Gay guys golfing
Lynch: Gay men are nearly invisible in golf, but we’re not non-existent
The familiar rap against golf is that expressions of diversity in our game are limited to wearing unconventional shades of khaki, that it’s a buttoned-up, hidebound world that stubbornly remains the preserve of white, male, affluent, conservative, Christian, heterosexual, country club Republicans with woeful fashion sense.
Admittedly, you can throw a pebble on the PGA Tour and hit someone who ticks all of those boxes — and you wouldn’t have to aim carefully — but like all stereotypes it fails to fully reflect a more nuanced existence. A visit to most golf facilities will reveal people separated by race, gender and umpteen other differences but united by a passion for the game. Golf also has diversity not so readily clear to the naked eye.
During Pride Month, it seems as though every business and industry in the land is displaying rainbow colors, marketing that one suspects is often motivated as much by sales as solidarity. The endeavor to signal a more welcoming environment is increasingly, if slowly, evid
Justin Thomas and Separating the Art from the Artist
When Rory McIlroy’s roller-coaster weekend began sputtering to a halt on Sunday afternoon, I found myself in need of a rooting interest for the last stretch of the PGA Championship. Mito Pereira was hanging tough at the top of the leaderboard, but I didn’t sense comfortable pulling for someone who’d arrived at this moment a few years ahead of schedule. The same was true for Cameron Young, a celestial body on the rise who might be ready to take his next Sunday back nine by the throat. Matt Fitzpatrick was holding his day together with hot glue and safety pins. I couldn’t watch another short-range putt from Will Zalatoris without peeking through my fingers like I might at a horror movie.
I start myself drawn to the guy lurking further down the board with championship pedigree, the one who survived the brutal late-early wave draw earlier in the week by carving shots around Southern Hills like a sculptor. That meant cheering for Justin Thomas, the eventual champion and the one guy in the field with whom I have a complicated history. I’m a g
Not that is should matter one jot, but the fact that there is presently just one openly gay male professional tournament golfer out of 1,plus men plying their particular sporting trade around the world, whilst evidence-based statistics would suggest that very many more homosexual men are remaining in the clubhouse closet.
And while, in the women’s professional game, there are enough openly lesbian players as to no longer be worthy of mention, why, as we enter , execute gay male golfers sense unable to come out and be who, and what, they truly are?
According to Dr. Alfred Kinsey&#;s ‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,’ first published in and his follow-up five-years-later, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female,’ a staggering 37% of post-adolescent men and 13% of women in the USA had indulged in lgbtq+ activity.
More recent explore, in particular, David Spiegelhalter, in his book ‘Sex By Numbers,’ concluded that Kinsey’s numerical predictions were on the high side; the author concluded that, across the sexes, some 10% of the mature person population is, ‘Predominately gay,’ th
Coming out as gay was an impulsive decision and not uncomplicated for someone raised in a small town in Nebraska who went to a Catholic school.
It was August and I first told three of my closest friends, and then I ended up telling my coach and the rest of the men’s golf team at the University of Missouri-St. Louis the next day.
I knew coming out to the team wouldn’t be too bad. I never really got any bad reactions from anyone; everyone was super supportive of me and I adv learned who I could confide in.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
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I read them the letter that I had prepared for them. There was a great deal of sentiment, and it is hard to even explain what it felt like to get everything off my chest. But it definitely was very emotional, and I was thrilled with their reaction.
They hugged me, cried with me and told me they want me to live a happy and healthy life. This was the only response that I wanted, so it was a huge relief to