The CSGA Links Volume 3 Issue 5 August 2015 | Page 4

FIRST SHOT Message from the CSGA Executive Director - Mike Moraghan Truths and Myths A college buddy of mine, Mike Norcio recently told me his shoulders got so bad he had to stop playing basketball. “I played really hard for more than 40 years. Leagues, pick up games, you name it,” said Mike. “It got to the point where I could barely lift my arms.” Norcio played like Steve Nash before anyone had heard of Steve Nash. A little guy who had a shot and wasn’t afraid to drive the lane. For that he won a lot of games, and also took a serious pounding. I told Mike he should have been a golfer. He’d still be playing. That’s one of the great things about golf. If you can swing a club and make contact with the ball you can play the game at any age. I played 9 holes at Pequabuck last week with an 83 year-old named Bill. The man was trim, fit and looked like he had plenty left in the tank. I had the privilege of sitting with former CSGA Executive Director, Del Kinney, Jr. and current CSGA President Stan McFarland at the New England Amateur this week. Del and Stan were trading stories about times when they’ve “shot their age,” something I believe is one of the greatest accomplishments any golfer can ever achieve. It was fun to hear these two seventysomething gentlemen talk about being nervous coming down the stretch knowing what they “needed” for that rare feat. Even non-golfers who see and hear about old folks and children playing the game grasp the universal truth that “golf is a game you can play your whole life.” Sadly, that may be the only thing non-golfers fully understand about the game. 4 | CSGA Links // August, 2015 Ask people that don’t play golf to name the most popular international sports and you’ll hear about soccer, maybe basketball. Golf is off their radar. You’ll have to inform them that golf is played by millions of people on every continent in the world (with the obvious exception of Antarctica). They probably won’t know that one of the world’s oldest and most important championships, recently played in Scotland, came down to a playoff between an American, an Australian and a South African. No doubt millions of people around the world were less than productive at work last Monday while they followed the action at St. Andrews. I’ll admit to getting pretty annoyed when I hear someone say golf courses are bad for the environment, or golfers aren’t really athletes, or worst of all, golf is a rich, white man’s game. Ignorance rears its ugly head and short of dragging the nincompoop out to the nearest golf course to show him the error in his thinking, what can you do but cite facts and statistics? FACT: Research from multiple university studies has shown that water leaving a golf course is cleaner than water entering a golf course; primarily because the root systems of healthy turf grass prevent erosion and runoff, and act as a highly efficient filter when water moves through soil. FACT: Many of the world’s best athletes are mediocre or poor golfers. Many of the world’s best golfers excelled in other sports before turning their full attention to golf. Right here in Connecticut we have hundreds of examples of outstanding golferathletes such as Evan Grenus (soccer), K.J. Camera (ice hockey) and Ivan Lendl (tennis). www.csgalinks.org