I know what many of you who are reading this are thinking.... really what good is there in a rich man's game where you chase little white (or neon green) balls around a manicured piece of land?
I actually do understand people's concerns with the game, and if it wasn't for the tremendous good the game does via the PGA (over US$ 2Billion) donated to charities, I would be less a fan. With that said I think this tremendously hard game is a great teacher of positive life skills. It teaches patience, honesty, sportsmanship, conversation, among a reim of other things.
For me, one of the best things about golf is that I get to hang out for hours at a time with my fourteen-year-old son Andrew. In the winter we hang out on ski hills, and I follow him down the mountain with a camera. Now in the summer, we spend time together whacking little white balls. It is a rare thing in this age, to have quality time with your teenager, and golf is the vehicle that I see facilitating this relationship for the rest of our lives.
So while golf may take up too much time, be too expensive, too exclusive, and a game for only the entitled, in my world it is the game which facilitates me spending quality time with a teenager, who already beats me at the game, which outwardly is frustrating, but inwardly makes me a proud dad! So while Mark Twain my have seen golf as a "good walk interupted" I see golf as "a life interupted" which in a world of screens and video games is an amazing thing.