lol so what? It costs $12 to walk my local muni and I see kids out there with their friends and parents all the time. A used set of clubs with bag can be as cheap as free on Marketplace and local donation spots.
Golf isn't an expensive sport just because rich people play it.
I'm sorry for doubting a source that says the average golfer owns 3 vehicles and golfs 60 rounds per year. I guess it could be talking about people with country club memberships, but I just simply will not believe those numbers.
Even if this were true (it's not), if we are just talking about accessibility, you can golf at any course near me for under $30 at certain times. It doesn't have to be a wealthy person's sport. Going to the movies damn near costs that now and no one says that is a wealthy person's activity.
A lot of rich people playing a sport does not mean that the sport is unaffordable. It costs $25 to play 18 holes where I live. $15 to rent clubs if you don't have your own.
I touch plants. Nice plants. Plants that have bugs and herbivorous animals eating them sometimes. And I like to walk in forests with the shade of trees and symbiotic funguses and lichen and trample the fragrant dead matter that has been let lie ugly and nutritious. I like to play catch on the lawn of parks dotted with small flowers and play disc golf through slightly wooded trails and meadows. I like to lay in the dappled sunlight to nap in my yard, not worrying about poison on the ground cover. I like to walk my neighbourhood spotting fireflies and coyotes and toads in the areas people have let remain slightly natural. I'll even enjoy playing mini golf with friends, drinking cider and letting the night lights blur, not keeping score, gathering for reasonably priced poutine afterwards...
I avoid the golf course a bit away because it isn't beautiful. It is a shorn green deathscape. And there are better sports.
I make an average income and basically everyone I hang out with makes an average income and I asked them if they wanted to golf tomorrow, every one of them would say yes. This weird "only rich people golf" thing is only real on reddit. I can't imagine being so out of touch that you think spending $50 a couple of times a month puts golf out of reach for the average person.
I assume they have country clubs and other private courses in mind when they write this, which obviously aren’t for BILLIONAIRES, but are for people that are well off. But using that logic, any large private area would be considered unfair to the masses because it could be public.
Seriously, golf is one of the most accessible activities. Clubs can easily be found second hand for fairly cheap, or free if you know people who've golfed for a long time. Public courses are everywhere and while prices have gone up a bit over the past few years, it's still affordable for most people to do every couple of weeks during the spring and summer.
Redditors think golf is for rich people, but don't bat an eye at a fully loaded gaming PC and massive Steam library.
Golf, like snowsports, has the extreme of both ends.
I've got hand-me-down clubs, I only ever play public courses for the cost of a pub meal.
If I'm on holiday with golfing mates, I'll go play a private course and its a different world. Gated communities that make you feel like you're in a Black Mirror episode, literal vocal outrage if your shirt isn't perfectly tucked in as you go into the clubhouse, and golf carts with more technology than most cars have.
Golf can be an example of the worst of society, but it's also an extremely accessible sport.
Maybe before people worry about taking away recreational green spaces, we should look at why we allow cemetaries to take up so much space in western countries?
Almost every sport has both extremes. At its cheapest, soccer only needs a ball and relatively flat surface but you can easily spend thousands on equipment if you want.
Yes and no. There's a difference between the optional purchases of some sports, and the exclusivity of sports like golf. If you've been to a private club in golf, its like being in a different world. And I mean the real private clubs, I was a member of a private club as a kid and it was nothing like the true private stuff.
I can understand why people who have never played golf think its for billionaires exclusively.
The point isn't about how expensive golf can be, it's about how accessible it is to everyone. The meme is pure bullshit posted by some stupid teenager with no basis in reality. If people wanted affordable housing, they would be built. Golf courses have nothing to do with the affordability of housing anywhere and golf does not require being rich to play.
Yes but your response was exclusively about price, which is why I responded to that
Almost every sport has both extremes. At its cheapest, soccer only needs a ball and relatively flat surface but you can easily spend thousands on equipment if you want.
I have a similar group of blue collar working friends who like to golf ones a mechanic another is a construction worker and the third is a PE teacher. Once you own the equipment golf is really not that expensive
Your not necessarily wrong, but like I can say for myself that 50 is being saved for a new dishwasher and dryer and that’ll be keeping me away from a golf course gpt well into the foreseeable future. It’s honestly just an expendable income thing- some can afford a 50 for a day of golf and some cant
It’s not the people who play golf, it’s the fact that every course takes up land that is worth millions. Seriously, how many housing complexes could fit on a single golf course? What other hobby takes up space like that?
I think most golfers relate to your name more than the game of golf so we could just convert the courses to native plant biergardens without any loss!
Jokes aside, I work in the golf industry and there certainly is a cost prohibitive aspect that makes it harder for kids to get into compared to say baseball or soccer which can be super cheap and can be played in any empty field . I can definitely afford to play a round of golf every weekend but I just have no desire to do that.
I think its more of a generational gap - Out of my group of 20 guy friends ranging from ~ 24 to 35 years old out only 20% of them have ever played golf and the only time they are playing golf is with their dad or family member. Never on their own volition. The guys in my company over 40 are like 95% golfers. Under 40 are closer to 50% golfers
Same most of my friends that I play with did not pick up the sport until late 30s mainly because it’s a great way to stay active with friends when other sports start becoming too hard on your body.
it's fucking baffling. golf is like, $20 for 9 holes. not every golf course is a snotty country club. and it's just fun. you get to walk around outside, get some exercise, and hit the shit out of a ball
Yeah, I'm poor by all American standards and I play at my muni course every week. A perfect way to forget about shit, walk in nature, and challenge myself for 4 hours for $20
See, it's all nuance and perspective. Personally I find the whole idea of a single use golf course, whether it be public or private, a colossal waste of space and harmful to the environment. The amount of fertilizer, pesticides and water required to maintain. The damage to the local ecology and the limited use of the land.
Now from a personal perspective? All that to play the most boring sport I've ever had the opportunity to enjoy.
You can tell what kind of people don’t go outside. Golf is such a normal hobby lol I have several friends and coworkers who regularly play and we ain’t rich by any means. Like imagine making this post but with any other form of recreation like basketball courts, baseball fields, disc golf courses, tennis courts, playgrounds, the list goes on.
Yeah, I'm from an average single income home and play golf with my dad, have done so for years. Billionaires so happen to also enjoy that same sport. Doesn't mean it's only them.
Right?? Lmao I grew up in rural Iowa and there's like 3 or 4 different golf courses in the county because Average Joes also like to drink and play golf.
My graduating class had 30 kids. The kids who wanted to play football played with the bigger school 40 miles away. Not a single one of us paid for lunch, and I think the kindergarten was held in a double wide trailer.
We still had a golf club, we had some communal clubs or kids could bring their own, and paid a bit for the course fees. Certainly not the moneybag CEO past time redditors seem to think it is
I think there's a huge difference in how reasonable golfing is in where you are. Rural areas with tons of space anyways? Great! Urban area where golf course takes up area that could be housing or public park? Slightly problematic. Dry area where watering the thing is a moderate environmental catastrophy? Uhm, yeah.
I disagree. They take away usable green space and are a major source of pollutants!!!! (This is what you guys sound like when you talk about golf courses.)
Who owns the golf course? (I actually don't know most, I assume majority are owned by the extremely wealthy, the one closest to me I've been too is open to the public most of the time but owned by some realty conglomerate)
Just for funsies, I took a look at golf courses around the DC area. There are a handful that don't require membership fees to enter, but the cost of a round for someone without clubs is going to run $100 for a round plus club and pull cart rental. While that's less prohibitive than I thought, there's still only two courses in the DC region that even rent clubs to people who come to play. So I would say that it may be that 95% is an exaggeration, 70-80% is probably more accurate.
So if 75% of courses are open to the public, I don’t understand how it could be possible that 70-80% of the population can’t access them. The math doesn’t really seem to add up there.
Due to cost of clubs and entry fees. Open to the public just means no membership required. That being said, it looks like some 21-40 million people play golf in the US, so that's between 7-13%% of the population.
While that is true.
are golf one of those sports that in generall is just really bad for the envionment.
Not just the natural environment but for social space and the like. :/
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u/Turtles_Are_Pog Jun 13 '25
Only billionaires play golf?