Q&A / CARL HIAASEN: 'I don't think writers are cut out to be golfers'

93Devil · May 13, 2008

Golf was on in the background this weekend while my wife and I ate dinner, and she asked me to explain the scoring.

I said par can be three, four or five times to hit the ball before in goes into the cup. The people that design the course expect you to make that score they assign when you play the hole.

If you can get the ball into the cup in one fewer stroke than is expected, then it is a birdie. One more stroke than they expect is a bogey.

So par is average, and most people are nowhere near average.

Then I thought that in their best rounds, most golfers cannot make par on more than nine holes.

What a self-defeating game, but it is still great.

JR · May 13, 2008

When Emerson said "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" he sure as hell wasn't talking about golf.

playthrough · May 13, 2008

FirstDownPirates said:

Frank_Ridgeway said:

Here's something that's long puzzled me about golf writing -- so many newspaper writers seem to turn in golf copy that's a pleasure to read (and I am not a golf fan). Aside from top specialists like Bonk and Dorman, it seems like even the off-duty football and basketball writers and the general sports columnists who parachute in for majors seem to write really well when they cover golf. I've edited some writers who I thought were good but not great on their regular beats, but send them to Augusta or Pebble Beach for a week and they tear it up.
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Golf competition is the ideal undertaking to write about, at least that's what it felt like when I was still doing it. You've got a lot of choices: man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. history, man vs. his own psyche.
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And if there's 120 guys in the field, there's 120 different stories to tell. Not that people always write about the guy who finishes 38th, but one could. I always enjoyed that aspect of a golf tournament more than, say, an NFL game where sometimes there's only a couple of story lines.

93Devil · May 14, 2008

playthrough said:

FirstDownPirates said:

Frank_Ridgeway said:

Here's something that's long puzzled me about golf writing -- so many newspaper writers seem to turn in golf copy that's a pleasure to read (and I am not a golf fan). Aside from top specialists like Bonk and Dorman, it seems like even the off-duty football and basketball writers and the general sports columnists who parachute in for majors seem to write really well when they cover golf. I've edited some writers who I thought were good but not great on their regular beats, but send them to Augusta or Pebble Beach for a week and they tear it up.
Click to expand...

Golf competition is the ideal undertaking to write about, at least that's what it felt like when I was still doing it. You've got a lot of choices: man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. history, man vs. his own psyche.
Click to expand...

And if there's 120 guys in the field, there's 120 different stories to tell. Not that people always write about the guy who finishes 38th, but one could. I always enjoyed that aspect of a golf tournament more than, say, an NFL game where sometimes there's only a couple of story lines.
Click to expand...

And you are always putting for money on the 72nd hole.

One of the final guys doubled 18 last weekend, and I told my wife that just cost him a pile of money.

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Q&A / CARL HIAASEN: 'I don't think writers are cut out to be golfers'

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Q&A / CARL HIAASEN: 'I don't think writers are cut out to be golfers'

93Devil Well-Known Member

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