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Golfing isn't a sport, it is a networking event. You and three other people get to spend four hours together while having a bit of fun and experiencing some emotional ups and downs.
Sailing is largely about being a bunch of guys on a yacht and having fun together.
I was recently invited to a sporting event to which a friend has season tickets to the lounge. My friend doesn't even like sports, he just wants to be in a lounge with people who spend two months average salary to be in a lounge.
That's really overstating it. I play golf by myself because I just like golfing. Tons of people take golf seriously for its own sake.
It’s not a bad game, but it’s mostly a network thing for business people that caught on with aspirational people because rich business people play it. The reason the rich like it is because the high cost of entry (equipment, greens fees, cart rentals) tend to keep plebs away. And because it takes several hours to play a game, you can use it to do business deals in private without having to worry too much about people you don’t want in on those deals finding out about it.
Is this a troll? Golf is one of the most affordable and accessible hobbies you can have, and it's accordingly one of the most popular. Golf clubs are cheap and plentiful on the used market, and public courses aren't expensive. My local courses are like ten bucks to walk 9 on a weekday. And it's still fun even if you aren't any good. If you want an elitist sport there's skiing, which requires more expensive equipment, higher fees for access (and depending on where you live may involve significant travel expenses), and requires a degree of skill to avoid injury. It's hard to convince someone who doesn't ski that they should spend several hundred dollars on a day of falling in the hope that they'll spend several thousand dollars to get to the point where they can make it down a moderately steep slope. Or mountain biking, which is "free" most places but involves eye watering upfront costs.
This is very country-dependent. In the UK, Ireland, and certain Commonwealth countries golf is very affordable, bordering on cheap. In the US it is generally affordable, somewhat less so in the south. But in mainland Europe and Asia golf is a sport for the elite.
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Yeah but Golf in like a corporate/social content is likely to be towards the fucking around end of the spectrum.
Also something I've come to appreciate about Golf and Bouldering lately is that they function well in a social sport context for being remarkably self-handicapping. A group of 4 people can all go casually and have a reasonably stimulating experience.
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