Is there any other "sport" so perfectly encapsulating everything shitty about capitalism? It's got everything:
- Extremely large amounts of nature converted to courses made out of non-indigenous plants that waste water and labor keeping the grass at a constant height
- Course are owned by tax-dodging private social clubs with hefty membership costs
- New members have to be approved by the existing membership, so undesirable (read: non-WASP) members of the community can be rejected even if they can meet the economic costs
- Special discount rates offered for family of current members, ensuring generational wealth and privilege is maintained
- Most of the workforce is made up of undocumented laborers from Central America who do manual labor in exchange for shitty wages
- Middle school-age children are employed as off-the-books pack animals so the players don't accidentally do any amount of manual labor
- Players also have the option of driving little cars (with no safety mechanisms at all) so they don't accidentally get exercise
- A whole match takes four fucking hours to complete, requiring substantial free time on top of the sunk costs in fees and equipment
Climate destruction, resource waste, tax-dodges, racism, nepotism, illegal and child labor, and extremely high artificial costs for a leisure activity: I can't think of a single more appropriate avatar for capitalism. Well, maybe if there were slaves.
China's Communist Party has banned its members from [...] playing golf, state media reported Thursday [2015-10-22].
Mini-golf and electric golf cart racing are proletarian. I am not accepting questions.
If the race consists of racing away from the scene of the crime it is peak proletarian.
provides a place for serial rapists to talk about their “sexual conquests” far away from any recording devices
Wow, so many ghouls in a row. All that's missing is a nice wall behind them to catch bullets.
Go to Scotland, see who plays golf regularly, it's the working class. They play at good old links courses, that are often cheap and accessible.
Hyper luxury golf with the carts, perfect greens and a 10 course meal at the end can fuck off. 18 holes on a windy links course with a pint and a pie at the end? bliss.
Was going to say, Scotland is the only place where golf is cool. It even fits into the natural landscape there.
There are a couple of Australian courses that use the natural landscape too.
I basically came here to say something similar. Golf far predates golf courses and country clubs. This is actually another perfect example of capitalist bullshit: taking something populist (hitting a ball with a club outside) and making it exclusive and restrictive.
I will stan public golf courses. In my city it's usually that they are compact parks that only have 9 holes and you can pay for a $25 yearly unlimited use pass for all public courses, and some even have cheap rental equipment that you can play with if you don't have your own clubs. Workers are probably payed shit, but it's also technically a government job so they probably have a union or at least good benefits.
lol lots of golf stanning communists on chapo.chat
Golf is all of the things you said except you totally ignored the existence of public courses. Public. Which I guess gives chapo users the impression it's like...for the people? Like public transportation, public school?
Golf courses rank among the worst sins of the property owning class. I don't care if some business owner did figure out they could maximize their profit by letting anyone play.
There are some actual municipal courses. But these are just backdoor sneaky boons to the property owning class. Torrey Pines, a true municipal course....in ultra rich, ultra white La Jolla. Where's all the municipal courses in neighborhoods with shit property values?
Sorry but park space is for everybody. That should be a law. You shouldn't get to drive golf balls into fields families could be picnicking in. Learn to throw a frisbee.
So called "public" courses, which are actually private businesses but "open to the public" for a fee. Meaning you don't have to be a member of the country club to use it. That's what "public course" means in golf.
Who are these Chatters trying to say that public courses make golf good? I'll fight 'em.
Yeah I'm pretty surprised to see the support here. Like hitting a ball with a club is fun and some places aren't total hellholes but you can have those things without mowing down a forest preserve lol.
golf is everything wrong with landlording distilled into a sauce. In fact, I'm just gonna say that they're in the real estate business, not in some separate category. Their business is holding property, and boosting the value of property. That's. It.
Any sufficiently bougie neighborhood just comes with a golf course? Puh-lease, that has nothing to do with fun
Golf can still exist in our socialist utopia like theme parks can still exist. There don't need to be several per county because hoarding land will also be gone.
Golf would be so much cooler if they just used whatever local natural terrain works to play golf on. You don't need short bendy grass to mimic the Scottish highlands if you've already got your own rock, ice, beaches, or hard-packed dirt. Or play disk golf instead of you live somewhere like here where the natural terrain is massive trees.
It's also where all the white collar crime gets discussed
a few years ago, I was reading an article on economist.com, and on the side was an ad for a book. The book was by some CCP official and his "heroic" struggle to legitimize golf in China. I think this was during Jiang Zemin's leadership, all the most vulgar display of capitalism started under his leadership. Golf was still correctly seen as a Western Bourgeois pastime/sport before.
People saying "Golf is good in Scotland" is the same energy as saying "Polo is good in Afghanistan".
The way it's done in it's place of origin has very little to do with the way it's been adopted by the colonialist elite.
True, but we can fight back against the colonial bullshit version of it.
The course near me is owned by an American Indian tribe, lets anyone in, and uses low-maintenance gardening (lots of rocks, we're near the desert). I feel like the sport can be molded to a proletarian character since at its core it's a social activity with a kind of meditative element.
Plus driving golf carts is super fun seriously.
EcoAg golf courses surrounding farmland would be pretty cool. So much of the underlying culture and expectations around golf still get in the way though
To compare, consider disc golf. Courses are usually on public land and in a more natural setting. It's usually free to play and open to anyone with a couple golf discs.
The only good golf is crazy golf.
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No wasteful and expensive lawn upkeep or water required.
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Can be free or cost for whoever wants to play.
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Colourful and creative with theming and design.
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Sport as interactive art rather than competition.
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Completely inclusive for all ages, backgrounds etc.
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Small scale means they can be fit in anywhere space would otherwise be wasted.
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Usually made by a niche of small companies and local tradespeople.
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Anti-elitist. You can be the best person in the world at hitting a brightly coloured ball through a pirate's mouth so it pops out of his behind, but you can't be smug and serious about it.
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THE INVENTION OF POLO (not historically accurate)
VISCOUNT: "Marquis, I've been thinking. I like golf, but there's just not enough animal cruelty."
