08/08/2026
Why I Like Golf
By Kevin Morton - Colorado Golf Expo
People occasionally ask me why I like golf.
Actually, I’m not sure people ask me that very often. But I assume they’re wondering.
Golf is a strange game when you really think about it. You take a small white ball, place it on a tiny wooden peg, and then hit it as far away from yourself as possible. Then you immediately walk after it.
That’s the entire premise.
If you did this with almost anything else, people would be concerned.
Imagine putting your car keys on a table, smacking them 200 yards into a field, and then spending ten minutes looking for them. Nobody would call that a sport. They’d ask if everything was okay at home.
But with golf, we pay money to do it.
And I think that’s part of why I like golf.
Golf makes absolutely no sense, yet somehow makes perfect sense.
You can hit 96 terrible shots during a round, but if shot number 97 is a beautiful 7-iron that lands six feet from the pin, suddenly you’re thinking about playing again tomorrow.
Golf has an incredible ability to erase your memory.
I believe goldfish and golfers have roughly the same long-term memory.
Actually, I don’t know if the thing about goldfish having short memories is even true. I heard years ago that goldfish only remember things for three seconds. Then somebody said that was completely false and goldfish can remember things for months.
I have never investigated this.
I also don’t understand why we decided goldfish were the fish we should keep in bowls.
Why not trout?
You never walk into someone’s office and see a rainbow trout swimming around in a little glass bowl.
There’s probably a reason for that.
Trout need colder water, I think.
Which brings me back to golf.
Actually, it doesn’t.
But eventually it will.
One of the things I like about golf is that you can play the same course 100 times and somehow never play the same course twice.
The wind changes.
The greens change.
The pin locations change.
Your swing changes.
Your confidence changes.
And occasionally you discover a part of the golf course that apparently nobody has visited since the Eisenhower administration.
Golf courses are much larger when you don’t hit the fairway.
People who hit fairways probably think a golf course is about 150 acres.
I believe I’ve personally explored about 430 acres during a single round.
I’ve seen maintenance buildings.
Backyards.
Drainage systems.
Electrical boxes.
Wildlife habitats.
I once found myself in an area where I’m pretty sure the golf course superintendent didn’t even know he owned the property.
That’s another interesting thing about golf.
You meet animals.
Mostly geese.
Colorado has a lot of geese.
I don’t know where all these geese came from, but they seem extremely confident.
Geese walk around golf courses like they own them.
They don’t move for golf carts.
They don’t care that you’re trying to hit.
They don’t care that you paid $85 to be there.
A goose will stand 40 yards in front of you and basically say, “Go ahead. Hit it.”
And somehow the goose knows you can’t.
That’s confidence.
I wish I had the confidence of a goose standing in front of a 16-handicap golfer holding a 3-wood.
Which raises another question.
Why are there so many golf clubs?
At some point somebody decided we needed a driver, 3-wood, 5-wood, hybrids, irons, wedges and a putter.
Then somebody invented the 7-wood.
For years, the 7-wood was apparently something your grandfather used.
Now everybody wants one. You can get one at the Colorado Golf Expo.
Golf equipment has a strange cycle where something becomes outdated, disappears for 25 years, and then returns as revolutionary technology.
This also happens with clothing.
Cargo pants disappeared.
Now apparently they’re back.
I owned cargo pants.
The advantage of cargo pants was that you had approximately 17 pockets.
The disadvantage was that nobody actually had 17 things they needed to carry.
You would put something in one of the lower pockets and forget it existed.
Six months later you’d find a Home Depot receipt and three quarters near your knee.
Receipts are another thing I don’t understand.
Some receipts are four inches long.
Others are six feet long.
You can buy one item at CVS and receive enough paper to document the Louisiana Purchase.
Speaking of Louisiana, I’ve never understood exactly how large the Louisiana Purchase was.
It was enormous.
I remember that from school.
Thomas Jefferson bought a gigantic amount of land from France for what now seems like an unbelievably reasonable price.
If I remember correctly, it was about $15 million.
Today that might get you four houses in Aspen.
Maybe three.
Depending on whether they have heated driveways.
Heated driveways are another interesting concept.
Someone looked at a driveway and said, “You know what this needs? A furnace.”
And they weren’t wrong.
That’s innovation.
Golf has a lot of innovation too. You can see that at the Colorado Golf Expo.
Launch monitors can now tell you your club speed, ball speed, launch angle, spin rate, carry distance, total distance, attack angle, club path, face angle, and probably your cholesterol.
This is useful information.
Unfortunately, after receiving all of this data, my golf swing remains mostly the same.
A computer can tell me that my clubface was 4.7 degrees open.
Thank you.
I already knew something went wrong when the ball landed behind a Subaru.
But that’s golf.
Golf gives you an endless opportunity to improve.
And that might actually be one of the serious reasons I enjoy it.
There is no point where you completely figure it out.
Professional golfers hit bad shots.
Great golfers hit bad shots.
Average golfers hit lots of bad shots.
And bad golfers occasionally hit unbelievable shots.
That’s what keeps everyone coming back.
Golf provides just enough evidence that greatness might be right around the corner.
You shoot 94.
Then 91.
Then 89.
Suddenly you start thinking 79 is possible.
Mathematically, yes.
Emotionally, absolutely.
Historically, there may be some concerns.
But you believe.
Belief is important.
People believe in all kinds of things.
For example, every time I go to Costco for one thing, I believe I will leave with one thing.
This has never happened.
You walk into Costco needing paper towels and leave with paper towels, chicken, batteries, golf balls, a 48-pack of something you’ve never eaten before, and a gazebo.
Nobody plans to buy a gazebo.
You discover that you need a gazebo while standing inside Costco.
That’s why they put them there.
You see it and suddenly start imagining an entirely different version of your backyard.
“I could sit under that gazebo.”
Of course you could.
You currently have chairs.
But the gazebo changes everything.
Then you have to figure out how to get a 600-pound box into your vehicle.
This is when you realize you should have bought a truck.
Trucks are interesting because they keep getting bigger.
A modern pickup truck is approximately the size of a small municipal library.
I saw an old pickup recently and couldn’t believe how small it was.
People used to build houses, farms, and probably entire sections of interstate highway with trucks the size of a modern Honda CR-V.
Now we need a vehicle seven feet tall to pick up mulch.
I’m not criticizing this.
I like trucks.
I’m just observing.
Observation is important in golf.
You have to notice the wind.
The lie.
The slope.
The distance.
The pin position.
The firmness of the green.
Then, after considering all of these variables carefully, you hit it directly into the bunker.
Bunkers are interesting because golfers willingly pay to visit a place where someone has intentionally installed sand specifically to make their day worse.
Then we complain when we land in it.
Nobody hid the bunker.
It was right there.
We saw it from 180 yards away.
In fact, we specifically said, “Anything but that bunker.”
Which apparently our brain interpreted as:
“Bunker. Got it.”
Golf has a remarkable way of making intelligent adults talk to inanimate objects.
“Sit.”
“Go.”
“Get down.”
“Turn.”
“Bite.”
We yell these instructions at golf balls as if the ball has received extensive obedience training.
The ball never listens.
Yet we continue.
I’ve never seen someone hit a bowling ball and yell, “Get left!”
Golfers do it constantly.
And everybody accepts it.
That’s another reason I like golf.
Golf has its own language.
Birdie.
Bogey.
Eagle.
Fore.
Mulligan.
Dormie.
Up and down.
Sand save.
Fried egg.
Texas wedge.
None of this would make sense to someone who had never played golf.
A golfer can say, “I hit a little knockdown 8, caught it thin, got a member’s bounce and somehow made the up-and-down.”
Every golfer understands exactly what happened.
Try saying that at a dentist’s office.
Dentists are another group of people who ask strange questions.
They put six instruments in your mouth and then ask:
“So, doing anything fun this summer?”
I cannot answer you.
You know I cannot answer you.
You currently have both hands inside my mouth.
Yet I still try.
“Uhhh gaaaahhh.”
And somehow the dentist responds:
“Oh, that sounds nice.”
How did we get here?
Golf.
We were talking about golf.
That’s another thing I like about the game.
Golf gives you time to talk.
You can spend four hours with someone and have conversations about business, family, sports, food, cars, vacations, politics, weather, lawn care, the price of beef jerky, and whether you could survive for a week if you suddenly got dropped in the wilderness.
Most men believe they could.
I’m not convinced.
I think after about six hours most of us would be looking for a hotel.
But during a round of golf, these conversations seem completely normal.
Then someone hits.
Everyone gets quiet.
The ball flies.
You watch it land.
And the conversation continues.
That’s golf.
It’s competition without always feeling like competition.
It’s relaxing while simultaneously being unbelievably frustrating.
It’s social, but you can also spend time inside your own head.
It’s exercise, although the hot dog at the turn probably cancels out some of the cardiovascular benefits.
And there is something special about standing on a tee box early in the morning.
Fresh-cut grass.
Cool air.
Nobody in front of you.
A golf ball sitting perfectly on a tee.
For a few seconds, absolutely anything is possible.
You might shoot the best round of your life.
You might finally figure out your driver.
You might make a birdie.
You might break 80.
Or you might hit your first ball directly into somebody’s backyard swimming pool.
That uncertainty is part of the fun.
Golf is never finished.
There is always another course to play.
Another shot to try.
Another club you definitely don’t need but will probably buy.
Another round where everything might finally come together.
And maybe that’s why I like golf.
Or maybe it’s the geese.
I honestly don’t remember anymore.
But I know this.
Give me a golf course, a few good people, four hours, a questionable hot dog at the turn, and the possibility that today might finally be the day I figure this game out...
And I’m happy.
Because no matter where the conversation goes, no matter how many golf balls disappear, no matter how many swing thoughts I completely misunderstand, somehow I always end up right back where I started.
Thinking about golf.
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