"Golf has become so manicured, so perfect. The greens, the fairways. I don't like golf carts. I like walking. Some clubs won't let you in unless you have a caddy and a cart"
About this Quote
Redford is using golf as a stand-in for a broader American creep: the way leisure gets polished into a luxury product until the human scale disappears. “So manicured, so perfect” isn’t just about grass; it’s a complaint about environments engineered to look effortless while quietly demanding money, compliance, and a certain kind of performance. The repetition lands like an exhale of frustration, the tone of someone watching something ordinary get gated and branded.
His irritation with carts is a small, strategic detail. Walking is older, slower, and bodily; it makes the game a conversation with weather, terrain, and fatigue. Carts turn the round into a conveyor belt, reducing the course to checkpoints. In Redford’s mouth, “I like walking” reads as more than preference: it’s an ethic. The body should be involved; time should be spent, not saved.
The sharpest turn is institutional: “Some clubs won’t let you in unless you have a caddy and a cart.” Now the target isn’t tradition, it’s exclusion dressed up as policy. Requiring a caddy can be framed as preserving “the experience,” but it also enforces class signals and spend thresholds, keeping the place socially curated. Redford, long associated with outdoorsy authenticity and a suspicion of slick power (on-screen and off), is pushing back against a culture that confuses convenience with progress and confuses perfection with value. The subtext is that the game hasn’t merely changed; it’s been re-sorted, and the doors are closing behind it.
His irritation with carts is a small, strategic detail. Walking is older, slower, and bodily; it makes the game a conversation with weather, terrain, and fatigue. Carts turn the round into a conveyor belt, reducing the course to checkpoints. In Redford’s mouth, “I like walking” reads as more than preference: it’s an ethic. The body should be involved; time should be spent, not saved.
The sharpest turn is institutional: “Some clubs won’t let you in unless you have a caddy and a cart.” Now the target isn’t tradition, it’s exclusion dressed up as policy. Requiring a caddy can be framed as preserving “the experience,” but it also enforces class signals and spend thresholds, keeping the place socially curated. Redford, long associated with outdoorsy authenticity and a suspicion of slick power (on-screen and off), is pushing back against a culture that confuses convenience with progress and confuses perfection with value. The subtext is that the game hasn’t merely changed; it’s been re-sorted, and the doors are closing behind it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Sports |
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