I have yet to listen to the pod, but I am in the < 10 rounds per year camp. Life changes happen, interests shift. I went from playing almost everyday to maybe 7 rounds a year instantly. My clubs are still in the basement from when I put them there last October. I really do want to get out more. Hoping to get playing in the next month or so and log at least 10 rounds this year.
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Youāre not old enough to be in this club yet, Christian!
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A little bit different of an answer here, although my wife is pregnant with our first so Iām sure all the aforementioned reasons will apply to me soon enough.
Iāve lived in San Diego my whole life, and went to college in Santa Barbara so Iāve had a plethora of year long hobbies at my fingertips. Baseball was always my main sport, but Iāve also played golf, football, basketball, rugby, and volleyball at varying levels of competition. Add in surfing, beer league softball, beach volleyball, ultimate frisbee, spikeball, other non-sport hobbies, work, just bought our first home thatās a fixer upper, and thereās no time for all the things I love. Iāve been diving way harder into golf and have realized that itās one of the sports that Iāll actually be able to play in 40+ years so itās probably time to stop playing pickup basketball. I also only have 1-2 buddies who like golf to the same degree I do, but arenāt nearly as into gambling games/making it competitive. So for all the above reasons I only get in 10ish rounds a year. Would love to see that number rise as the years go on but itās probably a pipe dream.
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Love it. I just am tossing about this idea that people can love golf without playing it. Is it possible?
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Like other sports 
So is NLU your outlet to enjoy the sport? It is for me
Make this decision official before youāre grabbing a knee or achillesā¦great cardio to run a pick-up game, but it is tough on the body
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People listen to football pods and have never touched a pigskin in their life
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Iāve only managed 12 rounds the last 2 years, wish I could play 30. Live in a major city center, no car, munis here charge $60+ to walk, it all makes it tough to get in as many rounds as Iād like
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Completely. I watch Tourist Sauce/WWOG/Strapped with so much jealousy. I wish I had 5 buddies like that who all were super into the game.
Haha, great point. I work in the medical device industry (s/o @MerchCzar for the SD med device comment in the San Clemente Strapped episode) and the number of surgeries Iāve seen on mid-30ās males who tore their Achilles playing pickup basketball has been enough keep those shoes on the shelf.
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I definitely still love golf. Been playing since I was 2, played on my college team, and worked at one of the best public courses in the Midwest during and after college. I used to play every dang day. I donāt think I ever got burnt out, but I took a break after I moved to the corporate world. Finding NLU and The Refuge has reignited the flame. If I could I would play everyday.
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Yes. I think this is a common one. Especially for people who played a decent amount growing up then move for a job and itās not like their convenient suburban upbringing. Was for me.
Diddo. But I also think Iād be into NLU and SGS even if I knew I couldnāt ever play again myself. You?
Yeah, I would love to be able to move somewhere close to a decent course with a $1500 season pass option that I could easily play on my way home from work to get in some extra time on the course
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Anyone simply over playing golf, yet still keen on following golf? (Like every other sport after you get to your 20s or 30s)
I was in the <10 rounds category from 2010 - 2017 during college and right after starting work post-college. I donāt know what made me start visiting the driving range again towards the end of 2017, but in 2018 I ramped it up to maybe 15 rounds and then in early 2019 I found NLU and golf stormed back into my life. Trying to get in as much as I can now before kids enter the picture.
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Thatās cool how NLU has driven your uptick in playing
weather in KC sucks as does public golf so I very rarely played the last 2 years. It didnāt dampen my passion for golf at all though.
I moved to Tampa about 6 weeks ago and have only played once so far because of Covid and lots of house projects taking my weekends.
I plan on playing 2-4 times a month going forward since the season is year round here and I have a decent muni 5 minutes away.
This was part of my slow down in rounds. I found a lot of other things that ātickled my fancyā so to speak more than the monotony that golf had become. That I think was in part because of the fact that I was playing 100+ rounds a year, 3 trips a year, etc. and it was basically consuming my life which is never a good thing. I have found that Iām excited to play again and will likely play 50+ rounds this year, but a lot of those rounds are going to be tournament golf, assuming that is going to happen in the current environment.
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I started playing golf when I was really little and played all the time growing up. But when I got into college and then started working, golf really took a backseat. But about 15 years ago I really started to get the bug again and learned to have fun playing golf (spoiler alert, it doesnāt all have to be competitive to be fun!). Then when we had our first, I was the only one in my golf group to have any kids. They wanted to keep our normal 10 or 10:30 tee time at a course 45 minutes away because they didnāt want to get up early. But for me, that wasnāt possible. That meant leaving the house no later than 9, playing a 5 hour round, and being home by 4 at the absolute earliest. With a baby at home, there was 0 chance that was going to work very often. But now my two kids are older and easier and my friends have kids also. So itās much easier to coordinate tee times that work around family stuff.
But even still, I find I play in bunches. Iāll go a month without playing and then play 5 times in a week followed by another two weeks without playing. We joined our local country club last year, so thatās helped a lot. I was able to get out for a quick 9 holes before work at least once a week and could take my son in the evenings for another 9 holes. Hopefully the annual rounds keep going up, but itās easy to get busy and all of a sudden realize you havenāt touched your clubs in a few weeks.
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