What is this thing you call 'Golf'?

I've been out of my element before. Hell, I spend, at a minimum, 9 hours a day in an office smothered in slacks and polo shirts. But when I think about tomorrow I choke down bile and fear (oddly enough the combination tastes like spinach).

What is the irresistible appeal of hitting a ball that has never done you or your loved ones or very likely complete strangers any harm, playing hide and go seek with it, and just when it feels like it might have gotten away, that the abuse may finally stop, you find it, sometimes pet it and clout it again? Seems barbaric. The fact that this is sometimes accomplished with the aid of clever clown-like disguises makes it doubly so. (What is with those damn pants?!? And do you wear the hats to sidetrack?)

Have you ever really looked at a golf ball? Picked it up and held it and given it a name? They're adorable; all dimply and bright. It's like tossing a cross between Shirley Temple and a hairless gerbil into a mud puddle and stomping around a bit. You wouldn't walk up to a happy, sparkly Girl Scout and say "Excuse me, miss; but even though (or possibly because) you’re so cute and endearing and all things sweet, would you mind terribly if I punted you in the ass with this titanium stick and stole a box of Thin Mints?" (I hope not, at least) And the sound they make bouncing on a tiled floor? *sigh* Heaven!!! (The golf balls, not the children. That’s more of a <*Thump* “Bastard!"> Don’t ask.)

I’m all for violence in sports. Grown men taking slamming into each other for fun and profit up a notch with a few choice punches to the groin is o’tay by me, but don’t take what is veritably a stalking of innocence with butchery on your mind, dress it up in chinos and highballs and call it Sophistication.

As you saunter up to the tee to take that final executioner’s whack, thank your golf ball for its sacrifice to a wasted afternoon and the need for ludicrous jargon. When it winds up in the rough, don’t scold the poor thing for your incompetence; wish it well on its quest for freedom. When arguing the minute rules, regulations and legalese of water hazards, consider the horrid possibility that while you grumble and whine on dry land, little Benny or Sally or Hajib never learned to swim.

So, if you insist on perpetuating this malicious and, in the grand scheme of things, unpatriotic amusement, please, Please, PLEASE do this one thing for me (you club-toting miscreants): The next time you find yourself tooling about in checkered pants and matching pompom, an arsenal of wallop at your side (or the side of your underpaid, underappreciated college- or high school-aged pack-monkeys), take a moment to stop and smell your balls.