Golfing Alone (with Gary Belsky)

Gary Belsky: Oh my God. Very glad to be here.

Can I ask you a question?

Gary Belsky: Do you have a thing like Saturday Night Live has, where if a host has hosted five times, they get a jacket? I know that there have been people who have been on many more times than me, but is there a threshold in which we become part of a club?–

Gary Belsky: An EconTalk Club? Can we make it three?

Gary Belsky: Solo golf is what I call a–it’s not a foursome, a threesome, or a twosome. It’s a lonesome. I don’t mean playing as a single, which is a thing in golf. I’m a highly social person. I make this point at the beginning of the book: that I love playing golf because I love playing with friends, present company included, and nephews as well. But, solo golf is the act of playing golf by yourself on a course, or at least on a hole, without anyone there.

And, it can be a transformative experience, because the golf industrial complex, by definition, wants you to go out with other people. They want–almost every golf club or golf course in the world wants four golfers to go out every eight to 12 minutes, as many days of the year as they possibly can.

Even private courses, where if you belong to a private club–especially if they’re at certain times of the year–you can–it’s a little bit easier to go out on your own: they still generally discourage it because courses are meant to be shared, I think.

But courses, in some ways, are best enjoyed when you are playing it by yourself. I have a line in the book: ‘In some ways, there’s no lonelier place in the world, or emptier place in the world, than a golf course with nobody on it. And, the second loneliest place in the world is a golf course with one person on it.’ That’s what solo golf is. Playing by yourself, playing alone.

Gary Belsky: I don’t know if I could count it, but dozens.

Gary Belsky: Four times 18. Right.

Gary Belsky: Well, before I answer that, I want to note something, and I want to note that I once worked for a very long time with a guy named Brendan O’Connor, who was our golf editor at ESPN [Entertainment and Sports Programming Network] when I was at the Worldwide Leader in Sports. And, Brendan would always correct me because, like you, I use the term golfing as a gerund, I guess. Is that what it would be?

Gary Belsky: And, he would say, ‘Play golf.’ That, real golfers don’t say ‘golfing.’ They say ‘play golf.’ But, I also say golfing.

The reason to play by yourself–I mean, there could be many reasons to play by yourself. You could be traveling, as I often am, and all of a sudden realize: Oh wait, the weather outside is kind of crappy, and I can probably find a really not well-attended course in this area–meaning kind of a bad course. And, if I call them up, they will probably rent me clubs, and I can go play at least a few holes. And, there’s just something about that that, first of all, is a little bit fun, a little bit serendipitous, a little bit adventurous.

But, the reason to play by yourself is because it’s an entirely different experience than playing with other people in almost every way possible.

We divide the book–the book is divided into three different parts. The largest part is me explaining why it’s so different. But essentially, it’s a meditative, introspective, contemplative experience that’s unlike almost anything you generally encounter when you’re playing golf with other people. And really unlike almost any other sports activity, except I guess maybe like shooting hoops outside by yourself on a spring or summer or fall night, something like that. But, it feeds the soul in a way that a round of golf with other people doesn’t. It doesn’t mean that a round of golf with other people doesn’t feed your soul. The sociability of a round of golf, even with strangers, is something and can be itself a really meaningful experience. But, when you’re playing by yourself, it’s the closest thing to, like, a yoga practice for me. It’s just a beautiful, quiet, thoughtful experience. And, those are not words I would generally attach to the sport of golf.

Gary Belsky: No, no, no. I get–it’s a great question.

First of all, yes, we did cover golf. I’ll tell you the two most memorable golf stories we ever did were actually participatory stories, which I’ll tell you about in a second. But, generally at ESPN–and this is really true even in the ESPN.com and on TV as well–like, you’re going to spend most of your time and most of your resources covering the most obvious sports, right? Football, baseball, basketball, hockey.

ESPN, obviously, to some extent, some of the coverage was dictated by who the television network had contracts with. Not in a bad way, but if we were broadcasting hockey, then we would probably do a little bit more hockey in the Magazine or on Insider, which we also ran–you know, the premium website for ESPN. X Games, action sports was something that we also did coverage of, partially because ESPN invented action sports, right?

But, our rule generally was that as long as we thought 10% of our audience would find the story compelling, that was reason enough to do it, as long as we also covered the major sports. And, we had this sense that turned out to be true, that proved out in readership surveys and focus groups, that with sports like golf or wrestling or–and I mean both kinds of wrestling, actually, we covered both the entertainment kind and the hardcore sports kind–with those kinds of, quote-unquote, “minor sports,” readers who didn’t care about it would forgive you because they just assumed that somebody else liked it. And, as long as you were giving them their quotient of football, baseball, basketball, hockey, motor sports, they were, like, ‘Okay, I guess somebody must want to read about snowboarders.’ So, that was how we thought about it.

Gary Belsky: So, my two favorite stories that we did was we had an editor, a young editor at the time, who had played collegiate golf. She’s now at 60 Minutes, actually, as a producer at 60 Minutes, but she was a collegiate golfer. And so, she entered a tournament, an LPGA [Ladies Professional Golf Association] tournament. And, by the way, that golf editor that I mentioned to you, Brendan O’Connor, he was her caddy. But, the story was really about what it was like to compete as a former athlete in an LPGA tournament. She didn’t make the cut. Her name is Sarah Turcotte. She was an excellent editor and a phenomenal golfer. She didn’t make the cut, but the story was fantastic. So, I remember that story a lot. We went down there to watch her play, actually. That was just cool to be rooting for someone in a gallery, rooting for them because you knew them.

And the other story we did was, there’s a legendary ESPN writer named Tim Keown. He’s still there. He’s just phenomenal. He can write about any sport. He really gets you inside an athlete’s mind and inside a team. But, we had Timmy, who hates to be called Timmy, but let me call him Timmy. We had Timmy once caddy in a professional golf tournament. That shows you the trust that we built up with athletes because we had to convince a professional golfer to let us replace his caddy with Tim, who went to some version of caddy school to do it. And, it’s a phenomenal story, if you want to read it, mostly because of how difficult it is to caddy–

Gary Belsky: in a professional golf tournament. The pressure on you; the things you have to do. We all have these experiences of playing with a friend who is a real stickler for etiquette and rules. ‘You can’t walk in that line.’ Or just there’s always that golfer. I’m not that golfer, as you would guess, who is a stickler for etiquette. But, if you’re a caddy, you really have to know not just the rules, and not just the course, and not just the green. You have to understand the unwritten rules of golf, too, because you cannot be pissing your golfer’s partner off in the middle of a round because you did something wrong.

So, both those stories, to me, were fascinating.

You know, we–I would say 10 times a year–we profile, we did previews of the majors, we profiled a really hot golfer. I was amazed. I don’t think she gets nearly as much attention as she should. Not Annika Sörenstam, who is arguably the greatest female golfer ever and who did get a lot of attention. But, there was a golfer named Lorena Ochoa, who was from Mexico, I believe, and she was just phenomenal. And, Lindsay Berra, Yogi Berra’s granddaughter who wrote for us, did a profile of her. And, she basically was at the top of her game, arguably one of the best golfers, male or female, in the world. And, she got married and wanted to start having kids. And, she just quit because she had done what she wanted to do and had no problems walking away. And, the story–we did a story about her when she was still playing–but I just remember admiring the way she approached the game, and then admiring the way she walked away from the game. Anyway, so yeah, we covered golf. Long answer.

Gary Belsky: Yeah. I think it was The Michelob Light Open, by the way. I think literally, I think that’s what it was.

Gary Belsky: Yes. There was a senior tournament in St. Louis that I watched a little bit of it, but not as much as I should have.

You know, when I was at ESPN, both when I was rising up the ranks and then became editor, I generally wanted to be the kind of boss who–you get credentials at ESPN. You can’t just go because you work at ESPN; you get credentials. And, I was generally–and all of leadership at the Magazine was–the kind of leadership that–we wanted to let our editors and writers get the credentials.

Gary Belsky: And so, I should have gone to Augusta. I wanted our golf people to go to Augusta. So, I didn’t go to nearly as many events as I could have where credentials were tight.

Gary Belsky: Yeah. Well, there’s different experiences even when you watch it live, even if you’re camping out at holes. Oftentimes, what people will do is they’ll camp out for a certain period of time at a certain hole, and then later on, they’ll try to get somewhere else. But, even what does it mean to camp out? Because you could be camping out where somebody’s teeing off.

Gary Belsky: Or you can be camping out at the greens, right?

Gary Belsky: So, we wrote about this back in the day at ESPN. We gave advice, because there’s different schools of thought. Some people say it’s just a better experience if you follow a group. And remember, usually you’re following a group. You’re not following one person, you’re following at least two. Sometimes, depending on the tournament, you could be following three people. And then, you at least get a little bit of variation, but also you’re getting to see all the holes, and you’re getting to see all of the shots, albeit from two or three golfers. But, it’s just a different philosophy.

But, you’re right, it’s–in some ways, the difference between watching it on TV and the difference between watching it in person is as stark or as wide as for any sport. Because, sure, people always ask me, ‘What’s your favorite sport?’ And I always say, ‘To play or to watch?’ And then, if they say, ‘To watch,’ I say, ‘In person or on TV?’ Because there are differences. I love hockey, love it on TV. In person, it’s the most exciting sport to be in a good seat in an arena; but it’s still, they feel like the same game you’re watching, whether or not you’re watching it on TV, or whether or not you’re watching it live. Golf, it’s–like you said–it’s very, very different.

And ultimately, I think I would encourage somebody to do both, right? To do a tournament where they follow a twosome or one golfer, and then also to try to do a tournament or split the tournament up. Or remember, you can do it on–there’s four days usually to do it, where you are just sitting at a particular hole and seeing how different people play it. That’s the excitement. And, of course, nobody’s ever going to regret being on the green at a Major, the 18th green, to see the end of the tournament.

So, it’s personal preference, but they are very different experiences.

Gary Belsky: And also, by the way–yes. And also, by the way, the assistance of, if you and I keep our head down, that often means we don’t know where the heck the ball went. And so, it’s helpful to have somebody else. My friend David Khan just has–he’s my age, but somehow he has the–and I have 20/25 vision, and I don’t think he does; but man, this guy can spot a ball no matter where it goes in a way that I could have binoculars and be watching it like an eagle and not be able to find a ball. He’s phenomenal, and that’s a big advantage.

But, I tell a story about–I think I make it third person, but it’s about me–that speaks to the issue of what you’re talking about, the self-consciousness, and why it’s so stressful.

Which is that: I was playing with a guy who was a very good minor league professional golfer. That is to say, I knew him through a friend, and he played–I played with him somewhat regularly in the 1990s, and he played on the mini tours, a couple of–so, he made a little bit of money playing golf. He never really made it to the show; but he was a very, very good golfer, just a different golfer than I was. It was an entirely different–he plays a game with which I’m not familiar, right? That line.

But, one time I said to him–and he understood immediately what I meant–I was, like, ‘What’s the one difference,’ I said, ‘between you and me?’ And, what I meant when I asked him that was, what’s the one difference between golfers like me and hackers, amateurs, enthusiasts, and a golfer like you–a professional? He was a guy who could go to any course and potentially shoot par, or even below par.

And, he knew exactly what I meant, and he said, ‘Oh, that’s easy.’ And I said, ‘What?’ He goes, ‘When I’m over a shot, all I am thinking about is that shot. Period.’ He goes, ‘When you’re over the ball, all you are thinking about is every shot you took before in this game, and in this round, and maybe all the other rounds. And, you’re also thinking about me, and you’re thinking about other people watching in the other holes.’

And, I would argue that the stress you and I feel–the anxiety–is what you’re trying to lose when they talk about focus. It’s not just focusing on the shot and the many, many things you have to think about in golf that are–I listed them in the book at one point–just, all the things about setup, and waggle, and hand position, and hip turn, and shoulder. Just when you go through it, it’s astounding. Follow through and–

But, not just thinking about that, but we’re also just thinking about: Who is watching, and what are they going to think, and what did they think? And, ‘Oh my God, what’s the matter with me?’ and, ‘Am I ever going to learn?’ and, ‘Why do I play this game?’

So, I think that’s a big–and in solo golf, I lose almost all of that. It’s one of the reasons why it’s–first of all, on the mechanics of the game, it’s just a calmer experience because it doesn’t count. And, literally, I have a sidebar in the book that I should point out here that one of the issues with solo golf is it does not count for your handicap because you need witnesses for your handicap. But also, the stress that you talk about is gone.

Now I want you to imagine, you and I have had some fun times playing golf, and I don’t think we stress too much about each other–

Gary Belsky: But, any of the stress that you have on a golf course that’s sort of normal for golfers like us, it’s gone because you’re just by yourself and nobody is watching–because nobody is watching.

Gary Belsky: Yeah. And, I would also say that much more of that is in our control–and I’m putting you and me in the same camp–much more of that is in our control, in the amateur golfer, in the hacker’s control than they realize, right? I’m quite good now at playing with very good players, partially because I understand when to pick up the ball. By the way, not to be needy, not to have them have to validate you, right? To just go about your business.

Gary Belsky: Right. To go about your business, and if those golfers, the really good golfers, see–even if they don’t know you, if they’re strangers–if they see that you understand how to play with them, then it becomes fine, right? And, you notice sometimes when you’re playing with golfers who are not very good and who don’t understand what to do when they’re playing with golfers of just orders of magnitude different levels of skill, then you realize that’s the–the issue is not their play, it’s their not-understanding of how to play with others when others are considerably better.

Life is about getting comfortable with that in everything so that hopefully, by the time you die, you’re like, ‘I’m pretty okay with anybody watching me do anything–with a couple of things excepted–because I feel like I either do it well or I’m okay with not doing it well because I understand who I am and how I got there.’ And, in a funny way, the solo golf experience is kind of part of that journey, I think.

Gary Belsky: And, golf, you can practice a lot and not improve in a certain way because if you’re not getting the mechanics right for you, it just doesn’t click. And, the margins of error in golf are so different than they are in most other sports.

I haven’t really gotten to answer your question yet, but there’s a story I tell in the book that, like you, I think sometimes I write books because I want to get some of the stories I’ve been telling all the time onto a page. And, the story I tell in golf that’s both a fair story and not a fair story is a story that was told to me at the peak of Tiger Woods’ greatness. And, somebody was trying to explain to me–some professional was trying to explain to me–just like the margin of error factor in golf. And, this person said, ‘If you shoot a 70, if you average 73 in golf,’ which is basically a little bit over par, which is phenomenal, but they said, ‘If you average 73 in golf, you’ll be the most popular player in your local course or your country club.’ And, they said, ‘If you average one stroke better, 72, you can go to college for free. And, if you average one stroke better than that, 71, you can probably make a living playing golf. And, if you average one stroke better than that, 70, you can be a millionaire. One stroke better than that, 69–remember, we’re only four strokes away from where we started–you can be a multimillionaire, and if you average 68, you’ll be the most famous person in the world.’ Which is what Tiger Woods was averaging in 2002 for a season. And, he was arguably the most famous person in the world.

And, you’re thinking, like, that doesn’t seem like a very big difference between a guy at a club and the most famous person in the world. But, of course, it is, but it speaks to–the funny thing about golf is that you can hit a ball, and if you mis-hit it on your clubface by a centimeter, two centimeters, the outcome could be 70 or 80 yards wide of where you were aiming. Forget about the distance part. And, that’s just an extraordinary–nobody misses a basketball shot by 40 feet. They might throw an air ball, but it doesn’t look like they were aiming for the exit of the stadium. Do you know what I mean?

Gary Belsky: And, it’s extraordinary.

But, I think you’re right. We’ve talked about this, I think, before, you and I, just in private conversations. I think recent years have seen an explosions in the sales of pocket watches and fountain pens.

Gary Belsky: And, I believe, and I think people who know better than me believe that it has to do with analog versus digital, right? That people are looking for analog experiences. So, if I were the grand poobahs of the golf industry, I would understand and embrace the digital simulation of golf and then somehow also frame my game as: that stuff is fun. It’s also fun to write with a fountain pen. It’s also fun to use a pocket watch sometimes, to pull that out of your pocket, have the business of flipping the lid. And, there’s a golf equivalent of that.

Like, I think you’re right. I think golf has an opportunity–especially, by the way, if there’s more options to do physical golf that don’t require you to spend five or six or seven hours of your day. I’m still amazed that people don’t lean in more into the executive golf course–you know, those nine holes. I think if somebody could come up with a golf experience that was not Topgolf, which is great, but which is just basically it’s a version of a driving range where you’re aiming at targets. But, if somebody could come up with a six-hole golf experience, they might get some attention. That could be a business, because part of the problem with golf is people don’t have six hours to spend or five hours to spend.

And, there’s a way in which I think people could–I make the point that one of the–when you asked me how many rounds of solo golf I played in my life and I said, ‘Dozens,’ some of those rounds were six holes. Because, a good part of the book is explaining to people how to play solo golf, because it’s difficult to do. But, one of the ways to do it is to go late in a round and to say to the starter, ‘Hey, I just want to play. Can I start it at one?’ Where they’re not starting people anymore because it’s getting late in the day. ‘I just want to play five holes.’ And, sometimes you might have to pay for it. Sometimes you can just slip the starter a few bucks; and you can just play five holes, and who cares? It doesn’t count for your handicap. You’re not trying to tell somebody what you shot in your solo golf round because anyway, what does that even mean? And, sometimes it’s just really a good experience to go out there and just knock off six holes by yourself.

And, so, in general, I think as people are thinking about playing golf for real or playing golf in a simulation, there’s ways to think about it as you can get that physical experience over the course of an hour and a half, and it can really complement your digital golf experience. But, it’s funny that I think you’re right that they’re different, and it could be an opportunity because the physical game is so much different than the simulation game, even if the swing motion is the same in theory.

Gary Belsky: Well, by the way, that’s a really astute point, especially since–so golf sort of takes a lot of pride in this sticking to tradition. When, of course, if you took a shepherd from Scotland or China or Holland, all of whom, roughly contemporaneously, were inventing the game of golf with shepherds’ crooks and sheep dung and random holes in the ground that they were taking aim at, if you brought them to Baltusrol or Augusta and said, ‘This is the sport you invented,’ they’d be, like, ‘What?’ They look at these pristine courses, and they might understand that it’s the same game–I think they would–but they would also be like, ‘This is not the game I’m playing at, mate.’

And, it’s funny because, again, one of the secrets to playing solo golf is to actually seek out bad courses, courses that aren’t well-tended, public courses that don’t have a lot of money because there’s just not as many crowds there and there’s not as many golfers there. The crowds aren’t as big. And so, you can maybe get a solo round in. But, those courses are harder. And, I have turned that into a really fun imagination game in which I’m playing golf a little bit closer to the way that it used to be played, right? When you’re in a fairway and you land in a rough patch or in a hard pan in the middle of the fairway or just a mud hole, you’re thinking, like: Yeah, I could be bummed about this, or I could think like I’m in Scotland and it’s 1575.

Gary Belsky: And, I’m ignoring the King’s order not to play golf, which, at one point the King of England had to make that a law because they wanted people to be practicing archery, not golf. And, I’m playing golf like it was meant to be played. So, it’s funny that golf hews[? inaudible 00:34:24] to tradition because the game we play now is, in some ways, very far from the game they played when the sport was invented.

Gary Belsky: Not probably. And if you do touch it, Russell, it will hurt. I’m quite serious.

Gary Belsky: Yeah, correct.

Gary Belsky: There are moments where, when you are–it’s funny, I don’t ever think of it off the tee on a par three. I think of it more where every once in a while, I will have an approach shot with a wedge, and I’ll keep my head down, my mechanics will be great. I do the swing I’m supposed to. And, when I hit it, I know that I’ve hit it well and that it comes down in the exact right arc on the green. And, I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s how you’re actually supposed to do it.’ And, I’m not sure anybody, any other golfer, like you said, would take it and would want to exchange their shot for that in that moment.

I would argue that golf has a phrase that doesn’t exist in any other participatory sport, which is, ‘golf shot,’ right? When somebody hits an amazing shot–you can even say it about yourself–but somebody else will say, ‘That’s a golf shot.’

Gary Belsky: And, nobody ever–you can have nothing but net in basketball. There’s lots of things, but there’s no phrase in any other sport that basically means: that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be done at the professional level.

Gary Belsky: Sometimes they call those ‘be-back shots,’ right? ‘I’ll be back,’ because I’ve made that. Often it happens on the 18th hole, where you just hit this one shot and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I think I’ve figured it out.’ But, ‘golf shot’ speaks to exactly what you’re talking about, I think, which is this weird opportunity to go, ‘Oh, that must be what it feels like to do this at the highest level.’

So, I think you’re right. It’s an unusual sport. I often find–it’s also just a sport where–the great thing about sports, in general, is that the maintenance guy and the CEO [Chief Executive Officer] can have a conversation in the bathroom about the Cardinals game. I guess you could say the Red Sox game, but I don’t know why anybody would talk about American baseball. But you can have a conversation about that Knicks-Pacers game with anybody. And, by the way, the CEO, if the maintenance guy is talking smart, will listen.

Gary Belsky: Right? And, participatory sports, there’s not that many opportunities for people to sort of play socially with people in a kind of bringing-people-together way. But golf does offer that, right? You can be out on a golf course, and at some point you’re playing with strangers sometimes, and you don’t know who is who. And, if somebody is playing well, they’re just like, ‘Mad props, sir, for playing as well as you play.’ That might be a CEO and that might not be. But, there’s not many sports where you can do that–sort of play with strangers. You could, in theory, do it in bowling, but nobody does that. And, we rarely have corporate bowling outings even, too. Nobody does a bowling match for a sales call, right?

Gary Belsky: But, golf serves a lot of purposes culturally in a way that people, I don’t think, who don’t participate in it quite understand.

Gary Belsky: I disagree. I think he would. I think he would because I think the conversation would be interesting.

Gary Belsky: I think because, you’d be a welcome recipient of his advice and wouldn’t be giving him any. And, as long as you–and then two things. One, a), as long as you understood how to keep the pace appropriate–

Gary Belsky: whatever that meant. Sometimes it meant like a drive into the woods, and you’d be like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to walk this round and watch you.’

Gary Belsky: And, the other thing that I think speaks to what you’re talking about is: if you understand how to be a human being, an adult human being, on the course while you’re doing it, right? If it’s just clear that you are–everybody talks about you play golf with somebody, you understand how they are in life, it’s kind of true. To some extent, it’s true in any sport. Somebody who is–

Gary Belsky: Right. You get a bit of a sense. But, with golf, you walk with somebody, and you see how they handle mistakes, how they handle defeat, how they handle somebody else doing better than them, their graciousness, their respect for the game, their respect for golfers that come after them in terms of how they–there’s a lot of nuance in the game that tells you something about the person you’re playing with that makes you go, ‘I like this person,’ or ‘I don’t like this person,’ or ‘I respect this person.’ Right? So, I actually think Michael Jordan would have a good time playing with you for all of those reasons because I think you–I’ve played with you. I think you meet all those criteria. [More to come, 42:32]