Sitting in the stands at the Open Championship at Hoylake this weekend, I had a kind of epiphany. I suddenly realised that golf, not football, is the people's game of the modern era - and that this is as it should be.
I've spent too much of my life going along with the old lefty prejudices against golf: against its snobbery, against its traditionalism, against its cost, against its whiteness, against its environmental problems, against its clothes, against its individualism. I'm not saying these aren't problems, or that they have all been solved. But I think they pale into insignificance against golf's bigger reality.
Here are some of the things that struck me at the Open. And no, they don't include a golf ball.
First, this was a crowd of ordinary people. Sure, there were some toffs in blazers and, yes, there were a lot of corporate guests, but basically this was a crowd of all classes who were there simply because love the game.Second, the crowds are tremendously knowledgeable because most of them play golf. If you ignore walking, cycling and jogging, the General Household Survey says that golf is Britain's biggest participation sport - more people in this country play golf than play football. for instance - and after chatting to some of my fellow crowd-members at Hoylake I believe it. All of them, to a man and a woman, were golfers. I bet the percentage of people at the Cup Final who play football is far smaller in proportion.
Link: here