An article was recently brought to my attention by a friend who golfs, but does not fly fish. The opening sentence mentions sheep dung and fly fishing, so it was with great curiosity and intrigue that I kept reading.
While shepherds were whacking bits of dried sheep dung around the spongy coastline of eastern Scotland in golf’s formative days, in the late 15th century, sportsmen and women to the south, in England, were tinkering with the use of artificial baits in what would come to be known as fly-fishing.
Read the full New York Times story HERE.
OK, so it’s another article drawing similarities between g#lf (a four-letter word) and fly fishing (either a 3-letter word and a 7-letter word, a hyphenated combination of the two words, or sometimes even one, 10-letter word). We’ve all heard mention of certain similarities before, and I’ll admit there is some truth to be found in the article:
The two sports share more than their ancestry. Both tend to appeal to those with contemplative, even analytic, temperaments. Both can arouse a powerful, even obsessive, fascination among the faithful, as well as a never-ending accumulation of gear.
Never-ending accumulation of gear. Check. Contemplative, even analytic temperaments? Not so much, at least in my case. I’m much more of a dreamer than a rational thinker. I don’t often write anything that would ever be taken too seriously, certainly not by the likes of the editors of the NY Times.
Or, perhaps I’m underestimating myself.
Maybe I should submit my take on the similarities between golf and fly fishing, posted here a couple of years ago. You be the judge: do you like my article, titled Fly fishing and golf: Kindred spirits, or do you prefer the article in the NY Times, titled For Golfers, a Change of Scenery, and of Pace?
Regardless, the author of the Times article, Chris Santella, undoubtedly earned a better fee for his work.
Fore!
Used to Golf. Got to expensive, so I took up Fly Fishing!
HA!
Apparently mistakenly credited to Mark Twain but supposedly first written by H. S. Scrivener in a book about lawn tennis (though perhaps later paraphrased by Twain), “… my good friends the Allens … one of the best of their many excellent dicta is that ‘to play golf is to spoil an otherwise enjoyable walk.’ ” As for fly fishing, it’s my biased belief is that the walk (away from areas accesses by less inclined fly fisherman) can enhance the outcome.
Amen, brother. Amen.
Nicely done Kirk. I prefer your blog comparison to the NY Times by a wide margin.
By the way…I don’t fish with PINK flies. I prefer BUBBLEGUM. It’s more manly than pink.
-Ed
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ed. And I agree—bubblegum IS more manly than pink. What do you think of mauve?
Mauve? Is that a color? I thought that it was a TV show in the 70’s
-ed
It’s a good thing I know the show you’re referring to 😉
They might be peas and carrots, but not like Forrest and Jenny. We can’t even be friends, please allow a demonstration…
Jim: Howdy Frank, I’ll be doing some fly fishing this weekend. What are you up to?
Frank: Golfing.
Jim: Oh.
Simple, effective. I like it rather much.