Nobody wakes up one day and decides to become a golf addict. It sneaks up on you. One round turns into a membership at the driving range, the driving range turns into a weekly standing tee time, and one day you’re standing in the garage at 11 p.m. holding a wedge and explaining to your spouse that you were “just checking for raccoons.”
If any of the following sound familiar, I have some news. It’s not a phase.
1. You’ve checked the forecast for Saturday since Monday. A normal person looks at the weather the night before. A golf addict has the extended forecast memorized, the radar app on the home screen, and a firm opinion on whether a 40 percent chance of rain at 2 p.m. means 40 percent or “basically fine until the back nine.” You’ve refreshed it so many times that the app is starting to think you’re a meteorologist. You are not. You are a man who needs to know if he needs to pack his rain gear.
2. You’ve bought a new club to fix a problem that was actually your swing. It’s 1 a.m. You’re awake because a new driver has “a better forgiveness profile.” You’ve read three reviews, watched a YouTube video titled “This Driver Added 15 Yards (Honest Review),” and now your cart has a $500 piece of titanium in it. The slice has been there since 2019. Seven drivers later, that fade is just as slicey. And still, you hit “Place Order,” confident this is ‘The One.’ It’s not, so no, don’t name that club ‘Neo’ just yet.
3. Your house is a driving range, and everyone knows it. You take practice swings in the kitchen. You putt on the carpet. You’ve hit a ball (or at least a wiffle ball) into a couch cushion and told yourself it counted. Your family has learned to duck, and your dog has learned to leave the room when you pick up a club. If you can’t walk past a mirror without checking your takeaway, you’re in deep.
4. You schedule life around tee times, not the other way around. Weddings? “What time’s the ceremony? I can be there by 4:30 if I get a morning round in.” Family dinners get a short window after the back nine. You’ve said the phrase “I’m free any day after 1:30” and meant it as a boundary, not a suggestion. A golf addict doesn’t miss events, just rearranges them around the first tee.
5. You watch four hours of golf on a Sunday and call it research. Every Sunday, you’re on the couch with the volume turned down just low enough to hear the announcers whisper over a 12-foot putt. You know the pros by first name. You have opinions about their putting strokes. You’ve watched the replay of a shot twice, then a third time in slow motion, just to see why it ended up in the water. And then you take the lesson to the course, shank one into the woods, and blame it on the pros. (Yes, I write a golf newsletter about exactly this. No, I’m not seeking treatment. I am you. You are me. Golf are we.)
If you checked three of those, welcome to the club. There’s no cure, but there’s a decent 19th hole and a Chicago dog waiting at the turn. Winston has been a golf addict for years, and he’s doing fine. He’s a worm in a puddle of Jameson, but he’s fine.
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