Golf is a terrible crime
PERSPECTIVE
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By Pekka Aaltonen
Golf has been causing trouble and nuisance for 547 years on this planet of ours. And there seems to be no end to it.
In 1457, King James II of Scotland was obliged to ban the sport in his realm, as going on the links was distracting young men from the more important pursuit of archery practice.
In 2005, certain sections of the Finnish public, with the favourable assistance of the media, condemned the playing of golf by Sinikka Mönkäre, the country's Minister of Social Affairs and Health.
In the years in between, there have been countless shocking and awful things associated with this so-called sport. Many of the more recent incidents have been connected with the building of new golf courses. Some of the heaviest criticism was reserved for plans to convert an old municipal garbage dump and landfill site in the Espoo suburb of Mankkaa into a golf course, of all things.
When the owners of the 9-hole public course in Paloheinä sought to expand the land they rent from the City of Helsinki, they ran up against one very basic problem. The field they wished to expand onto is a valuable piece of cultural landscape, which would be destroyed by the presence of a golf course.
Even if the land would have no useful value as such for the local residents, the key issue seems to be that it should not do the golfers any favours, either. Not even if they were to pay for it themselves, without troubling the taxpayers for a cent.
There is clearly some feature about golf and golfers that pushes many people's buttons with a vengeance.
One can understand that in the initial phase of great enthusiasm for the sport, many of those who were unfortunate enough to be golf widows or to share an office with a new devotee would get totally fed up with the way golfers go on and on about clubs, shots, miracle recoveries, and so on. But the worst excesses of that time have passed.
Sure, golf is an expensive hobby, in just the same way that figure-skating, ice hockey, tennis, or downhill skiing, etc., are all expensive. And yet it is only in the case of golf that people comment what an elitist sport of the ruling classes it is.
It seems for some bizarre reason that the old-fashioned hatred of the nobs and toffs and the ruling class is associated powerfully with golf and the playing of it.
The public's judgement seems quite immoderate in the case of Sinikka Mönkäre, who was hitting the small white ball in Thailand. The late-edition tabloids in particular really went to town, rolling their eyes at the horror of it all.
And what was Mönkäre's crime? The fact that the minister went on holiday while the country was in mourning? The fact that the minister travelled to Thailand? Or was it the fact that she went to play GOLF?
The minister was not specifically required back at home in the handling of the Asian tsunami catastrophe. For Thailand and for other countries in the crisis area, the rapid recovery of the tourist industry is of huge economic importance.
Strictly by the book, Mönkäre did the right thing. Any error of style or judgement took place on the gut level; the crisis still lives fresh and powerfully in Finnish minds.
One is put in mind of a protocol lesson taught by a former aide to many Presidents of Finland: "It is not thought fitting to talk about rope in the household of a hanged man".
In order to assuage those sections of the public who had been roused to anger by the tabloids, at the last minute Mönkäre's trip acquired a meeting with a local minister, her Thai opposite number. He would almost certainly have had better things to do.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen left on Sunday for the crisis area, in the company of his Nordic colleagues. The visit will involve considerable security and other arrangements.
The sport of hunting for political points seems worse than that of playing golf.
Helsingin Sanomat, first published in print 16.1.2005
PEKKA AALTONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
pekka.aaltonen@hs.fi
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| 18.1.2005 - THIS WEEK |
 Golf is a terrible crime |
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