A Matter of Instinct

Terry glasses for Dall sheep and moose high up on a mountaintop, a destination largely reached by instinct rather than practice.

- Terry Wieland

As one who believes every golf course is a sad waste of a good deer thicket, the news that golf is facing a bleak future brings no tears. According to news reports, country clubs are losing members, public courses are closing down, and sales of golf clubs are dropping. The public is losing interest in the professional golf tour and fewer would-be professionals are entering the ranks.

Now, if we were to substitute “hunting” for “golf,” those headlines could have appeared in any newspaper 40 years ago. Not today, of course. Hunting actually seems to be on the increase. Exactly what prompted this resurgence is uncertain. Television hunting shows probably had something to do with it, but the cause is not really important.

What is important is the fact that activities wax and wane in popularity. Some recover, some don’t. Trapshooting is an example. A century ago, it was the most popular shotgun game in town. By 1995, it appeared to be on the ropes, much like golf is now. Today, trapshooting has rebounded mightily, largely due to its popularity as a collegiate shooting sport.

Direct comparison between hunting and golf is unfair for a number of reasons. First, history. Hunting goes back 10,000 years and beyond, if we trust cave paintings as journalism, while golf as we know it dates back little more than a century. Second, hunting is an activity humans share with other species, from tigers to tabby cats; to the best of my knowledge, no other species plays golf, tennis or ping-pong. Finally, some people are born with an instinct to hunt, exactly as Gordon setters are born with an instinct to retrieve birds. There is no instinct involved in hitting a small ball with a weird stick.

I have heard people described as “born golfers,” but that’s hyperbole. A four-year-old boy will seize up anything resembling a gun and start shouting “