Well, I recently learned of the existence of Excel competitions, so I’m not sure about the ‘most boring’ part.
Some people really excel at spreadsheets.
If you don’t see the beauty in the orchestrated beauty of Excel macros and formulae, then there’s no helping you.
What about VBA? Remote data? Python?
I don’t know if there still are, but back when you texted on a 12-button phone keyboard, there were texting competitions.
Mini-golf is actually kind of fun.
Mini-golf is actually kind of fun.
It’s a lot of fun, and you don’t need any nukes to enjoy it either.
Maybe not need…
Maybe not need…
True enough.
There’s always that one hole where you have to hit the ball hard enough so it goes around the vertical loop ramp but not too hard so that it then bounces at the right angle to get anywhere near the area of the hole that’s blocked by a whole bunch of strategically placed pieces of wood.
On that hole I would consider using a nuke.
Speak for yourself
The mini-golf nuclear proliferation organization has spoken.
Mini golf is superior and should be the default golf. As in, it shouldn’t have a descriptor. It should just be called golf.
And what is called golf now should be called big golf or field golf or something like that to show how nonsensical it is.
Wait until you hear about the laws in place that guarantee them access to water their fields no matter the drought. Nobody has heard of an unkempt golf course.
IMHO sport is a misnomer. “Game” seems more fitting to me.
I’m always interested in this take. By definition,.it’s clearly a sport.
How do you define sport and how does it not meet the definition? It’s a game of physical skill, mental concentration, and competition.
physical skill
Is this is a suggestion that golf doesn’t take physical skill?
masterbating takes more skill
I guess I can see how someone who struggles to find their tiny dick might find masturbation to be very difficult.
My dick is heavier than a golf club.
I can see how that would also make it extremely difficult.
Where do you draw the line between sports and games? Are sports competitive where games are fun? Is poker a sport? Are video games capable of being sports? What could be done to golf that would make it a sport? Are all sports games if not all games are sports?
These are the questions that keep me up at night.
If you can play it while drinking a beer it isn’t a sport.
Any sport can be played while drinking a beer if you put your mind to it and believe in yourself.
Ever hear of Beer league hockey, sport?
Chess is a sport, and one can absolutely play chess drunk
No it isn’t.
I mean you can believe what you want, but you’re factually incorrect
When I think of sport I think of anything where one sweats due to physical exertion.
I sweat playing rocket league and working on my car, but they’re not sports.
I would piss my colleague off by telling him he’s got a nice hobby…
Good. They need to accept reality.
Oh that just made him angry, I always added that no sport has the winner of a major tournament in their mid 40s.
I mean… Tom Brady was a super bowl MVP in his 40s.
Chris Chelios won a Stanley Cup in his 40s.
But your point is well taken nonetheless.
But that’s a team sport though. If we compare that to tennis the oldest tournament winner is Rosewall in the 70s at 37 years old and more recently Federer in 2018 at 36 years old.
Definitely a fair point.
Is chess a sport?
As much as assaulting fish is a sport. Much more reasonable and intellectual though
I actually get exhausted playing golf - but that’s because I’m BAD at it. Apparently I put too much force into my swing. Every time I’ve tried to play I get told to relax and “let the club to the work”.
So they literally have these weighted sticks to reduce the amount of frickin effort required to hit the ball.
It’s not a sport. It’s an ANTI-sport. The less you try the better you’ll be.
Can you imagine if we had an Olympic running sport to see who the slowest runner was? That’s what golf is. Get the weakest, limpest, vitamin-defficient humans and see how accurately they can hit a tiny ball into a hole.
It was invented by the Scots as a joke against the English while they all go and compete in proper sports like caber tossing and hammer throwing.
As an environmentalist, fuck Kentucky bluegrass, fuck golf, and fuck lawns while we’re at it
BUT ITS SPORT BRO AND MY DAD PLAY D IT ONCE
I agree lawns are dumb but from an environmental perspective they can be net carbon sinks, which I found surprising. Though they are still bad for other environmental reasons.
Nothing can sink any more carbon than its weight plus any bits that fall or get taken and don’t rot. Worse, for most plants most of the weight is water, not carbon-containing organic compounds.
So lawns might be “net” carbon sinks only when compared to the extreme case of leaving the ground bare (or worse, asphalted), but only whilst they’re growing (they don’t really retain any additional carbon after grown and any grass mowned will just return the carbon back to the air when it rots and a lot of it will be Methane, a worse greehouse gas than CO2) and they’re a lot worse at it per unit of area than, say, trees or even just the natural ground cover in just about any land environment but desert.
Asphalt is definitely a carbon sink though since it’s a petroleum product!
It is if one does not count the heavy hydrocarbons taken from raw crude and used to make asphalt in the maths of carbon pulled out of the Earth originally when the oil is pumped out - in other words, if one blames the lighter stuff used in fuel for the actual oil extraction and then just goes with “well, now that we have this stuff out, might as well use the heavy stuff for asphalt”.
Otherwise its adds up to a carbon source because even though the fraction of crude oil that ends up used for asphalt has it’s extraction from underground sources offset by that stuff ending up back on the ground as asphalt, the various processes between it coming out of the ground and it ending back on the ground do emit CO2 and some light hydrocarbons.
Sure, nowhere as bad as fuel and gas, but still a net negative.
That’s why I dig up my lawn every year and bury it underground inside sealed plastic bags
I’m doing my part!
Hey fuck environmental diversity, we’ve got carbon sinks. What a fucking joke.
I mean if you want to talk about sequestering carbon, there’s all sorts of natural lawn options that aren’t actively planting an invasive species that has proven to be really bad at doing any sort of water filtration or absorption. In fact, I’d wager that planting (and letting grow) prairie or whatever your native biome supports probably sequesters more carbon, assuming your native ecosystems aren’t straight up desert. Even if they are, you’re now using so much less water that it’s a huge net win there.
Las Vegas has something like 70 golf courses wasting inordinate amounts of water. Of course most houses also have outside private swimming pools too.
Vegas actually is a poor example, they have excellent water management policy even in spite of what is typically considered wasteful. Being so far down the Colorado River Basin kinda made being experts on the subject a necessity.
Of course it has excellent water management because otherwise they’d run out. Doesn’t mean that everyone having pools and so many golf courses is anyway defensible, or doesn’t put insane stress on the supply.
Right. Lake Mead is sure looking lovely these days.
Lake mead is being drained from the other direction into Utah and you’d have known that before commenting if you’d actually looked that shit up before going to say something that spectacularly unaware of what’s going on.
Vegas actually net zeros their allotment of the water share every year, as far as Mead is considered, Vegas almost doesn’t exist.
the whole “net-zero allotment of water shares” bit is about as accurate as “flint water is within regulation guidelines of lead”
Vegas got it’s “net zero” by appropriating the water shares of surrounding regions via the magic of lobbying
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The other commenter’s point is that Las Vegas returns almost all of the water it consumes cleaned and back to Lake Meade. As a municipality their net water consumption is close to zero.
It’s other municipalities and agricultural ventures that are draining Lake Meade not Las Vegas. Vegas pulls water from Meade, treats it and then returns it back to the reservoir.
If you’re going to pick on water wasters Vegas isn’t where you want to start. There’s plenty of other reasons to pick on Vegas, water isn’t one of them.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/las-vegas-water-conservation-grass/
That’s the first search result when I searched “Vegas water conversation” it wasn’t hard to find.
How is that possible, due to evaporation?
Elimiating lawns is a great idea, seeing as they live in a massive desert. I approve of that, for everyone who cares.
the famed fountains at the Bellagio Hotel use water from a private well — not the Colorado River. He also said the water that evaporates into the hot desert air is replaced with recycled water from a 1.5 million gallon pool.
so… they just drain groundwater?
I don’t care for golf and wish golf courses were better used spaces, but the thing about golf that makes it interesting is the meditative practice of being able to swing the club in just the right way to make the ball go where it needs to.
I like archery and you have the same sort of thing going on there. You have to have your positioning, movements, focus, and smoothness of action to hit the target. You can tell how you failed before the arrow hits the target. Working on fine tuning your actions is enjoyable.
archery
archery doesn’t carry a racist history and waste giant tracts of land. they can putt-putt or get fucked.
They make driving ranges for that. They take up much less space.
It isn’t the same sort of thing though. Yes, you can pick a target and go for that, but having the topography and hazards makes for a different experience.
Driving ranges also don’t have the same sort of socialization and competition aspect.
I agree with the first thing you said, but there’s no reason why you can’t socialize or compete at a driving range. It would be the same sort of competition as an archery or shooting competition- how accurately can you hit your target? And driving ranges have all the people doing it parallel to each other, so there’s no reason why you can’t talk to the person next to you. Yes, it is not exactly the same as golf, but it’s more environmentally friendly and less of a barrier to people with lower income because you don’t have to pay country club fees.
Fwiw golfers talk while they walk/cart around and such, and specifically are mad if anyone talks during their swing, the swing which is “the only thing you do at a driving range,” so talking is a little less accepted there.
Golf is a dying sport. Courses where I live have been closing, some have been turned into parks
The one near me got turned into 500 houses. The water infra couldn’t cope and everywhere now floods when it rains.
Damn. If only we kept the golf course.
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The golf course absorbed a lot of rainfall in the soil, and I live downhill from it. Rainfall now goes into them stormwater system instead of into the soil.
Even though the new houses have drainage that is sufficient, it all runs into an existing pipeline that can’t handle it.
As bad as golf courses are for the environment, paving over it is 100x worse.
Well, yeah. Roads, houses and driveways don’t soak up rain. Probably whatever was there prior to the golf course did a better job at that. And the current key is “pipeline that can’t handle it”
Courses were over-built in the 90s.
I wish they would at least let you walk on the cart paths before /after hours. I’ve seen one course that did that - allowed walkers once the sprinklers turned on in the evenings (signaling the end of play as well), but the majority don’t.
I live in upstate New York, just about every town has a golf course. I personally love the game, but I honestly don’t think their that bad for the environment up here. For many people it’s their third place.
Like we get plenty of rain, and most I’ve been to are nestled near the edge of the forests. The APA regulates the shit out of what you can do. And it’s really not much of a waste of land. If I want to go for a hike or trail run, I have dozens within biking distance and maybe even 100 within 30 minutes of driving.
It’s farms and their cow shit fertilizer releasing gass and it’s runoff polluting the watershed that’s doing the most damage around here. But like I say, the APA does a pretty good job most of the time.
lol this moron thinks they don’t fertilize the NEON GREEN grass that makes up almost every course.
goddamn that’s dumb
I don’t think you’ve seen how NEON GREEN the Adirondacks are. I get that they fertilize it. But really I don’t think the environmental impact is particularly great around me.
What environmental impacts are there that I’m not thinking of for my area? And how severe are they? The way I see it, this area is one that can afford to have golf courses.
Yeah, I KNOW HOW NEON GREEN YOUR LAKES GET WHEN THE ALGAE BLOOMS COME IN.
https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/a-lake-in-crisis
Because of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, you fucking ignorant dolt. This is a REAL FUCKING PROBLEM even for you fortunate assholes up in the mountains.
https://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/67239.html
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/53/4/357/250240
https://harvardforest1.fas.harvard.edu/publications/pdfs/Driscoll_Environment_2003.pdf
The fertilizers still run down stream into the Raritan Bay watershed, LIS, hell every fucking waterway in the northeast.
Some of these fertilizers are critical to growing our fucking crops to feed people, so set aside your FUCKING INANE AND STUPID HOBBY for a moment and realize we gotta keep using them, we simply can’t keep spraying them on putting greens so it runs down to the creek, into river, on into the bay or lake.
Look, I get it it’s the Internet, but why all the insults?
I read the links and it seems to me that I was entirely correct. Runoff from farms is the primary source of nitrogen and other fertilizers in the waterways. I drive through Addison Vermont every day for work. You can smell the putrid rotting shit they spray on the fields. Vermont has rules around when you can spray shit, so that’s why it smells worse than New York farms. Because it ferments in a pit or tank for a while before use.
I also did a preliminary search and it seems that golf courses have been reducing the amount of fertilizer used over the past couple of decades.
Source:
https://gcmonline.com/course/environment/news/nutrient-use-and-management-on-u.s.-golf-courses
So yes fertilizer is a problem. Farms need to figure out a way to reduce the runoff they produce. I probably just didn’t read hard enough but how much of a problem are golf courses? How do they compare to other polluters?
So you’re completely aware of the harm being done to play a fool’s game, the waste of space and resources, the impact to the watershed, and your response is “yeah well how does it compare to other pollution” - FOR A FUCKING GAME?
AND YOU WONDER WHY I INSULT YOU?
if we have any descendents that live through the next millennium, they’re going to wonder why it was so hard to just stop killing the planet, and one of the biggest reasons will be fuckwits like you who stood in the way. for fucking games.
I am asking, how bad is it?
The environment has a capacity to handle some pollution. If the pollution caused by golf courses is negligible then why should I care about something that pales in comparison to that which is causing real and apparent harm.
I see a couple of acres of grass that makes people happy. I see thousands of acres that are clearly damaging the environment that i love. Why should I care about the little bit that gets people outside enjoying the outdoors? Why do you sling insults instead of changing my mind? I’m open to change my mind, just have a conversation with me.
Are you a conservationist or a preservationist? Do you believe humans should enjoy the land we protect, or should humans be kept away from the natural world to protect it?
I’m a fucking rationalist and a realist. You’re a delusionist apparently.
there’s so many resources, we can spend them foolishly on bullshit that benefits few, or we can devote our energy, space and production to saving our own asses.
do the fucking math, and please, stop trying to convince me your milquetoast excuses are anything but “fuck you, I don’t care” - because your indifference and petty justifications communicate loud and clear dipstick.
Golf is boring to watch. But for most players it is a social game. It’s like going to a bar with a few friends, but getting a little exercise. And they don’t do a ton of leveling. Costs too much, and using the land the way it is, is what makes a course unique and interesting.
That said, it would be easy to find a sport that destroys more natural land. Ever see a football, baseball or soccer stadium… including all the parking. Then realize how many baseball fields their are in america (or soccer fields in other countries). They are several times the number of golf courses, and they all need more parking each than one golf course.
More than leveling the ground, watering it is the main environmental issue
it’s really not in a large part of the country. In a desert sure. But even there they take measures like using recycled water and not pottable water and such. And of course agriculture makes every other water use pale in comparison.
Agriculture is food. We need food. We don’t really need a way for a bunch of Wall Street bailouts queens to have a social activity.
sure we need food. But the way we water it is one of the more inefficient ways possible. But it is inexpensive. They could use almost 80% less water than they do. If you are worried about water use, start there. https://ag.umass.edu/vegetable/fact-sheets/irrigation-drip#:~:text=A properly installed drip system,subsurface%2C near the root zone.
Ok good. Start your own farm and do that. Golf isn’t suddenly good because some farmers suck
The vast majority of golfers are regular people. Teachers, and people who do shift work have free time during the normal workday are some. Retires from all sorts of jobs are the rest of the majority. Most golf courses aren’t as fancy as you see on tv, and they don’t actually cost that much to play on. Wall street bailouts would never be caught dead on the average golf course.
I don’t know a single regular person who can afford to spend 9 hours on a weekend golfing. The only people I know who can afford that are people who inherited millions of dollars.
My buddy is a teacher in a poor district. He joins a golf league every year. Plays weekly at least when the weather is decent. My uncle plays weekly. Several guys on my softball team play. Not one of them has a million dollars. I play every few years or so. With no equipment meant it runs me $30 to $50 depending on where it is. Would be less if I owned clubs, or had a membership… haven’t played since the pandemic, so I am sure the price has increased, but plenty of people spend more on drinks for one weekend.
Cool story bro
There are 15,500 golf courses in America.
There are just over 900 stadiums in America.
I think his point about the damage environmental damage golf courses cause pale in comparison to other sports that need arenas.
Have you seen a golf course? Most of them aren’t made from scratch to fit some grand vision. They’re usually set up working with the environment rather than against it.
I’ve been fishing on an old golf course that’s no longer in use and it was mostly the same except the grass wasn’t cut as low. Great outdoors spot for families.
I thought he was just saying there’s way more stadiums than there are golf courses and that would be incorrect. I don’t have a problem with golf courses except for the excessive amount of water they seem to waste.
Golf courses use a shit ton of water, especially in areas where grass isn’t supposed to fuckin grow
yes in the desert they do. But most courses aren’t in the desert. Plenty used to only water the greens in the middle of the summer in the northeast where I grew up. People usualy picture only the high end golf courses. Most are not that. Some used to just shut down for a while if it got too dry rather than water.
I guess having absolutely no idea what the fuck you’re talking about has benefits.
Nice job adding nothing to the discussion. Go back to reddit, they miss you.
This entire thread is a blight on Lemmy. One of the seriously most shitty and disturbing things I’ve seen on the system.
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I’m pretty convinced Golf is Scotland’s gift to mankind. It’s a fantastic prank - fooling rich morons into spending their days whacking a ball up and down useless terrain, only whack it again, and again, while wearing ugly clothes and paying people to carry your bag of clubs. Scotland sold this joke so well the world bought it, and if it weren’t for the ridiculous environmental impacts, I’d be all for keeping the joke going.
Because if you think golf is a sport, you’re a clown, and probably dress like one. Good work Scotland.
I live in Indiana, so there’s (generally) no shortage of rain. The golf courses in this town still water the entire grass of the course every day. Even if it rained the day before. Even if it’s raining right then and there. There aren’t water shortages here, but what a waste.
Most courses use man made ponds as both hazards and as retention ponds so they can use that rain water.
You know what uses three times the amount of water per acre? Corn. And almonds use about ten times more water than corn. And people have only just started caring about lawns, that use two orders of magnitude more water, fertilizer, and land than golf courses.
Golf courses really aren’t that bad from an ecological point of view when compared acre per acre to other large man made structures. They’re generally pretty small when compared to other large landscaping projects at 30-80 acres. The issue is when a city has like twenty courses just for the purpose of driving up housing prices.
Would that land be better as a park? Probably, but this is the US, someone would see an unprofitable “empty” plot of land and throw million dollar houses on it.
You’re really comparing growing food to some entirely useless recreation activity?
Well I admit I haven’t seen the entirety of those courses, but based on what I’ve seen, and considering they’re surrounded by either businesses, houses or, in one case, a hospital, I don’t know where those retention ponds would be. The hazards they have absolutely wouldn’t be big enough to cover the amount of water I see sprayed on them.
I have never seen a golf course next to a hospital… Maybe it’s regional, but near me, most courses have many made ponds that hold rain water and you can smell the pond water when the sprinklers come on. The ponds can hold several Olympic swimming pools worth of water.
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I hear nuclear armageddon is fun, too.
What kind of parties are you going to?
Louis Slotin’s place. Were you not invited?
…that’s probably for the best
Louis Slotin’s place.
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I hear nuclear armageddon is fun, too.
What kind of parties are you going to?
They’ve been known to get pretty wild, I guess.
Well at least the radiation outfits come in very radiant party colors.
Eh, the OP is the one that made it a ratio of destruction to fun. Would have had the same impact if it said “Lunatics leveling miles of nature to thwhack a ball with a stick.” but they chose to make a value judgment on the fun quotient of golf.
Uh… is nuclear armageddon fun?
How about a nice game of chess?
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Depends on how much of you survives the bombs I guess
Well, that would very much depend on whether is a Mad Max style future or something else with fewer muscle cars…
Lets replace golf courses with mini-golfs and parks!
Instead of pools of neon dyed water they can have eco friendly sand fountains!
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The only benefit to society I can see for golf is that it provides a reliable source of consistent standardized ammunition for my golf ball cannon.
