By Emma Bowen

Golf is like the epitome of a sidekick. Golfers are always there, training and practicing just like every other sport in this school—yet they just never get as much credit. Sure golf may not involve running or weight lifting or tackling or throwing but they are still a sport, albeit a pretty easy one. What even makes golf hard?
I have never actually golfed in my life (unfortunately my parents didn’t hop on the Riverside bandwagon so as to make my summers more “spontaneous” and “down to earth” which in the end was at my expense since I now am one golf course short of ever trying golf); however, I have mini golfed. And despite the slightly smaller scale and infinitely more neon, the two sports, I’m assuming, are basically the same.
Mini golf is like the starter golf before you take off the training wheels and step out into the world of non-synthetic grass.

After buying my very first round of mini-golf ever, I maneuvered my way around the empty air hockey table and watched as my friend set his ball in the grass, swing his golf club like he was a lumberjack about to chop some wood, and hit the ball clear off the station we were on.
Feeling irritated that they were not taking golf this mini golf competition seriously, much like the people at Buffalo Wild Wings who get seated facing the golf TV and roll their eyes continuously as they eat their wings, I felt deep in my soul that I was going to win this. I knew that golf was just a mind game—and I was ready for my turn.
As I stepped onto the putting green, I set my ball down, looked through the little hole in the side of the windmill that I was supposed to send my ball through, and took a deep breath. I aligned my club with the ball, wound up like a more graceful lumberjack, and swung with just the right force that the ball ideally would roll right into the hole.
Now this would have been the case, except I missed the ball completely: all I hit was air. Frustrated, I swung four more times until the ball went through the damn windmill and flew off of the station into the abyss of neon. Believing that was some beginners curse, I brushed it off and moved onto the next hole.
Much to my surprise, I missed every single hole on that putting course. My friends at this point were three stations ahead of me and making fun of me. By the end of my mini golf experience, I had abandoned my club all together and was kicking the golf ball into the hole with my shoe.
Although golf appears to be easy, a preppy sport that middle aged men play after they get done with a day of work, golf is surprisingly challenging. They’re like the public defenders of sports, they are forever working hard, never getting enough credit for what they do yet literally everything that goes into their activity is super difficult and in need of a type of patience that normal people just don’t possess.
So my non-athletic opinion on golf: it’s way harder than it looks. Like way harder.