I CAN SEE A CONNECTION BETWEEN GOLFING AND FLY FISHING - Readers Cast - Feb 27, 2012

I CAN SEE A CONNECTION BETWEEN GOLFING AND FLY FISHING

Yes, I can see a connection! The connection is not in the equipment being used, but, in the personalities that I have observed in both sports.

Many years ago, over 30 years in fact, I used to be employed at a large resort on a lake in the state of Ohio. The resort had 104 rooms with a view of the lake from all rooms, an indoor 55,000 gallon pool, an outdoor 50,000 gallon pool, a sauna, a whirlpool, a ski lodge with snow making equipment, a lighted 9-hole golf course which allowed you to golf until 11pm, a professional 18-hole golf course and 13 fully furnished cottages that would sleep 10. Needless to say, I worked in maintenance and was kept pretty busy keeping all the equipment up and running.

Good article. It points out a lot of reasons why I don’t golf anymore though in seeking similarities between the sports it misses a few things. First at busy urban golf courses, golfers must golf in groups. If you arrive alone, the starter will put you in a group of strangers. Then there is only one best way to play a hole, down the middle, fast, taking the fewest strokes. You can’t dawdle along the left rough trying different clubs and switching balls. In a 300 yard stretch of a river you can catch many fish; on a 300 yard hole, you hole out once. The same rod can be used by either a left handed or right handed caster. In golf clubs with high numbers are finesse clubs for shorter distances; in fly fishing rods with high numbers are heavy duty long distance tools. Weekend greens fees start at $50 some places. Usually we do not have water fees. And so it goes as the sports diverge. Fortunately, in one thing, fly fishing has drawn closer to golf in the last 50 years. The best golfers put there divots back; the best fishermen put their fish back.

I played golf once. Never again.

An interesting and pretty much on target point of view. I have said for years the best thing about golfers is they don’t get in your way when you are fishing. Unless you are fishing a water hazard, then you may be in their way.

With golf you play the same courses with the same clubs and sometimes you score well and sometimes poorly depending upon how YOU play. With fishing some time you catch fish, sometimes only a few or none, depending upon if the fish are biting, it’s not your fault. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Being and avid golfer and flyfisherman (I know it is hard to balance the two) I can see exactly what the article is talking about.

I fly fish becasue I can cast straighter than I hit a golf ball.
That may not be saying much.

Rick