Yes, I am overly self-conscious and should not get pissed when some fat football fan tells me from his supine position on the couch that “people who play golf are not athletes.” Especially when the most athletic thing Joe Football Fan has done in the last 20 years is throw an empty beer can at the TV screen after Rex Grossman throws another interception.

I should feel sorry for him huh? Nope, it just makes me mad, galls me if you will. I can’t help it.

Here is what this is rooted in; when I was a junior in high school, a defensive back on the Findlay (OH) Trojans football team made fun of me for getting a varsity letter in golf. I don’t think he meant to make me feel bad, he just really felt it was a joke that someone on the golf team could receive the same varsity letter that he received as a football player.

Now, when I’m engaged in a fierce 18 hole match in the searing heat of summer on a difficult golf course…and that bag feels like a blocking sled on my back…and I’m driving up the price of Gatorade because I’m drinking so much…I think about that defensive back. I wonder if he gets to feel the same rush of athletic competition that I do. Maybe that is the payback. His competitive days are over because he won’t engage in a sport that he once perceived as non-athletic.

You didn’t play golf in high school so you will never know the shame I felt that day. I was going to take this story to my grave but you pulled it out of me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go take my anti-depressants.

I think the bigger question here, for all golf enthusiasts, is why golf needs constant justification. Frankly, I could’nt care less whether golf was enjoyed/played by any other athletes of other professional sports. Besides, the correlative argument is weak and ridden with holes in the logic advanced to support it’s conclusion. Let’s get the list together of athletes who drink beer. Does that make beer drinking a sport? Okay, bad example. But you get the point.

Still love ya Golf Caster!