Many people outside of the golf world insist that golf is not a sport but just a game.
I think most people in this community would disagree! @CoryO wrote this article exploring the concept, and I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
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For anyone who debates this I would just throw out and say golf is in the Olympic Games which by definition would make it a sport.
I wonder how this question differs geographically / culturally. E.g. in UK I think golf is more “automatically” seen as a sport because there it’s a walking sport and there are not private clubs like in the US. I would argue the cart riding and private club factors is what gives golf the label it has in the US. Of course in years past it’s a fair comment that all tour pro’s didn’t exactly look like the poster children of fitness 
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I’d agree with all of that, especially how the perception of golf over here is impacted by wide use of riding carts.
For the look of tour pros, I think there have always been some super fit guys out there (like Gary Player), a few very unathletic-looking ones, but most just in the middle. Really similar to baseball in that regard. It’s not in the article, but I also think one of the biggest impacts on the perception of golf’s sportiness is the clothes. Polos and slacks don’t scream “I’m doing something athletic!” It’s only been in fairly recent years (pushed by Nike and Adidias’ takeover of the golf apparel market IMO) that there has been golf clothing designed like athletic wear.
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Breakdancing will be in the 2024 games in Paris 
. It definitely requires more athleticism than I have, but it’s not a sport.
But golf is definitely a sport.
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I’ll bite 
Why would break dancing not be a sport? By the same logic e.g. gymnastics would not either be a sport.
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I don’t think we’re talking about the dictionary definition of a sport, otherwise it wouldn’t be a topic of discussion in a forum. But in my subjective opinion, dancing is not a sport.
How about curling? If that’s a sport, then we should probably also include darts and cornhole. Definitely some gray areas and room for debate.
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I had to look up what Cornhole was. I didn’t know it was called that, ha ha. I think of golf as the greatest game everyone can play. And I sure train harder physically to play golf than I did for college baseball. I usually don’t care too much what non-golfers think anyway. Golfers are my people.
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its not a sport, it is war
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UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT The only people who even care about this are golfers. Great article, but nobody else even thinks this is a thing. . It’s like only short people know how tall they are to the 1/8 of an inch…
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Clear your search history! Don’t want to get busted at work for googling “cornhole”! I think they’ve tried to rebrand it as bags…
I think it’s pretty clear that golf is a sport… it rewards athleticism as evidenced by guys like tiger and Bryson… it just also rewards other skills.
On the other end of the spectrum, is weightlifting a sport? It’s mostly strength with some technique…
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Sure, there are grey areas which will be endless. Context will matter as well, if I go and dance in the street or throw a few darts I would not say I am practicing a sport. But let’s take the Olympic Curling Teams, they are most definitely a sport. Or break-dancers participating in comps, you have to design a routine, practice, and execute under pressure.
But I get your point. In the end as long as everyone is enjoying themselves who really cares.
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A: Hitting 1000’s of balls a week. walking 4 miles a day, using most muscles in your body, qualifies golf as a sport to me.
2: If I went home as a kid & told my Daddy I was playin’ cornhole … well let’s leave it there. 
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Baseball is a “game” also, but few deny it’s a sport. Now with the long hitters especially, less excuse to claim golf isn’t a sport!
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IF darts become an Olympic sport, I’ll definitely start training for it, LOL. Point taken, no pun intended.
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A bit of a tangent, but I’ll throw it out there… maybe an unpopular opinion, but I wasn’t crazy about golf being in the Olympics. Golf already has a big audience and its majors and big events. Leave the Olympics for track and field, bobsledding, etc. where this is there biggest event. I’m sure Justin Rose disagrees.
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This take I agree with. Part of the magic with the Olympics is that the athletes train for 4 years and get one shot at making it, that’s a lot of pressure and great stories of success and failure come out of it. Imagine being DQ’d for e.g. jump starting and there goes four years down the drain. Compelling drama.
Golf feels a little blaah, at least make it a team comp or some other format where maybe men and women compete on the same team. On that note, making it to the S-Korean women’s golf team is one of the hardest tickets in sports right now.
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My favourite sports growing up in Scotland were golf, snooker and darts. I rarely drink beers during golf but happily have a beer at snooker and darts - well it’s practically mandatory. No one is selling Fit for Darts programs 
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could be an opportunity to start “practical darts” website
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