Golf games and their players have always been considered bourgeois by some people. The recent scandals surrounding professional golf players seem to have reignited some hatred for the elite sport of Golf games.
The governments of China and Venezuela even went so far as to putting a ban on the game. A ban on playing golf is nothing new to those who are familiar with the history of golf. Even in Scotland the sport was banned for 50 years in the fourteen-hundreds, and then several times thereafter. Of course, back then the reasons were different from todays. King James II of Scotland was keen to preserve the skills of archery in order to keep his country strong against invaders. He felt that his subjects’ growing love of golf interfered with the enthusiasm for military training. In the case of modern-day China, the government’s official reason is that building golf courses is a waste of land resources, which could be used for agriculture instead. In Venezuela it seems to be a socialist’s personal vendetta against the rich and careless.
Most people do not feel strongly enough about the sport to support a complete ban of Golf games, but its popularity has certainly waned with the increase in scandals that have been reported over the past couple of years. In general, golf is perceived as a harmless, grown-up sport whose players know how to behave themselves. No-one has ever heard of golf-hooliganism being a problem. The good reputation of the sport has now been tainted by a few badly-behaved professional players who have been in the media for all the wrong reasons. Adultery has become a recurring theme, a football player was caught drink-driving a golf buggy on the motorway and even drug-testing seems to be an issue worth discussing these days.
It is therefore no surprise that there is a certain real-life golf fatigue setting in amongst the fans. They are fed up with being associated with the seediness that accompanies golf at the moment. Golf clubs have noticed a decrease in membership sign-ups. Golf course visits have dropped by a third. Golf players have taken to playing on their computers, rather than out in the open where other people will judge them on their love of this elite sport. For many of them, online computer Golf games have become a welcome alternative where they can exercise their skills on virtual sites without the neighbours knowing of it.