This article was machine-translated from the Korean original. Read the Korean original
The secret prelude to threatening the peace of the home surprisingly begins not in the living room, but in the underground parking lot of the apartment or inside the trunk of a car.
If your golf bag, which usually only managed to be brought out of the veranda and loaded into the car during the golf season (spring and autumn), has started occupying a corner of the trunk like a permanent seat year-round, you should activate your radar at least once. This is because it is in a state of sortie readiness, fully prepared to respond to a "spontaneous round" or a "call from a partner" at any moment.
The most obvious change is detected in the accessories and specifications filling the golf bag.
One day, the pouch bag of someone who usually uses cost-effective bulk packs of balls (also known as lost balls) begins to fill with expensive handmade name tags intricately engraved with flashy heart patterns or initials, as well as limited edition brand balls. It is highly likely that these are 'gifts' given by a golfing partner as a token of secret flirting.
What is even more decisive is the replacement of the name tag. If the club head is wrapped with a cute character cover or unique accessory that appeals to the opposite sex instead of a dull English name, it is the result of a tearful effort to show on the field that "I am not a stuffy married man (or woman), but a still trendy and stylish partner."
It is also a suspicious sign when bundles of cash, claimed to have been won in bets with companions, are frequently found under the trunk mat or deep inside the console box. While it could be money won in a real golf bet, it could also be traces of capital exchanged on join apps or secret gatherings, either to pay a partner's green fee or, conversely, under the pretext of 'maintaining dignity.'
01"Why do I keep getting bookings only at night?" — The deadly refuge of night rounds
Over the past few years, one area that South Korean golf courses have invested particularly heavily in is night lighting (LED) facilities. The intention was to attract young golfers who find it difficult to afford the skyrocketing daytime green fees, but these dazzling night courses have ultimately ended up providing the perfect "shelter in the dark" for couples having affairs.
Night rounds (also known as third tee-offs) usually start between 4 and 6 p.m. and do not finish until past 10 p.m. This is a time when it is all too natural for office workers to make excuses such as, "Today's dinner entertaining clients looks like it will run long," or "I have overtime or an emergency meeting scheduled."
Furthermore, unlike daytime golf, night golf creates a unique, enclosed atmosphere where darkness surrounds the course on all sides and powerful searchlights shine down only on the fairway. As soon as the cart turns just slightly into a blind spot or around a mountain corner, it becomes a sealed room, completely isolated from the gaze of others.
Conversations shared while walking along a fairway shrouded in dim night fog are inevitably different in nature from the wholesome sports conversations of the day. Bold physical contact, such as natural hand-holding and deep hugs exchanged under the pretext of comforting a missed shot, is updated in real time behind the lights.
The real time to be suspicious is right after the round ends. If you have finished showering and come out past 11 p.m., common sense dictates that you should hurry home. However, their real destination, the '19th hole,' is the unmanned motels and secluded gardens densely packed around the golf course interchanges (ICs) and illuminated with particularly flashy lights.
If you notice a strange vitality hidden behind fatigue on the face of your spouse as they open the front door past 1 a.m. and offer lame excuses like, "The traffic was terrible," or "I was late because I had to get a designated driver for a companion who insisted on drunk driving," that is the surest proof that they have already expended their energy elsewhere, not on the field.
02The Pandora's Box of 'Naver Band' and 'Open Chat' Inside Smartphones
What distinguishes golf-related extramarital affairs from the past is that they thoroughly leverage technological advancements to share alibis. At the center of this are the closed social network 'Naver Band' and KakaoTalk 'Open Chat Rooms'.
Golf clubs intended for illicit affairs or dating use seemingly very ordinary and wholesome names. Examples include "Pure Golf Club for 30-40 Year Olds in the Capital Area" or "Guide for 100+ Score Golfers Aiming for Single-Digits."
However, if your spouse invariably flips the screen over to the floor when holding a smartphone, or heads straight to the bathroom whenever a specific golf band's notification sounds, it is highly likely that a completely different world lies within that Pandora's Box.
Inside, hidden behind nicknames, conversations typically exchanged between lovers—beyond mere workout partners—take place in real-time, such as, "Mr. OO, your shot was amazing today," or "Let's go to that famous restaurant we planned to visit last time for our night round next week." They even display a level of meticulousness to avoid breaking each other's alibis, such as thoroughly mixing partners when taking group photos after a round or separately shooting and sharing "disguised group shots" just to show at home. It is a scene where the moral decay stemming from the grand cause of sports functions as a secret toxin that shakes an ordinary family.
03Editor's Note: Before opening the bag, look at your living room first.
Rummaging through golf bags in the trunk and frantically trying to figure out smartphone passwords is, in the end, nothing more than collecting fragments of tragedy. If golf became their perfect escape, paradoxically, the 'real reality' they wanted to flee to might have been outside the field—right in the living room with you.
Golf is not guilty. If there is any fault, it is merely the duplicity of weak humans who use the noble cause of the sport and the romance of the green grass as a shield to satisfy their shallow sexual desires and pretense.
Tonight, quietly gaze at the back of your spouse as they silently practice their driver swing in a corner of the living room in preparation for a weekend round. Whether that swing trajectory leads to a pure hole or to the secret world behind the cart filled with illusory lights may already be determined by the temperature of the conversation you share at the dinner table tonight.
