A competitive table tennis game. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A debate rages on where to draw the line between what is technically a sport and what is a hobby. The following list is ranked from most athletic at #10 to the least athletic at #1.
10. Golf – time to settle this debate – athletes get good-looking women and have you seen what Tiger’s ex Elin Nordegren looked like? How about Amy Mickelson?
9. NASCAR – this can certainly be classified as easier than it looks. These guys are essentially driving a bomb at 200 miles per hour about three inches from some other hillbilly driving a bomb, no wonder they sweat more than an NBA player.
8. Bowling – bowlers hurl a 15-20 pound ball like a hundred times a match. Kudos to The Big Lebowski for bringing a new generation to the sport, seriously they should put the movie in the Bowling Hall of Fame.
7. Table Tennis – hate to go with two movie references in a row, but Forest Gump showed me that you can fight communism by smacking a tiny white ball. Ping pong has been driven away from bars by beer pong, so now nobody cares enough to argue its merits.
6. Croquet – a rich, old guy sport probably isn’t that well known, it’s an enjoyable pursuit if your country club has a regulation croquet diamond.
5. Shooting – this is where we get really close to the sport vs. not-a-sport line. You do not need a tremendous amount of physical strength to pull a trigger, but you need to aim at something far away, so that’s tough, right? Whatever, they have their own show on the History Channel.
4. Bocce Ball –imagine you live in a world where croquet is too hard to organize and play, imagine a sport where striking a ball is deemed too strenuous, imagine a world where you can smoke a cigar, drink a Bellini and still compete in this sport. You don’t have to imagine anymore that sport is bocce ball and that world is Italy.
3. Darts Billiards – I am going to group these two together for the sole reason that they are bar games. At some level, there are probably darts and billiards competitions, but these games are almost custom made for dive bars and drunk people.
2. Funny Car Driving (drag racing) – I feel like mastering the start of MarioKart 64 is tougher than pounding the gas pedal and shifting gears a couple of times.
1. Curling – curling is a sport where you gently slide a large stone on a piece of ice while your teammates happily brush ice particles at it or away from the path or something like that. Look, I am sure it took a lot of loop holes and bribes to make this into another event where Americans run up the medal count, but don’t try to convince me that curling club from Bemidji, MN are athletes. – Total Fatty Move
