball. D@mn thing would crawl straight up the front wall and then drop straight down. But while Joe was trying to figure out how to put english on a racquetball he was able to use his athleticism to run around the court and make a game of it. Daly would've been in a coma.

Campag4life

Revelation...racket ball is one hellova sport...
Guess that makes you and average "Joe" better athletes then Elway who played crippled his last two seasons.

ravenmore

c'mon now - no need to insult some one you've never met. Joey did ok in college in tennis from what I hear.

Who the heck was talking about Elway? Who said either of was a better athlete than Elway? Dude, focus.

yogi13

Yeah, great athletes can suck at other sports...then again:

- Wilt Chamberlain was the NCAA champion high jumper. He was also an excellent racketball and volleyball player.
- John Elway played pro baseball before he played pro football, though he couldn't hit a curveball. He's also a scratch golfer, even without knee cartilage.
- Said basketball player also played minor league baseball
- Todd Helton started at quarterback for Tennessee, and is now a perennial all star in baseball.
- Tony Gonzalez started as a basketball player at Cal. Antonio Gates played basketball in college, not football.

I used to play softball with a couple of guys who were pro basketball players (strange but true). They were really good. A lot of guys who are pros at one sport are way better at other sports than most, and many could achieve elite levels in a number of them.

robvas

Golf is more of 'game of skill', than a 'sport'.

Games of skill would be things like golf, bowling, billards, shuffleboard.

Someone is going to come in here calling auto racing, poker, and who knows what else a sport. That's just my opinion. You could have a whole thread on what people consider 'sports'

Campag4life

Robvas...what kind of cyclist are you? Average? Better than average?
How far can you hit a golf ball? How fast can you throw a baseball? Can you hit a 110 mph tennis serve with a lot of top spin? Can Michael Jordan? How much can you bench press? Are weight lifters athletes?

What is laughable about the golf being a skill or game reference is always from guys that were never when any good at it and therefore don't appreciate the level of athleticism involved. Truth is, it is the level of athleticism in golf that differentiates prowess, just like in basketball. You think Larry Bird was the one of the 10 most athletic basketball players of all time? He likely wouldn't have made the top 10,000 for athleticism. His skill was just about unparalleled however. Tiger Woods is the best athlete in the game and why he is a superior player. There maybe 100 players on the PGA tour with his level of skill. He has both, just like Michael Jordan and why each maybe the best of all time at their sport.

A lot of cyclists were never good athletes and therefore have no perspective. Most outside of cycling would say that golf is more of a "sport" than cycling...because they have competed at other sports and get it.

merlinextraligh

Thus Football, baseball, basketball, soccer, rugby, cricket, australian rules football, hockey, waterpolo, lacrosse, etc. are not sports.

I think your litmus test fails.

ravenmore

again - what the h3ll are you trying to say? You go from asking someone what kind of cyclist they are to asking how much they can bench press. Oh and along the way you ask if Michael Jordan can hit a 110 mph tennis serve...

Daly got that body from doing curls. 12 ounces at a time.

cmyke

This is the fastest I've ever been. A tow-truck actually PASSED me while I was going down the hill. What an a-hole!

Tulex

Look up the word sport online in Websters. It means many different things depending on how it's used. So, if one wants to define what is a sport, that isn't all that hard. But, if one wants to define what a sport is that differs from Websters, that becomes an opinion. And by the way, the back and forth that is going on here would be a sport.........

fprintf

Well, I couldn't read page 3 of this thread because some doofus posted unresized pictures at some huge resolution.

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