N Now, then, we golfers too. We declare ourselves to be machines. Or rather we are told which ones to be. The Golf Magazine, a trade publication from Oberhaching, is leading the way: Now, as the courses lie in winter sleep, when mud and wind prevent the game, we need the box stop for body and mind. Because: This season offers ideal conditions to address physical issues, analyze performance reserves and invest in our own playing ability for the long term.
There are clinics with “high-end diagnostics” and “concrete options for training, daily life and longevity.” Off we go to the medical box stop. Have tires and oil changed, repair paint damage. Bring on the TÜV plate for the new season. Not that we end up early on a junkyard and hope for the celestial realms, where there might not even be golf courses.
The terms fit those of footballers who have long since become automotives, as we reporters keep telling again and again. The players would need to “put more gas on,” and “watch opponents in the rearview mirror,” then “finally release the handbrake,” then “shift up a gear.” Car talk, as if the athletes housed a combustion engine inside. “Now he must move up to the overtaking lane.” Whoever falters should “recharge energy.” And then please “engage the turbo.” All of this has been heard a thousand times. And we have even described ourselves as self-movers: “Where are you standing?” someone asks the driver as a greeting. Answer: “I’m over there.”
Now, then, golf. Just play, for fun and pleasure? No, the Golf Magazine recommends the compact health check, from medical retreats to new insights from muscle, back, and brain research. A full-body inspection, then. To strengthen is, for example, the autonomic nervous system, “our body’s own gas pedal.” The inner automobile should be approached strategically like a business: “Who invests wisely now, starts the new season more sustainably.”
Greenwashing Can’t Get Much Worse
“Sustainable,” here even elevated to sustainable, is particularly important: sustainable as the magic word of our time, with which one can sell anything. Greenwashing can’t get much worse. In the past, cleaning agents were supposed to not only clean a product but wash it clean. Today, “sustainable” washes everything in a sustainable way like nothing.
The golf magazine promotes individual private hospitals as box stops, as if they were advertisements. The Buff Medical Resort in Konstanz, a test editor notes, offers “time out in a new dimension,” for example “spiroergometry with VO₂max measurement – a gold standard of performance diagnostics, which I had previously known only from professional sports.” Whether the drive then comes more precisely? More important: The muscle imbalance profile could “provide early indications of degenerative diseases such as dementia.”
Yes, golfers get dementia less often and later, that much is known. Hurrah! But whether this is really due to golf itself or to other factors such as social life or diet is not known. Also advertised is the Day Clinic Years Medical Center in Berlin, located on the Ku’damm, which, as a startup (another important buzzword), offers a “check-up with depth.” The tester also noted that “all examinations are consistently based on current scientific findings and studies,” all of it “state of the art.”
Can one also expect to be priced for the box stop. “The extensive Ultimate Package” runs to roughly “16,000 euros.” Is it covered by statutory health insurance? Unfortunately not even for private insured; only on request could parts be subsidized, it says. It sounds very tempting. I will nevertheless refrain, because I lack private medical insurance that might also reject a homeopathic portion. And the Ku’damm is also dreary. Perhaps the next putt goes in just as easily.
