Is Golf A Sport Or A Game?

[Michael Whitaker]

In the current thread about Max Behr the question was broached concerning whether golf is a sport[/b] or a game[/b].

TEPaul made the following post in response:

Throughout Behr's essays he continues to make the distinction between "sport" and "game". Ultimately Behr believes golf was and should continue to be a "sport" as opposed to a "game".

Probably the most basic distinction he makes between golf as a "sport" as opposed to golf as a "game" revolves around what Behr believes to be the necessary balance or part "Nature" must play in the equation of golf. If golf loses that part of "Nature's" necessary balance Behr believed golf then becomes a totally man concocted and man-made game in every way which he believes includes its architecture, the golfer's perception of it, the rules of golf--basically everything.

Behr makes the point that initially golfers who viewed golf as a true sport were not so concerned with things such as the prinicples some of us hold of "equity", "fair play", "a just reward to skill" etc. It's not that in his time Behr did not believe in those things just that he didn't believe golf, golfers and golf architecture should become as fixated on those things as they had become, and, he feared, would continue to become! He called that mentality when nature loses its necessary part in golf, the "game mind" of man.

The reason Behr didn't believe golf (or its architecture) should fixate on those things is because "sport" deals directly with "Nature" and those things (equity, fairness, the complete isolating of skill) aren't found in nature!

Behr wrote;

"Golf is a sport, not a game; and this distinction is fundamental if one is to attain a correct perspective of it, for both are endowed with principles of a different character. A game is enclosed in principles, strictly speaking, because everything about it is man-made........."
"Principles in Golf Architecture", Max Behr

"It may be said, then, that a game is akin to science, for everything in it, lying as is does within the concepts of space and time, is known except for one thing--the skill of the players. But every sport, of which golf is one, is an emotional experience in which space and time take on the attributes of infinity and hence, are akin to religion. If this comparison is well drawn, then man is not the master in golf as in other games. It is not given him, nor should it be his purpose, to make a precise mathematical use of space and lay his law upon it. On the contrary, his object should be to preserve the mystery that lies in undefined space (Nature). He is in the realm of art."
"The Nature and Use of Penalty in Golf Architecture", M. Behr

What are your thoughts? Is golf a sport or a game?

[Michael Dugger]

I would call basketball a sport.  What about Basketball involves or entails nature?  A gymnasium?  I think not.

Football???  
Baseball???

I would also call these sports, and the "Sports" section of the newspaper would seem to agree.

Either I'm not getting the point or Behr is trying to say something that doesn't float, IMHO.

I don't see a big distinction between sport and game.  My definition of sport would definately include baseball, football and basketball-something that involves more physical activity.  Sweat.  I would venture to call billiards, darts and ping pong "games."  

I think golf is somewhere in between.  

 

[DMoriarty]

mdugger,

I think that Behr was referring to a more traditional definition of "sport," not the all encompassing "sport" we here so often today.   Think of a "sportsman" in the sense of hunting, fishing, hiking, etc.

[frank_D]

golf is a "game" whereby the participant must be a "sport"

[A_Clay_Man]

Michael- I don't know if you saw it, or read it, but I am searching for a thread that had the essay where Behr does try to quantify his definition. It may be one of the links to the msu archive but I'm not sure.

While I was searching I found this. Also, from Tom Paul:

Behr had this to say about shot values;

"The tendency in games as opposed to sport, therefore, has been turned toward restriction of what were once unrestrained, unbounded and natural pastimes--they have been brought into form. And it would seem to be manifest that the arbitrary boundaries lay down the limits within which play must take place do not, in the premises, coexist with any idea of distinguishing between natural good and bad play, but are for the purpose of providing the most desirable surface limits wherein "game" skill may be developed and be most effective. Thus the conception of shot values as having anything to do with the origin or reason for natural values is erroneous. Their one object is to apportion space as to render play fair and equitable in the moral purview of the "game mind". It follows, therefore, that shot values are a reflection of what the hole and the "game mind" architect demands of the golfer and the relative reward or punishment his nursegirl man-made architectural features metes out for good and bad shots."
Max Behr, August 1926

Mdugger- The point that games require the hand of man to form fields, erect boundaries etc. is what i thought MB meant. No wonder he didn't care for the trend he was witnessing.

[ChasLawler]

Just as many would agree that there isn't much sport in a "hunter" shooting animals out of the back of a Jeep, there isn't much sport in in a "golfer" hitting golf balls out of a golf cart.

Factor in walking, and you're a little closer to what I would consider a sport, but I think mdugger is right - golf (walking) is somewhere in the middle.

[A_Clay_Man]

Here it is:

USGA JOURNAL AND TURF MANAGEMENT : NOVEMBER , 1952
http://turf.lib.msu.edu/1950s/1952/521117.pdf

It was in a thread titled "who said this" posted by nregan, back about 20 pages.

[Bob_Huntley]

mdugger,

Ping-pong..........A game

Table tennis.......Sport. Have you ever seen this played at the top level? Talk about sweat.

[Bill Gayne]

A game or match is a subset of sport. For instance the sport maybe football. The game is the Redskins vs Eagles. Golf is a sport and our competitions be they against either another opponent or against the course is a game or match. So the answer is that golf is both a game and sport depending on the context that the word is used.

However, not all games are a subset of sport. Checkers is not a sport for the reasons mentioned in the above posts (there is no physical or natural element).

[Michael Dugger]

mdugger,

Ping-pong..........A game

Table tennis.......Sport. Have you ever seen this played at the top level? Talk about sweat.

I like that distinction.  "Mama likes it too"  (Forrest Gump)

[tonyt]

Bob-Huntlry is right. When international matches require a minimum 18m x 9m court, international table tennis is sport. Watching the Swedes play over the past fifteen years has been a real eye opener.

If football is a sport, and monopoly is a game, I feel golf is closer to the former. There's nowhere in hide and seek, snakes and ladders, pin the tail on the donkey or leap frog that involves a 15km walk or launching a projectile over 200-250 yards on a 150 acre playing field.

A gentlemanly and gamely sport, but a sport nonetheless.

[ForkaB]

Behr lists the following as "sports:"

--wild fowling
--hunting
--sailing
--fly fishing
--golf

Using his (albeit vague) criteria, the following activiites might well be also "classified" as sports:

--bowling
--lawn bowling
--point to point racing
--hare coursing
--frisbee golf
--sky diving

The following are listed (or implied) as "games:"

--tennis
--baseball
--football
--soccer
--basketball
--ice hockey
--table tennis
--ultimate frisbee
--cricket

I personally think that all of each on these three lists are both "sports" and "games."  If there are distinctions, they are extremely fine ones, as billg gets at in his post.

[TEPaul]

Adam:

Wait just a minute--hold on--back up! That quote you put on your post #4 was a joke! I knew one of these days my attempt at occasional dry humor on here was going to get me in real trouble. Dan Kelly keeps telling me when I attempt dry humor on here I should never ruin it with something so obvious as a "smiley" face and I've taken him up on that. Maybe I should rethink that in the future as misunderstanding might happen.

What I did with that paragraph you qouted is take a paragraph from Behr's essay called "The Nature and use of Penalty in Golf Architecture" (June 15,1925, USGA Green Section Bulletin) and transpose the word "shot value" for his word 'penalty' and then I constructed a bunch of other stuff in that quote that basically sounded like Behr's style.

If you want to see the paragraph I used to transpose "stuff" into when I was tongue in cheek reponding to some thread on here about "Shot Values" just refer to the paragraph in Behr's essay cited above on page two beginning with "The tendency in games, therefore...."

As far as I know Behr never had a thing to say about "shot values" or at least nothing I've ever seen from his essays of which I believe I have most all.

But what you yourself said in response to mdugger at the end of your post #4 about "games" would be a good and accurate depiction of what Behr felt about it, I think.

[Michael Whitaker]

To me, golf is a game that grew to include elements of "sport" as some participants became more skilled than others at executing shots and traversing a given course. It's not hard to imagine the beginnings of the game... knocking a ball with a stick toward a target hole in the ground. The ball traveled along the ground, women and children played alongside men (as in croquet), and skill was nearly always subservient to the rub of the green.

Then, the implements improved, which enabled one's natural talent for executing shots to loft some players above the common game. Clubs were formed. Serious competitions were born. Rules became standardized. But, even though I recognize the skill involved in executing a difficult shot, or the athleticism required to launch a ball a tremendous distance, or the hand-eye coordination necessary to consistantly sink twenty-foot putts, I have still struggled with the concept that golf is more than a game.

The struggle began in Scotland. My biggest revelation upon first visiting the Auld Sod was the way in which the average local player approached golf... strictly as a game. I didn't observe much concern as to what score was recorded for a given hole, just whether the hole was won or lost within the context of their "game." All these years I had been fixed on every shot I struck, worrying about my final score from the moment I recorded the first bogie. Then, in Scotland, I experienced an epiphany: Golf was invented as a game! Like darts, or checkers, or, yes, even croquet. Since that day I have enjoyed the game of golf so much more. I can now treasure a match with friends without a poor personal score ruining the day. Yes, I still want to play well and I practice constantly to try and improve my skill and my medal scores, but golf now has a higher meaning for me than just "what did you shoot today." It is a means to socialize with my friends... gamble for their money... and, metaphorically, measure our peckers.

"Sportsters," I feel, are golfers who focus on the athletic side of golf: executing difficult shots, carrying far away hazards, and challenging their personal best score. "Gamesters," on the other hand, seem to focus on the social side of golf: fellowship, friendly competition, and team strategy.

Sport or Game? I like explaination offered by "billg" above: "the answer is that golf is both a game and sport depending on the context that the word is used."

[Jeff Fortson]

Legally, The Supreme Court of the United States of America, in the case of Casey Matin vs. The PGA Tour, made golf a game at the professional level.  Didn't they also make someone who lost the popular vote President?  Seems like I'll have to continue to disagree with many of their decisions.

Golf is a sport.  Even if the majority of players are drunken slobs who drive around in golf carts.  They don't count.  Golf in its purest form is a "sport".  If archery is a sport, then golf sure as hell is too.


Jeff F.

[Doug Siebert]

I always think it is a stupid argument, but if you use the silly definition Behr uses it is even more pointless.  Any definition which considers fishing a "sport" but football, basketball and soccer "games" is irrelevant to any definition 99% of the English speaking world would use today.

If I play speed chess in Central Park would Behr argue that's a sport as well?  I'd get more exercise than if I'm fly fishing, and arguably am surrounded by better quality nature than sitting in a boat floating in a stinky pond

[TEPaul]

Rich:

I just can't believe it!!! About four years into a discussion of the distinction Behr was making between GOLF as a "sport" and GOLF as a "game" and still you apparently have zero idea what he was referring to when he made mention of that distinction in his essays on GOLF and GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTURE!

And your post #11 is a completely clear indication that you have zero idea what he was referring to.

First of all MAX BEHR, I'm sure, had no interest at all in RECLASSIFYING or RECATEGORIZING many of the recreations of the world into whether or not they should be referred to as a "sport" or a "game" as you seem to believe he did in your post #11!

What he was doing, and ALL he was doing in his essays on golf and architecture was trying to make the POINT that NATURE in some unadorned form is a NECESSARY COMPONENT in golf and golf architecture and in the ART of GOLF COURSE ARCHITECTURE!

GOD, I sure hope you don't now ask me again to give you all the reasons why he said that. Just read his freaking essays, will you please? If you just read his essays carefully and consider their meaning even someone as intransigent and apparently obtuse as you are being, I feel confident will garner some things very important to your understanding of what he meant by the "Natural School of Golf Course Architecture" and things like "Permanent Architecture" and things like the fact that golf should strive to preserve those factors necessary to maintaining Nature's part in the balance of Golf, the recreation as a 'sport'! Basically Behr felt that a recreation that did not use Nature in some unadorned form as part of the equation was not a sport, it was something else, perhaps a game. There's no unadorned Natural component in basketball, or football, or ping-pong, or tennis. All of those pastimes and recreations are created by man with playing fields completely created and standardized!

By the way, Behr had nothing at all against tennis because he viewed it as a game. Behr was an excellent golfer--he lost twice in the finals of the US Amateur and reputedly he was ALSO almost as good at the "game" of tennis! In his essays he was merely making important distinctions between the two to make a POINT about NATURE'S necessary part in golf and golf architecture.

There are many other factors and premises in his essays--such as a minimal overload of golf rules--that the 'spirit' of the sport might be preserved, the use of width in golf, the proper understanding of 'penalty' in golf as it relates to the use and placement of hazards etc. The minimalization of almost religious moralizing as to what is the "good" place to be (fairway) or the "evil" place to be (hazard). All this he explored to try to better preserve a sportsman’s spirit so it could soar unrestrained by the f.... dominating, all controlling "game mind" of Man who wants nothing much more than to precisely define and dimensionalize everything into some pat STANDARD--including what used to be Nature's part!

That's not Nature or natural--its the farthest thing from it. Nature is random, mysterious, endlessly fascinating and sometimes deflecting of all Man's best laid plans! And obviously Man, that man who is not a sportsman doesn't understand that---he hates that--it restricts his ability to be all controlling and as Geoff often says self-centered or just plane selfish!

Golf in the form of "Natural Golf Architecture" needs Nature and all the ramifications of her in some unadorned and unadulterated form to be preserved to be able to survive. That's all Behr is focusing on in his essays--that Nature's part in the balance must be preserved and maintained.

Golf can easily devolve into merely a game as opposed to the "sport" of it when it's stripped of its necessary Natural component. It's no different than any other recreation that was and is a sport such as fishing when its component of Nature is removed.

It's a "sport" when a sportsman uses only a rod and test that will barely sustain all the skill he has against a fish in the wilds of raw Nature. It's basically called the same recreation of fishing I guess, albeit a sick and pathetic "game" when some maniacal asshole like Sadam Hussein uses a high powered rifle to shoot fish in a pond or worse yet simply throws a couple of hand grenades into the pond and blows them all up.

Man can ruin any "sport" with his controlling "game mind" and turn it into no more than a totally man-concocted pastime. All Behr was doing was writing the various ways that could be prevented by writing the various ways it had already happened and might continue to happen in the future!

On thenext post will be a quote from Behr I doubt many have yet seen that just has to shed some light into what he was talking and writing about. If it doesn't I give up!

[TEPaul]

“But when the laws of the medium, the surface of the earth, are made light of, from which alone true architecture can spring, its body becomes diseased and becomes subject to the inroads of parasitic ideas. Sand is now being used not solely for the purpose of a hazard, but as a species of lighthouse to guide the player in estimating distance. Thus a crutch is thrown into the landscape upon which the eve (sic) of the golfer may lean, and the hazard of indeterminate space is to that extent mitigated. And greens are now being purposely tilted towards play, and enfeebled skill rejoices. The upshot of such an unsubstantial philosophy of golf must be to reveal every feature of nature, and, with nature rubbed of its mystery, golf must degenerate to a battue, as have certain other sports, such as shooting, where birds and animals are driven down the muzzles of the guns. And thus true golf, an heroic and adventuresome pastime of the spirit, must become a mongrel, a cross between a sport and a game.
   And this abortive philosophy of golf would seem to be sustained by the stricture of the peripatetic golfer, “All hidden architecture is bad.” Should the golfer, in all cases, become aware of what his fate is? Is golf to be robbed of all illusion? Is the walk between shots to be, only, either a tragic or dull affair? Does not the very essence of a sport lie in that suspense between the commencement of an action and the knowledge of its result? Is it not this suspense that in hunting, shooting, fishing, and in all sports, sublimates the mind and heart into a region of no knowledge, a region where, for a moment, we are permitted to dream impossible things and become heroes? In games we satisfy the demands of our bodies and the quick objective use of our senses, but in sports it’s the nourishment of the imagination that makes them so lovable. In a game we are face to face with a duplicate of ourselves; but, in a sport, we stand before the great unknown, wooing her with the virtue of our skill, honing to be enfolded within her arms, but never sure that in the end we will find ourselves outcast. Surely the maid of our heart should not reveal all her charms to us at once.”

"Art in Golf Architecture", May 16, 1925

[Jim_Kennedy]

"Fair" and "Unfair" have less meaning when you consider golf as sport. Not so if you consider it a game.

[TEPaul]

JimK;

Precisely!

[TEPaul]

"If I play speed chess in Central Park would Behr argue that's a sport as well?"

Doug:

Of course not! Unless there's something about speed chess itself as a pastime that requires Nature to be some necessary component of it! But we all know that speed chess can just as easily and effectively be played in some room somewhere. So where's the necessary component of NATURE in the pastime of speed chess in that?

[Michael Whitaker]

Adam - I read (re-read, and re-re-read) the Behr article in your link. WOW! My head is spinning!!! There is so much going on in that article it could keep me in thread topics for about six months. I'm still digesting "the hole as a lifeless quarry" concept. And, what about comparing narrow, rough lined fairways with socialism! This has got to soak in slowly. I'll be back.

[Mike_Young]

I think golf has evolved to a state where true athletes are becoming the cream of the crop.  In the past there were many skilled golfers on the tour that could not be considered athletes.  Try that today and you lose.  I think we see that alot with two highly skilled players on the tour today.  One will never beat the other because he is not the athlete and his breast might get in the way.
Another analogy....how many quaterbacks make good golfers...how many good golfers can play quaterback???
None of this is to take from golfing skills but is to say that as world class athletes invade the sport they take it to a new level.  At one time it was a game today it is a sport.

[TEPaul]

Michael Whitaker:

You're not kidding about the depth of some of Behr's articles. I figure I have just about everything that's out there from him with the exception of one or two that apparently just can't be found--I've probably read them about fifty times each over the last some years and every time something else jumps out at me.

The guy was definitely a conduit into some understanding of all this to an extent I still can hardly imagine.

One of the interesting things is his well known articles have numerous iterations over the years and most of what those on here have are truncated versions of the same basic articles. The unabridged, untruncated versions are Woaaa--there's some stuff in there that makes you really think--makes you really wonder how interesting golf just might be if one was able to tap a bit more into Behr's logic.

The interesting thing is ultimately all he seemed to want to convey and preserve in golf is that sort of illusive spirit of the recreation and the "sport" of it all away from the mundane cares of the world that could promote interest and gratification in the essence of golf with that necessary component of Nature through simply thoughtful challenge and freedom of expression.

But the real irony of him is he'll probably always be consigned to being misunderstood, particularly now that we live in a "sound bite" world!

[Michael Whitaker]

TEPaul - When you say his articles had numerous iterations do you mean that he repeatedly rewrote and republished the articles to refine his thoughts?

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