Maybe all I need is an aspirin....
"State energy and environmental affairs secretary Matthew Beaton said Friday that Ponkapoag Golf Course, owned by the state and located within the Blue Hills State Reservation, is the country’s first public course, and “has played a historic role in expanding recreational opportunities for all citizens of the Commonwealth.” Ponkapoag was designed by golf course designer Donald Ross in the 1920s and 1930s. It opened to the public in 1936. While reconstructing the course, golf course architects sought to follow Ross’s original designs as closely as possible."
Sorry to cut the round short. Maybe you could even go hunting while you are there (just watch out for bears).
While in the woods, ever notice there is never any discussion regarding golf's racist and anti-Semitic past here in AmeriKa?
"China’s leader institutes ban, kicks golf to the curb" by Simon Denyer Washington Post October 23, 2015
WASHINGTON — China’s president is well known to be a keen soccer fan. It appears he does not feel the same about golf.
On Thursday, China announced that hitting the links was officially a banned activity for all 88 million members of the Communist Party.
It was joined by excessive eating and drinking and having ‘‘improper sexual relations with others’’ on an eight-article moral and ethical code issued by the Politburo of China’s Communist Party Central Committee, the nation’s 25 top leaders, meant to promote clean governance.
The code forms part of President Xi Jinping’s efforts to rebuild the party’s public image by eliminating corruption and extravagance. Golf falls short on several counts. It’s a symbol of Western extravagance in a country where Xi is determined to eliminate Western values.
Right, that is why they are helping Britain build a nuclear power plant, allowing Fidelity to expand, bulli$h on Bo$ton and are driving some hot wheels (at least you now know who is snapping up cars at a solid pace).
It's this kind of slop that is making me feel bad.
Golf courses are also seen as venues for officials to strike corrupt deals with rich business people.
Ah, the Good Life....
Related: Corruption is Good For An Economy
That about $ums it up, doesn't it?
The Communist Party has long had a difficult relationship with the sport. Mao Zedong expressly banned it, believing it to be frivolous and bourgeois. As Dan Washburn notes in ‘‘The Forbidden Game,’’ golf courses were dug up and Shanghai’s premier club was turned into a zoo.
But it made a comeback after Mao died, and getting rich became expressly encouraged by Deng Xiaoping.
The first course was opened in 1984, designed by Arnold Palmer, and the sport took off. But 20 years later, the government banned construction of new courses.
The number of courses is said to have tripled in the five years following the ban, and now there may be anywhere between 600 and 1,000. Nobody seems to really know, because many hide under deliberately misleading names.
In 2009, the Guang Ming Daily, a state-run newspaper, called the game ‘‘green opium’’ and warned that officials were too addicted to playing golf to fulfill their duties.
But it is only since Xi came to power that the wind has changed more definitively.
In March, the government announced it had closed 66 illegally built courses. State-run media complained courses not only occupied illegal land, but also used massive amounts of water and caused environmental damage though broad use of pesticides.
Around the same time, the anticorruption agency in the southern city of Guangzhou said it was targeting officials who played the game.
In June, the People’s Daily published an opinion piece calling golf ‘‘a kind of elegant bribery.’’ It went on to suggest some other, more acceptable, ways for rich people to do business and make friends, such as equestrianism, with its reputation for ‘‘British style and lordliness,’’ as well as luxury cruises and private wine-tasting parties.
As part of the anticorruption drive, the Communist Party has also sought to curb official banquets, and the latest rules expressly forbid excessive eating and drinking. A previous ban on ‘‘keeping paramours and commiting adultery,’’ has been made stricter to outlaw all ‘‘improper sexual relations,’’ state news agency Xinhua reported.
Party officials commonly have a mistress or multiple mistresses, showering them with luxury gifts and renting them plush apartments, all financed by the spoils of corruption.
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Sorry I skipped the back nine, but I have a football game to attend.
