I have for many years considered golf (much like ice fishing) to be the sort of pass time that contributes to marital longevity. After all, when you get one party to a marriage out of the house for a good chunk of their (typically his) waking hours, and when you do that on a very regular basis over the course of many months, the pressures of actually living and interacting with one's spouse full time are dramatically diminished. Separation makes the heart grow fonder? Not exactly. More like golf as a soothing liniment applied generously for purposes conflict avoidance. After all, I said longevity not happiness.
I hardly am one to give advice about how to succeed at marriage, having done at least my bit to destroy two different efforts. (It will be a cold day in July before the other parties to those failures offer a similar acknowledgment.) Perhaps I ought to have heeded my father's advice and taken to the links? I doubt that a topical treatment would've helped much. In any case, all that is a prelude to saying that I found this view of professional golf as morality play truly obnoxious. The TV announcers seem to have been oblivious to their 'family values' projections and the subsequent newspaper assessment couldn't muster even a whiff of irony.*
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P.S.: After posting this I wandered over to Salon and found this truly funny take on yesterday's golf coverage.
