why PC should play soccer

I love golf and I have since I was about five years old. I like to watch golf, I like to play golf, and I understand golf. Sometimes I can even inspire other people to like golf, though the TV version of the game is admittedly difficult for the first-timer to appreciate. As I type, I'm watching the final matches of the President's Cup, a USA versus the "International" competition. It has Tiger and Ernie Els and all the great players and it's going to be on all afternoon. Love it.

Still, I'm not sure if PC should play golf. Though I may not have a lot of control over this, I want him to play soccer, or basketball, or something other than golf as he grows up. Why? One of the odd things I've experienced when I self-identify as a golf nut is the many many stereotypes of golfers--rich, snobby, elitist, and even racist. Some of these are true. The game has not been the most socially progressive sport. In fact, it's been a socially regressive sport. The PGA Tour, for example, had a "Caucasians Only" clause until 1962. Since Tiger Woods, of course, golf (and Nike) has been on one gigantic public relations campaign designed to do away with this "whites only" image, and perhaps it's worked a little. When you look at galleries of TV golf tournaments there are more brown and black faces, but if you look around your local course (esp. if you live in the South) you will probably notice that the housekeeping staff and the pro shop staff are racially homogeneous. The whites are in the positions of power and the blacks clean up, by and large. The vestiges of the "whites only" clause are still visible in 2007.

But it's the cost of playing golf that keeps so many people out of golf, not overt racism. When people assume this golfer is the rich/elitist/white snob they associate with the game, I often find myself talking about where I grew up playing, a nine-hole municipal course that allowed kids to play for about $100 a summer. That course, and the Minnesota town around it, was lily-white and not all that elitist. Bus drivers, school teachers, salesmen of many kinds, and the few practicing attorneys all played there. My dad was a cop and we could afford my membership---it was the Christmas gift I looked forward to most. Sure, there are class divisions in small town Minnesota, but the golf course never seemed to emphasize those. The more prominent hierarchy there was based on skill, which is why so many kids like me were allowed to play there from an early age. We'd become good junior players and could stand up to adult restrictions on us because we could beat many of them.

The cost: on average, it's close to $40 to play eighteen holes here and there's no guarantee that PC will be able to afford that, or that we'll be able to afford it for him. Moreover, there are very few municipal courses where you can actually buy a membership for a reasonable price, and therefore save on the per-round cost, which is a problem because the only way to get good at golf is to play a LOT. The private courses have steep initiation fees in addition to ongoing costs, not to mention the fact that in many cases you have to know someone and rely on that someone to invite you to become a member. It's a "club," after all.

I'm trying not to write a bitter entry here. It's just that sports like soccer or basketball, which have low equipment costs and fewer social restrictions, are beginning to look far more attractive to me. If you play soccer as a kid, you'll get an unbelievable cardiovascular workout and you'll be able to play almost wherever you go and for many, many years. There are pickup games all over the place in most towns, there are leagues to join, and all it really takes is the willingness to put your spikes on and find the soccer nuts. They are out there.

I don't play soccer and I'm not particularly well built for it. I don't understand the rules that well. But if PC wants to play it, I'm going to buy him some Umbro shorts, drive him to the field, and probably yell my head off. And if he wants to golf, we'll try that, too, but it will not be our first choice.