I have been working all week to come up with an article. I know writing about your opinion seems easy, but once you get through your first few, you realize that actively thinking and articulating those thoughts is hard. So as I went about my days, waiting for something to strike my brain. And nothing. Until I played golf in a new VR headset, I got. And it hit me: I’ll write a long-overdue love letter. 

God bless the game that was invented thousands of years ago on the northern section of an island in the upper part of the Atlantic. A game that spans all age groups and all sexes and genders. A game that has seen some of the greatest moments in sports and has produced some great stars. A game that is often seen as a leisure game but is probably one of the most mentally taxing sports out there. And a game that produces the most swearing per outing out of all the major sports. I am, of course, talking about golf. 

Yes, the sport that your dad watches on Sunday when he’s waiting for the laundry to get done or drunk frat guys play because it gives them license to operate a motor vehicle while incredibly intoxicated. The sport that consists, at its core, of hitting a small dimpled ball with a bent rod in just the right way in the hope that it flies in the direction you thought you were aiming. And yet, in the world of chasing sports narratives and special moments, golf is up there with any other big sport.

Tiger Woods winning the U.S. Open on a broken leg, Tiger Woods winning the Master with one of the most difficult chips in golf, Francis Ouimet taking down some of the world’s best players, which would be later made into a movie (“The Greatest Game Ever Played”), Phil Mickelson becoming the oldest person to win a major championship, Rory vs. Reed at the 2016 Ryder Cup and pretty much any hole-in-one made on No. 16 at the Phoenix Open (look it up, I promise it’s just magical). These are just some of the mountain of moments that the sport has produced.

But it’s not just the major moments that made me fall in love with the sport forever. It was the time I got with my family. I would practice with my dad, game plan with him before rounds and dissect the rounds after. I got to make friends with people I wouldn’t have normally even said “hi” to had I not been stuck on a silent golf course with them. I got to have a place that was quiet and in nature, where I could be both effortlessly calm and violently angry all at the same time. Where I could learn to manage my mind and my focus because hitting that ball is a lot harder when you’re still thinking about the worm burner you topped off the deck ’cause you were trying to be fancy. And to have a sport where no matter how hard I try, my grandfather will always beat me on any course that isn’t my home course. What can I say, the old man knows his game. 

Golf is an old and enduring sport, with one of its most celebrated courses being almost as old as the sport itself. And it is a pilgrimage that I hope to one day be able to make myself. It’s something that I think everyone should learn, or at the very least try. Even if you don’t end up loving the game as much as someone like me, who has played since he was in kindergarten and competed all the way to college, I’m positive that you’ll find something to enjoy. And at the very least, it’s always a good excuse to have a drink in nature while your friends swear up a storm.