Just like the title said, here’s a thread to share what originally got you into the game. I have a bit of a long story, so feel free to just skip to the bottom and add your own 
Up until I was 16, I never played golf outside of messing around at the driving range. I worked at a golf course because it was a fun after school job, but I had never played a true round. I’d been playing football, doing track, and was also in band, so I really didn’t have time to pick it up.
Last football game of the season my sophomore year I got a bad hip flexor injury which took me out of my regular sport routine. I decided I wasn’t going to play football anymore (and I only did track because the coach pretty much required it for the football team) and suddenly had a bunch of extra time and competitive energy, so I fell into golf hard. Started playing 5+ times a week at the course I worked at, building my own swing and by the next year I was consistently in the 70’s.
Starting university, I decided that since I loved golf so much, I should just make that my career and joined the PGM program, working towards PGA certification while completing a business degree. Spent a year in the program, passed my P.A.T.s (by the skin of my teeth) and then got a paid internship as an assistant pro at a very high end country club south of Denver. That summer made me hate golf. It wasn’t really golf’s fault, but some combination of being at a place everyday I really didn’t like (the country club was very much not my scene), a faulty swing causing injuries, and just having dumb 20 year old personal life issues just made it all untenable, so I put the clubs away.
I went through the next 3 years of university, plus a year in Japan golf free outside of occasionally going to a driving range and leaving halfway through the bucket. It wasn’t until a bit later that I found my passion for the game again, oddly enough in a dark basement room full of drunk Korean guys.
I’d moved to South Korea and was teaching English at a high school. Every once and a while I’d be pulled along on the weekly 회식(hweshik) - Korean business dinner, that the teaching staff would have. Dinner involved a lot of drinking, then always a second round somewhere with more drinking and things like karaoke. One night the second round was at Screen Golf, indoor golf simulator clubs super popular over there. In the spirit of things, I played with them and was absolutely cracking the ball (or at least that’s how it seemed to me and the other guys in our inebriated state). Screen golf became my new thing and over the next five+ years I lived there, I must have played well over a thousand rounds including qualifying for (and failing miserable in) professional Screen Golf tournaments. I played real golf a handful of times over there (golf in South Korea is a whole other post I should make), but the simulator was really my game. I can kinda sorta claim I’ve shot 65 from the tips at the Old Course, but it just has a big asterisk.
Young twins and a move back to the States meant no more screen golf and I spent a couple years in a phase where I decided I wasn’t going to keep score. Coming up on three years ago we moved to Southern California and slowly I started to get more serious now that the golf “season” is year round. COVID has really accelerated this and my game is definitely starting to show it as I’m finding time for multiple rounds per week. Hard to say what kind of golf is in store for me in the future, but at least I’m very confident the future will have a lot of golf involved.
If you read this far, thanks! So how about your golf story?
Late last summer, my sis invited me, I’d never played. I’m handicapped and have mobility problems, didn’t think I’d be able to do it. Now, a year later, would love to play much more, it’s improved my walking and it is a lovely mental and physical challenge! I’ve gotten clubs from “shopgoodwill.com” and am ever so slowly improving! Short season here, but so glad I took up the challenge! Will be looking for advice on affordable good clubs for senior women.
Great to hear that golf has helped you and stick with it!
Can’t keep me away, LOL!
The thing that got me into it was my PTSD from the Army. The first time I ever golfed I was so angry. I realized that’s not who I am. I also realized if I choose to be that way, nobody will want to hang out with me. I soon discovered that little things set me off quite often and I never realized it. So the more I played the more I had to learn to control my outburst. Eventually I learned how to be present and not think about the things that got me mad or uptight, otherwise my golf would take a significant hit. Ultimately, I got into meditation and yoga because of it, and I’ve learned how to manage my PTSD, which before golf was managing me.
My dad and stepbrother. My stepbrother was a high level junior golfer. Played and won all over the country and world. He got my dad into the game and my dad got me into the game. My dad is a small business owner and was always very busy, so golf was a way for us to spend time together. I’m so glad he got me into it because it’s been the great love affair of my life.
I started out I assume like most kids, hitting plastic balls off a janky old mat in the back yard. I had a pretty natural swing. Even at 11 years old just starting out I could hit the ball pretty far.
We got one of those setups where a fake ball has a rope through it knotted on one end and tied to some wood on the other. Like a tether ball, but for golf. I would spend hours in the back yard hitting that thing with the cut down pitching wedge I had.
I got my first set of real clubs for my 12th birthday. The Tommy Armour 845s that literally every golfer ever has played at some point - a guy in my league STILL plays them. I remember hugging my new golf bag and clubs and sleeping in bed with them until we got to go to the driving range for the first time.
I played my first real round of golf at 13. Green Valley Golf Course in Sioux City, IA. I shot 104 from the reds and never felt happier in my life. I was hooked. I never looked back and I’m so glad I made golf my primary athletic focus.
This game has taken me places I never could have imagined. A State championship. Collegiate play. A 72 from the tips at The Old Course on my 21st birthday. My first hole-in-one at La Cantera in San Antonio where they used to play the Texas Open - on the last trip we ever got to take my grandpa on before he passed. Endless rounds with my dad on unbelievable golf courses all around the world.
That’s been the real treasure for me. Sharing this game with my dad. Now that I’m a busy dad and live a couple hours away he and I don’t get together as much as we’d like, but when we do it’s everything I want. I’m so grateful for the opportunities he gave me growing up and as a result the opportunities the game of golf has given me.
I’m excited to pass the game onto my son. I hope he falls even further in love with it than I am.
Wow, what an amazing story. Thanks for sharing that! It’s a special game.
Awesome to see how golf has helped you through difficult times and grow. Thanks for sharing!
Of course. That’s a generalized summary of course. It’s also the reason I want to become a professional, a challenge to take something that had its grasp on me and turn it on its head. Have made myself a much better person and met so many neat people along the way. It’s unlike any other sport, most people want you to do well. It’s the only sport you’re not really playing against someone else, but yourself and the course.
Really cool that golf gave you that time with your dad and now on to with your son. On the 845s note, I never had a set. However, when I first decided to actually play at 16, I went into the random club rack we had in the back of the range house and put together a complete set of knock-off 845s 3-PW (I think they were probably a 15+ year old rental set). They let me just have them because no one else was ever going to use them and those were the clubs I taught myself to play with (at least until I had not one, not two, but THREE club heads completely break off the shafts).
The 845s find us all in some way eventually. They are infinite.
I got kicked out of home at 16 and went and lived in a hostel. There I met a guy called Jim who had moved in after a marriage breakup. I knew him as a window furnishing salesperson. We got on well and when he got back on his feet he moved out and I went with him. It turned out he was a former golf pro. He taught me to play and gave me countless lessons as well as giving me my first set of clubs.
What a story!! 
Pretty incredible
Thanks for sharing your story!
It was work for me. My dad tried to get me to play as a kid, but I thought golf was boring. Baseball was my best sport and I thought that was boring lol. I loved basketball because it’s fast and you’re always moving, but alas I maxed out at 5’ 10". The year I turned 30 I switched from a mainly Engineering role to one with Sales. If you wanted to hang out with co. pres and VP’s you needed to play in the 9-hole after work league. I actually got drafted by a director. He knew I played basketball and softball in co. leagues so assumed I played golf. He said “I need a partner to play in the league so you’re it”. I think I shot 64 for my 1st 9, but everyone was compassionate and I had fun. The pizza and beer afterwards were the best part for me and it did help my career mingling with the bosses. I can’t say I loved golf until about 5 years later though. I only played in league and scramble tourneys, but one season I took a new assignment with lots of travel and couldn’t play league. I didn’t think I would miss it, but did. I was able to play the next year and finally took some lessons and practiced a bit. Then I started building golf clubs (still an engineer lol) and I was completely hooked.
Almost 2 years ago while working in Augusta, GA, I went to the Masters twice (even met Tiger) and became more intrigued about the sport. I’ve been doing triathlons for about 15 years and had gotten burned out. I started asking my co-workers about playing, they told me no, to take lessons first. Took my first lesson…fell in love with the sport. A month later my uncle took me to play my first round in Myrtle Beach, had my first par and enjoyed everyday playing since.
Nicely done, crossing off an item on most golfers’ bucket list before you were even a golfer!
I know, I did not really appreciate it until the second one I attended.
Out of college I worked for an ultra-hi security defense contractor. A colleague urged me to attend the employees club annual golf outing, a chance to meet people in other ‘compartments’ I’d never get a chance to meet otherwise, good for my career. Having competed at a high level in miniature golf, how hard could it be? Bought a set at Oshmans outlet store, took a vacation day to arrive early (thought I was sly!) and set off. Little did I know everyone took the week and played many practice rounds. Plus, the venue was TPC Woodlands, site of Q-school then. I needed more golf balls. Amazingly, I didn’t finish last!
Turned out, I was invited into a regular weekend foursome by a guy I met at that function. It was in these rounds I learned a great lesson: my attitude and my approach were backwards. My attitude was dead-serious but my approach was haphazard at best. Once I flipped those, there was fewer swear words and club-throwing, plus some genuine improvement in my game. I actually wrote a program to keep my stats, climbed down into the practice bunker until I was no longer afraid, etc.
Fast forward, house, wife, new career (life expectancy is really short in the ‘spook’ world), loss of my Saturday foursome - put up the sticks.
Then in my mid-40s, I found those clubs and wondered the age-old question: wonder how good I could’ve been? A brand new set of Eye2s, I started playing again. Started competing in local club tourneys, meeting great people and eventually achieved my goal of winning enough to cover expenses.
Now on the downhill side of mid-60s, my goal is to improve at the same rate Father Time is taking away. And remember my attitude-approach lesson!
Sorry if my tale is a bit boring.
COVID lockdown got me into golf.
Nothing much is open except golf course.