"Golf, like measles, should be caught young"
About this Quote
Wodehouse lands the joke with the soft click of a well-struck putt: golf is being pitched as an illness, not a virtue. The line works because it steals the language of childhood contagion and applies it to a pastime long marketed as character-building. "Caught young" is a phrase parents use to justify piano lessons, table manners, churchgoing. Wodehouse swaps in measles, making the logic instantly ridiculous: if you're going to acquire something mildly miserable and socially inconvenient, better to get it over with early.
The intent is classic Wodehousean skewering of respectable leisure. Golf, in his world, is one of those rituals the upper classes treat as natural law - a badge of belonging that also consumes time, money, and dignity. Calling it measles hints at the ugly underside of that respectability: the petty obsessions, the sulks, the endless talk of handicaps, the way a round can swallow a whole day and still leave everyone faintly irritated. It's not a sport so much as a condition.
Subtextually, he's also teasing the idea of taste as destiny. People don't "choose" golf; they're inoculated into it by family, school, and club culture. If the infection happens early, it becomes normal - even beloved - before you have the adult self-possession to ask why you're paying to chase a ball into ponds. Context matters: Wodehouse wrote from inside Britain’s comfort-class ecosystems, where satire isn't revolution, it's a raised eyebrow at the rituals everyone pretends are profound.
The intent is classic Wodehousean skewering of respectable leisure. Golf, in his world, is one of those rituals the upper classes treat as natural law - a badge of belonging that also consumes time, money, and dignity. Calling it measles hints at the ugly underside of that respectability: the petty obsessions, the sulks, the endless talk of handicaps, the way a round can swallow a whole day and still leave everyone faintly irritated. It's not a sport so much as a condition.
Subtextually, he's also teasing the idea of taste as destiny. People don't "choose" golf; they're inoculated into it by family, school, and club culture. If the infection happens early, it becomes normal - even beloved - before you have the adult self-possession to ask why you're paying to chase a ball into ponds. Context matters: Wodehouse wrote from inside Britain’s comfort-class ecosystems, where satire isn't revolution, it's a raised eyebrow at the rituals everyone pretends are profound.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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