Long before weekend foursomes, golf was something closer to a solitary act \u2014 an improvised diversion for shepherds and other loners who had the time, space, and inclination to swing a crooked stick at a rock or piece of hardened dung. I sometimes think about these innovative Scots when I\u2019m on a course alone, playing a version of golf that in many ways has changed my relationship to the game, and myself.<\/p>\n
Get The Gavel<\/p>\n
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.<\/p>\n
To be clear, I didn\u2019t set out to champion playing as a \u201conesome.\u201d I came to the idea reluctantly, on a business trip years ago, when a pro shop attendant at a just-opened course told me, in the tone of someone offering both a favor and a warning, that if I wanted to play right away I\u2019d have to go out on my own. I hesitated. Golf, after all, is not designed for solitude. Who would help me find my ball? Who would bear witness if I made the shot of my life?<\/p>\n
What I discovered was something I can only describe as a kind of sporting clarity \u2014 a version of golf stripped down to its essential elements.<\/p>\n
When you play alone, the first thing you notice is the quiet. Not just the absence of conversation but the absence of obligation. There\u2019s no one to entertain, no one to impress, no one to keep pace with. The game slows down, not necessarily in time but in texture. You begin to hear things: the clean strike of a well-hit iron, the hollow punctuation of a ball dropping into the cup, the low rustle of wind moving through trees. The sounds of golf, usually background noise, become the experience itself.<\/p>\n
Then there is the focus. One of the enduring truths of golf is that most players spend as much time thinking about past and future shots as they do the one in front of them. Alone, that chatter recedes. Without the subtle pressure of being watched \u2014 or the distraction of watching others \u2014 you are left with a simpler task: Hit this shot, now. Not the one you just chunked. Not the one you hope to hit on the next hole. Just this one.<\/p>\n
It is, for reasons both obvious and elusive, easier.<\/p>\n
There is also a freedom that borders on the mischievous. When no one is around, the game becomes yours in a different way. You can experiment without embarrassment: try a risky shot, replay a bad one, or invent entirely new ways to play a hole. You might drop an extra ball to test a different approach or decide on a whim to play a hole with a single club. The course becomes less a test and more a laboratory.<\/p>\n
And occasionally, if you let it, it becomes a stage. Any basketball player who has ever hit imaginary game-winning shots in a driveway knows the instinct. Alone on a fairway, that instinct returns. A routine par-4 becomes the final hole of a major championship. The crowd is silent \u2014 except, of course, for the birds \u2014 and you are left to narrate your own improbable triumph.<\/p>\n
All of this may sound to the uninitiated like a form of golfing indulgence. In practice, it is something closer to recalibration. In a world that is rarely quiet and almost never undemanding, a few hours spent alone on a golf course can feel like a small act of recovery.<\/p>\n
Which raises a practical question: If solo golf is so appealing, why don\u2019t more people do it?<\/p>\n
The short answer is that it\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n
Golf courses, for entirely understandable reasons, are optimized for groups. A single player is, from a revenue standpoint, inefficient and, from a pace-of-play standpoint, potentially disruptive. Most courses build their schedules around twosomes, threesomes, and foursomes, and they are reluctant to send someone out alone unless conditions make it unavoidable.<\/p>\n
Which means that solo golf often requires a bit of opportunism \u2014 and, occasionally, a willingness to accept less-than-ideal conditions.<\/p>\n
The most reliable windows are the margins: early mornings, late afternoons, days when the weather is questionable enough to keep others away but not so bad as to make playing unpleasant. A light mist, a cool breeze, even the threat of rain can be enough to create the conditions for a onesome. And, of course, there\u2019s also the human element. Pro shops, like most institutions, respond to relationships. If you are a familiar face \u2014 polite, flexible, willing to wait or adjust \u2014 you increase your chances of being sent out alone when a gap appears. Solo golf, in other words, is not just about timing; it\u2019s about attitude.<\/p>\n
Solo golf is not a replacement for playing with others. It doesn\u2019t replicate the camaraderie, the shared frustration, the small rituals that make group golf enduringly enjoyable. But it does provide something that the standard round cannot: a version of the game that is entirely your own.<\/p>\n
One player. One set of clubs. One uninterrupted conversation between you and the task at hand.<\/p>\n
Which, it turns out, may be how golf was meant to be played all along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long before weekend foursomes, golf was something closer to a solitary act \u2014 an improvised diversion for shepherds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-644679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}