# Necessary destruction

*Do groundskeepers despise divots?*

By [Occasional Observations](https://paragraph.com/@oo) · 2025-05-01

---

Despite its reputation as a quiet, peaceful pastime, golf is a destructive sport.

Finely-manicured divots flying down the fairway. Corduroy sands scattered onto the greens. Bent clubs at the bottom of the lake. It all happens as part of the game.

As a groundskeeper, it can be easy to fall into the distraction that the quality of the course is my end-all. But the course is there for the game of golf. The purpose of a pristine tee box is not to remain as such, but to enable quality drives. Destruction is both the cost and the byproduct of playing golf well. 

A golf course is the setting, not the story; a prop, not a player.

---

*Originally published on [Occasional Observations](https://paragraph.com/@oo/necessary-destruction)*