Is golf a religion?

My mother, who in later life I have come to realise was wiser than I gave her credit for in my teenage years, was a very strong advocate of not touching religion with a bargepole. This attitude may have been derived from the Pope’s distinct dislike of the free-wheeling approach to morality that my grandmother practiced. But be that as it may, it is the one piece of my mother’s guidance that I have diligently followed.

Or at least I thought I had until today when it occurred to me that, since most religions require considerable masochism on the part of their adherents , then perhaps golf is a religion and, once more, I have not followed my mother’s sage advice.

Wittgenstein opined, in a practical application of a more general theory of things, that to be classified as a religion, a behaviour should adhere to at least 3 or perhaps 4 of the following:

• a belief in super-empirical beings or powers
• ethical norms
• worship rituals
• participation believed to bestow benefits on the participants
• those who participate in this activity see themselves as a distinct community

More recently in the last 40 years philosophers have tended to discuss the argument that religion is not present in all cultures and is therefore a tool invented by some to control others – perish the thought I say.

But if we go back to Wittgenstein it seems to me clear that golf must easily qualify as a religion. Surely standing on the 11th tee today in heavy rain with a wet golf club in our hands and an unrealistic expectation that the ball is about to travel 200 yards down the centre of the fairway must count as a worship ritual.?

We do also attempt to practice ethical norms as long as they don’t include picking up one’s golf ball in the rough to definitely identify it as one’s own before replacing it in a marginally better lie.

We generally turn up to play with the idea that it is going to bestow benefits on us, though the black mood I returned home with after my appalling round today did n’t feel like much of a benefit.

As for being a distinct community – we are after all the Ballbashers.

But the real clincher has to be that we would not be playing golf at all if it was n’t for a belief in a super-empirical being or beings – we cannot rule out the poly-theistic model. After all there is clearly some malign god resident in all of the bunkers I visited today whereas the god of the tee-shot was feeling in an encouraging mood. All of our time spent worrying about keeping our heads down, eye on the ball, languid on the back swing etc could be binned by a simple offering to the golfing gods before we start play – maybe a golf ball or two would do the job though the multiple balls lost by some of our members in the course of play with no observable improvement in their scores would suggest that this is too simplistic a solution and perhaps we have to sacrifice a virgin on the 1st tee in the way that the Aztecs might do.

Until we discover the right offering I guess that we have to continue with our monk-like incantations of eye-on-the-ball etc delivered on every tee. Though I hardly think that the incantation of “Oh Shit” will improve our standing with any super-empirical being however broad-minded.

So knowing or perhaps hoping in an agnostic sort of way that my mother is not watching, unless she has in a very unlikely turn of events become a god of the bunkers or similar, I have to come down firmly on the side of golf being a religion.

That being so I can report that MikeS (33) was head choirboy today, followed by Alan and RobM on 31, PeterR on 30, MikeW on 25, Richard on 24 and RobA on 19.

The team scores were:
MikeS, Alan and Richard 20 + 20 = 40
PeterR and MikeW 19 + 20 = 39
RobA and RobM 15 + 18 = 33 (nothing that 8 hours of self-flagellation practicing bunker shots won’t fix)

And yes, the wind and the rain arrived to help us kick off the Autumn League at Temple today.