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He insisted it would be enjoyable. A relaxing morning out in the fresh air. Mild exercise in parklike surrounds. An opportunity for conversation. And don't worry, he went on, you'll get the swing of it in no time.
None of that happened. My one and only foray into golf was a disaster. The day was hot and humid, the flies relentless. The only conversation was my friend telling me how hopeless I was as I carved open-cut mines into the greens. Oh, and the cranky old grey hairs following behind us, barking about getting a bloody move on. When this torture came to an end all those years ago I swore I'd never again set foot on a golf course. And I haven't. Gutting fish holds more appeal for me. As Mark Twain observed, golf is a good walk spoiled.
But walk - and run and cycle - we must, especially now our cities are being turned into vertical sprawl and we face a future crammed into high-rise battery farms for urban workers. And so those verdant spaces within the city limits set aside for the exclusive pleasure of golfers are looking like indulgent luxuries for the privileged few we can no longer afford.
As former NSW premier Bob Carr warned: "You're going to have people like prisoners in medieval towers looking out their windows at the royal hunting preserves and wondering whether they will ever get to put their feet on the grass."
Try that reasoning with golfers, however, and you face a full-blown tantrum, as the current NSW Premier Chris Minns discovered in October when he announced he would halve the Moore Park Golf Course and turn nine holes into public parkland. The eastern suburbs were in uproar. How dare this upstart suggest such a thing? With only 13 golf courses within the boundaries of this clearly underprivileged part of the world, the mere suggestion was outrageous.
Now, several local governments are - heaven forbid - suggesting golf courses on council land at least share the space they occupy for other recreational pursuits. Imagine it. Scruffy dog-walkers, pickleballers, Frisbee throwers, mums with prams all ambling willy nilly over the lush fairways. The barbarians inside the gates.
As much as I try, I struggle to sympathise with golfers. Their ancient pastime is an environmental disaster. It's estimated there are 35,000 golf courses around the world, their land area somewhere between that of Israel and Belgium. These artificial landscapes use precious water resources and are soaked in fertilisers and pesticides. Land that could be used for housing or food production or more democratic recreation or simply left as natural forest is fenced off, cleared, bulldozed into shape, planted with grass and rendered into a sickly approximation of nature.
"Humanity took nature and bulldozed the land into a board game so big they have to drive across it," wrote science communicator Abbie Richards last year. That sentence reminded me of golf's worst ambassador and master of fakery, Donald Trump.
This paragon of physical and moral virtue, who buried his ex-wife Ivana at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club in a baffling display of vulgarity, claims golf is his form of exercise, even though he's driven around his course in a buggy, stepping out to take a swing before climbing back into his conveyance. That'll work off the cheeseburgers. Yeah, right.
Golf is not dead yet but as our living spaces are reduced as demand for denser housing grows, its grip on our cities has to be loosened. Golfers need to share their spaces with the rest of us and understand that their tantrums only make them look selfish and entitled.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Has golf passed its use-by date? Can we afford to indulge golfers when demand for housing and accessible open space is so acute in our cities? Is there any point to golf if you don't walk the course and use a buggy instead? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- A second budget surplus is "within striking distance" but there is no additional cost-of-living support despite the improvement in government finances, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says. The latest budget update shows a massive revenue windfall and almost $10 billion of savings and re-prioritised spending has helped reduce the budget deficit to $1.1 billion this financial year.
- Australian rock legend Jimmy Barnes has revealed he has received some "bad news" on his ongoing health battle. The 67-year-old said he would be undergoing open heart surgery on December 13, after the bacterial infection he had been battling for a fortnight had spread.
- Defence will establish a centralised complaints unit to process reports of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct, after the Commonwealth Ombudsman found its current system ineffective. A report by the ombudsman recommended the specialist unit be set up to consolidate the complaints system for unacceptable behaviour across the navy, army, air force and Department of Defence, after finding existing processes flawed.
THEY SAID IT: "Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps." - Tiger Woods
YOU SAID IT: So intense are the passions over the Israel-Hamas war that having a reasonable conversation can see you branded as anti-Semitic or Islamophobic. Even wearing a scarf can land you in hot water.
Emile writes: "I'm almost afraid to stick my head up above the parapet on this incendiary subject but it seems to me that the conflation of Judaism and Zionism is as damaging as the conflation between Palestinian and Hamas. I have been disturbed for at least the last 20 years by the far-right Zionist actions of the Israeli state against Gaza and the West Bank which at times look like they are using excerpts from Himmler's playbook against ethnic minorities. Your Michael Medved quote 'The truth about Hamas and Islamic Jihad is that they don't prevent Israel from existing or even flourishing, they prevent Palestine from coming into existence' is spot on and I would extend it to include Zionist policies and a two-state solution. Unless Gaza is at peace and prospers, Israel can not be at peace or prosper. Zionism is not Judaism, it hides behind it."
"The awful suffering of both Jews and Palestinians can't be swept away by polemical debate and hatred," writes Maureen. "The only thing that can be done is to embrace those on the other side, so that slowly our forgiveness meets its mark. Bombing is never going to be the answer."
Sue writes: "Remember the problems in Ireland? They were also based on religious differences and landholding, where land was taken from one religious group by a different religious group, albeit both Christian. How many hundreds of years did it take to solve, or at least minimise, that problem? Thousands of kilometres away, we don't hear much about what is happening on the ground in Ireland, of whichever variety, but listening to discussions among Irish people in Australia one can still hear traces, or more, of that conflict. At one school I taught at, the Irishman in charge of the calendar listed the Queen's Birthday weekend as the midsemester break, for example. To my mind, the situation in the Middle East is even more complex and I don't expect a solution any time soon."
"As a young person, I had great sympathy for the Jewish people," writes Phil. "And the injustice visited on the Palestinians when the state of Israel was created seemed less significant because of Hitler's atrocities. As time has gone on, I have increasingly questioned how the state of Israel could permit the profoundly disturbing mistreatment of the Palestinian people - including dispossession, forced relocation, imprisonment for dissent, group punishment, and homicide. Of all the people in the world, you would expect the Jews to understand how wrong that is. On December 11, in the Sydney Morning Herald, George Brandis said 'Under international law, a state has a right to self-defence, including pre-emptive self-defence.' Only a lawyer could transliterate 'genocide' into 'pre-emptive self-defence'. What Hamas did was unconscionable. What Israel is doing is unconscionable. Two wrongs do not make a right."
Arthur writes: "The war in the Middle East will continue as long as both sides refuse to compromise. Other countries taking sides to support one or the other is only prolonging the conflict and failing to address the underlying cause. Hamas and the Arabs have to accept that Israel is there to stay. Israel must recognise that its behaviour in the West Bank is both illegal and grossly unreasonable and unfair to the Palestinians. It is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black. Is it wishful thinking that the United Nations will send a peace force to stop Hamas firing rockets into Israel and ensure that Palestinians in the West Bank are treated the same as citizens of Israel? Sadly, I think that is unlikely."
"I'm horrified that the Australian Jewish community is supporting Israel in their killing and bombing of the Palestinian people, including thousands of little children," writes Gwen. "I was brought up a Catholic, but my parents didn't support Mussolini. No one called it racism against blacks when we criticised Idi Amin. Thousands of American Jews have come out in protest against Israel, and Noam Chomsky, a prominent American Jew, has condemned Israel's actions. What is wrong with our Australian Jewish community? Why do they think it is anti-Semitic to demand a halt to the slaughter?"
Chris writes that the key to peace is the recognition and acceptance of both groups' right to peacefully exist. "Can't locate my magic wand though. I'm looking on in continuous horror at the latest example of might over what's right. Of course, performers like anyone else are entitled to their opinion. I guess using the stage means your opinion may get better noticed than by other means. Louise Adler's performance was outstanding by the way. Her position is very strong and clear." And he adds praise for David Pope's cartoon: "Spot on, highlighting the most fundamental issue, the inequity of funding in our education systems. Public education must receive the same, or even better, than others."
"Shame on you, John," writes Harry. "It's not rocket science. Even an Anglican Archbishop can figure out that, 'If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.' (Desmond Tutu) And this time, you've chosen to side with an oppressor committing genocide in plain sight." Actually, Harry, I haven't sided with anyone but the people on both sides caught up in the violence. I'm with Phil, who says two wrongs don't make a right.