Sex and Golf: I Knew There Was a Connection

When I was young, I brought home a 45-rpm record called The Golf Game. (I think that was the title; It's been a long time.) I laughed uproariously at all the jokes about balls and putting the putter in the hole. My dad thought otherwise, and that was the end of that.

Fast forward several decades, and ScienceDaily reports on a statement from the American Heart Association, saying that people with stable cardiovascular disease and no or minimal symptoms during routine activities can have sex.

“Sexual activity generally is safe and no more strenuous than golf,” said Dr. John Moran of the Loyola University Health System. Obviously he's never seen me golf. You'll have to ask my wife about my performance in the sack—after she stops laughing.

The good doctor did qualify his statement, saying it applied to “a patient who has sex with a familiar partner.” No sleeping around for octogenarian golfers. At least not with someone else. Dozing off in an easy chair is still allowed.

“Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them,” said professional golfer Jimmy DeMaret (1910-1983). Golf takes longer, at least for most folks. On the other hand, you shouldn't need a caddy to help you satisfy the wife. And I certainly hope you don't need a golf cart.

Donald Trump blamed the game for golfer Tiger Woods' promiscuity, reported the New York Daily News in April 2010. “I really think that there's tremendous pressure you wouldn't understand from the world of golf,” he said. Trump made the comments at the premiere of his show, Donald J. Trump's Fabulous World of Golf on the Golf Channel.

How does Donald Trump find time to do a golf show, when he has to spend so much time on his business activities, not to mention the upkeep of his hair? Trump explained how he maintains the latter in an interview with Rolling Stone: "OK, what I do is, wash it with Head and Shoulders. I don't dry it, though. I let it dry by itself. It takes about an hour.” Trump showed RS his hairline while stressing that while he does comb his hair, it is not a comb-over. “It's sort of a little bit forward and back,” he said. The story described his hairstyle as a “flying wing”. Nice.

Returning to the matter at hand, it turns out that you can combine sex and golf. The Los Angeles Times reported in November 2004, on a tournament in Norco, Cal., at which prostitutes and strippers serviced participants in tents set up near several tees. “Riverside County sheriff's investigators knew something was fishy when some golfers showed up for a golf tournament in Norco without their clubs,” said the paper. That would be a clue. It cost $200 to enter the tournament, but there were additional charges for services provided in the tents, which doesn't strike me as a good value proposition, if you will.

In December 2007, the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey reported on the Centerfolds golf outing that had been taking place for more than a decade at various golf courses in the area. For those who actually golfed at these outings, the caddies were topless go-go dancers, who also tended to the flag sticks and drove the golf carts. Police collected information about one such outing while investigating a rape allegation, which was found to be erroneous. It was reported that “ … one of the men and a woman were having sexual intercourse on the putting green and that the female involved was performing oral sex on another male.” I hope no one was waiting to play through.

A similar event occurred in June 2007 at the Cherry Valley Golf Course in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mounains. The Poconos—is nothing sacred? The flap over this one started when 20-year-old Dave Gold was denied entrance to a road shared by the golf course and a friend he wanted to visit. He determined that something might be amiss when the employee blocking the road allegedly told him, "I'll kick you ass."

Other such events have been reported at courses in California, Maryland and Virginia.

The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) doesn't use sex to promote its product, but implicitly acknowledges that sex sells. Asked about the appearance of three LPGA golfers in their birthday suits in the Body Issue of ESPN The Magazine in October 2009, LPGA chief communications officer David Higdon said, “We support them.”

The Denver Post noted in July 2011 that some of the most popular LPGA golfers were far down the money list, and said that Natalie Gulbis (42^nd) and Beatriz Recari (34^th) were popular due to their sex appeal and effective self-promotion. Perkin Lee, a 34-year-old fan, told The Post, “... sexiness in women's golf has definitely drawn a lot more attention these days—it's kind of why I'm here.”

Clinical Psychologist Edward A. Dreyfus, Ph.D., notes on his website the similarity between golf and sex when it comes to performance issues. Comparing the sex act to golf, he says, “Just as in golf, if the golfer is more concerned with the score than with the process of engaging the ball and the motion of his body, the odds are that he will experience a poor shot.”

Let's hope the patients discussed in ScienceDaily are concentrating, because the next shot could be the last.

Swearing: I Dropped the F Bomb: People drop the F bomb like there's no tomorrow. It wasn't always this way. We examine a report that details the hourly frequency of various dirty words on prime-time TV, and close with clips of some famous drops of the F bomb.