MovieChat Forums > The Best Years of Our Lives (1947) Discussion > The Triple Evils of Golf in Best Years

The Triple Evils of Golf in Best Years

posted 8 years ago by cultfilmfreaksdotcom
4 replies | jump to latest

Golf has always represented greed and selfishness despite the fact, almost every single Hollywood director, producer, and actor plays it whenever chance they get, as does our Prez Obama and others who would seem above such a "shallow" sport...

In this movie, there are three times where golf represents, basically, an idyllic sense of evil:

First, in the very first scene, the rich guy with the golf bag, which he has no problem paying for as excessive baggage, gets easily onto a plane wherein Dana has to wait...

Then, as the bomber is flying over their hometown, they notice that golfers are playing "as if nothing had happened."

And lastly, Teresa Wright's shallow, great looking date's father played golf with Fred March, but since the war, March had "no time" to hit the sticks.

Anyhow, I just realized all the Golf Evils after watching this movie 1000000 times, and then some.

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[–] dlynch843 8 years ago

I remember in the 80s and 90s, the evil sport was squash. 'Yuppies' would come to work with a gym bag with a squash racket protruding out of it. It represented Evil.

[–] wrfarley 8 years ago

Interesting post. I always got the feeling that the club Woody Merrill and his father played at was an "exclusive" one.

[–] bhoover247 7 years ago

This was an interesting post. Golf was always an exclusive sport that was interested in only upper middle class and upper class people playing. Consequently, that was mostly the group that watched it on TV. Along comes Tiger Woods. Suddenly all different races and socio economic groups become interested in golf. Now with the decline of Tiger and no interesting replacement on the professional scene, golf is slowing returning to what it once was. A kind of boring game for the privileged that has little interest from the common man.

[–] turtletommy 7 years ago

Yes of course Tiger had a huge impact but before Woods there was Palmer, Nicklaus and Player.

"Palmer's social impact on behalf of golf was perhaps unrivaled among fellow professionals; his humble background and plain-spoken popularity helped change the perception of golf as an elite, upper-class pastime to a more populist sport accessible to middle and working classes. Palmer was part of "The Big Three" in golf during the 1960s, along with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, who are widely credited with popularizing and commercializing the sport around the world."- Rick Reilly, Sports Illustrated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Palmer";