• Lophostemon@aussie.zone
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    2 years ago

    The original game as invented by bored semi-drunk Scots was, I’m sure, a good laugh several hundred years ago with wee sticks and a random round thing.

    The modern game and all its hideous capitalist/ classist cultural connotations is fucked.

  • Krotz@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Well, I recently learned of the existence of Excel competitions, so I’m not sure about the ‘most boring’ part.

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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    2 years ago

    Not just that, but I found a few golf courses in my city where natural habitats used to be. These place could have easily been changed into nature parks for the local residents to go wind down a bit, but noooOOOooo. Some rich assholes had to buy the land and destroy the ecosystem so they could whack a ball around some fucking grass into a little hole.

  • dirtbiker509@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    IMO, rectangle sports are the most boring sports in existence. It’s literally a rectangle and always a rectangle every time… And everyone stands around watching the exact same shit happening inside the perfectly constructed rectangle. It’s the same thing, over and over. Not only that but millions of people say they love sports, but they don’t even play, just stare at a glowy rectangle and watch people in a rectangle run around. You can’t define a more boring sport than that. At the very bare minimum, to spice things up, how about introducing some goddamn obstacles randomly placed in the rectangle. Add some actual dynamic scenarios that keep the players on their toes and trying to come up with new strategies.

    Motocross and enduro racing are sports and so is golf. Golf courses are all different, they unique, dynamic change depending on temperature, weather, grass length, wind, dew point, hole location.

    But I do agree in general, golf courses are very big waste. Especially when placed in the middle of deserts or places that require significant resources to maintain.

    • Cylusthevirus@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      Dude you can describe anything this way to make it sound boring, but that doesn’t even get close to reality and I think you know that deep down. I don’t even like sports and this is a senselessly reductive way of framing the discussion.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      You just gave me an idea…

      Soccer on a square field, four teams playing against one another, scoring in the nets closest to yours gives one point, in the net facing yours gives 2 points. Imagine the chaos!

    • Restaldt@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Yeah i might enjoy soccer if players got to run around with roman candles firing them at each other

      Goalies get three mortar shells per match

        • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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          2 years ago

          Soccer doesn’t even have the entertaining fights that hockey has. The soccer players just crumple to the ground screaming in (fake) pain as soon as anything remotely touches them. Every time.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    2 years ago

    The golf course near me has spent the last month about a foot underwater.

    I have never been so smug. I hope it’s ruined.

    • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      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.

      • Kalothar@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        I have always viewed it as a sport involves and active defensive player and an overall greater level of physical movement

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Fishing has entered the chat.

          Definitely a defensive participant and an offensive participant, but way less physical activity like 90% of the time.

        • HenryWong327@lemmy.ml
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          2 years ago

          Motorsports have no defensive player and do not involve much physical movement (unless you count the car’s movement).

          Giving a cat a bath involves a defensive player (the cat) and significant physical movement (depends on the cat’s mood).

  • Fraylor@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    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.

  • arc@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Las Vegas has something like 70 golf courses wasting inordinate amounts of water. Of course most houses also have outside private swimming pools too.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      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.

      • arc@lemm.ee
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        2 years ago

        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.

        • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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          2 years ago

          I don’t think they’re saying golf courses in the desert are defensible. I think they’re saying that Nevada does better water conservation job than other nearby states (I believe Utah is the worst per capita) and has not nearly as much impact on the colorado river, so there’s probably bigger fish to go after in terms of saving water than Las Vegas. When you get down to it like >80% of the water use out west is agriculture. If you’re going to make significant savings you have to tackle agriculture practices. Not that you shouldn’t clamp down on the golf courses too (I totally think they should, just deal with the artificial turf golfers if you want to golf in the middle of an arid desert and go golf in the scottish highlands if you want real grass), it just probably wouldn’t help all that much in the grand scheme of things even if golf courses didn’t exist at all. Surprisingly the best thing to do to conserve water would be to reduce meat consumption, most of what’s grown is for livestock feed not human consumption.

          https://web.archive.org/web/20231030112319/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/22/climate/colorado-river-water.html

  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 years ago

    every golf course could be a lovely botanical garden/park or arboretum, with little paths every which way and carefully crafted scenery to make you feel like you’re inside a disney movie

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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      2 years ago

      wpid-dgladeau_0113_0748

      You see this?

      I used to hike along the coast there quite regularly but someone decided it was much better to turn the whole thing into a gulf course and to illegally block access to locals.

      Edit: Of course they also chose the driest part of the island.

      • Faresh@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        Maybe they should be on the lookout for people pouring cement into the golf holes.

      • v_krishna@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        Where is this? California has strict regulations about the actual beach access. So e.g. Pebble Beach is in one of the most beautiful locations in all of Northern California, ridiculously expensive and nearly impossible to play as a mortal, but you can still go drive around 17 mile drive through the course and walk along the coastal trails for free.

        • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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          2 years ago

          It’s in st Lucia in the Caribbean.

          There is regulations for beach access too here where all the coastline need to be accessible to the public.

          So far with this particular resort they are doing everything they can to discourage people from coming in and showed a strong disdain for the local community.

    • vivadanang@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING ON EACH SIDE. Seattle estimated they could solve the housing crisis by closing a handful of their muni courses (leaving multiple municipal and a dozen private courses in the area) and building medium density housing there. Solving a critical need by getting rid of a few locations for a dying sport:

      https://www.theurbanist.org/2019/06/12/unlike-seattle-golf-really-is-dying/

      It’s a waste of space otherwise.

    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      Most of the golf courses near me are pretty much this - densely forested areas with meticulously landscaped little gardens, which happens to have some holes built in.

  • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
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    2 years ago

    So… I actually really like golf. I think it’s fun. Haven’t played in over a decade, but I look back on my memories playing pretty fondly.

    That said, I have zero issue recovering a lot of that lost land and water usage to put them to better use.

    I’d be very interested to see a version of golf that is less ecologically destructive and less water intensive.

  • LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz
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    2 years ago

    I know this thread is a bit old, but I used to be an irrigation tech at a 27 hole golf course. Just wanted to throw some numbers out there for anyone interested. This was in a hot climate for reference. During the wet season, we would pump out anywhere from 200,000 gallons to 600,000 of water per night. During the summer or droughts, we would pump 750,000-1,500,000 gallons of water PER NIGHT. During the day, especially during droughts, I had to go around spot watering everything all day. I could easily pump 150,000 gallons during the day on top of what we pumped at night. During a hot week with no rain, our average was around 10.5 million gallons of water. Our course used “reclaimed water” but the majority of the water was supplemented by the city supply. We only got the reclaim license because of some favors and shady deals to lower our taxes.

  • Renacles@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 years ago

    I just don’t understand the need for so many courses, I played golf as a kid on the same one for 10 years, the local environment allowed it to maintain itself for the most part.