Originally Posted by Ralph

Spoken like someone that stands to close to the ball, AFTER THEY HIT IT. Golf, when taken serious, is like playing a game of chess out in the open. One play of strategy dictates the next. One must consider the surrounding environment, like wind speed, the contour of the ground, distance to the intended target, pending hazards, ball position in the stance, should it be forward, center, or back, and all this before the ball is struck. Next, one must have practiced enough to have ingrained a repeatable consistency of their swing plane in relation to their natural internal tempo and timing. Thus, this is the real reason that Golf is called Golf.........because all the other 4 letter words had been taken. Where else but in the game of Golf is one given a long straight stick with a crooked head on it and told to hit a small round ball "SQUARELY'? It looks easy, and has made many a fine tuned athlete look like an octopus swinging a golf club in a phone booth(Charles Barkley), and many such people walk away declaring that it is a "sissy" game. Because the game must be approached from the neck up instead of from the neck down, and as hard as they try they cannot get a 1 7/8 in. ball into a 4 in. hole 500 yards away by "muscling" it to do what they want. You never really win at golf, because you play against yourself and the elements, thus you just play. Some are better at playing with themselves than others, thus there is no way that "self pleasure" can be compared to being "GAY". Where else does one have to go pay money so they can play with themselves? Gay? No....desperate maybe. (R)