I Love Them More Than You

Michael Hansen
ENG 111.90
June 19, 2014
Final MRP











Outline
I. Introduction to Major Research Paper
A. The hidden relationships and what causes these relationships between a golfer and his
golf clubs.
B. What is the main cause of the relationships and how does it affect the person and/or
the rest of society. The main cause of this relationship is the first time Nick saw his golf clubs
and he fell in love with the way that they looked when they were brand new. IT affects mainly
him because he strives to keep them clean all the time and that causes people to think he is a little
out of the ordinary.
II. Body of paper
A. Relationship: A golfer and his golf clubs are more than just a person and a set of
objects; they are a relationship stronger than anything.
1. When Nick first saw his clubs when he was buying them I knew right away that there
was a bond like no other.
2. Nick is obsessed with his clubs so much that he cannot stand the sight of them being
dirty.
3. He cleans his clubs so much that they still look brand new and yet, they are a few years
old.
5. Nick has a relationship with his golf clubs that resembles a relationship between two
people.

B. Concept Analysis: The hidden dynamic that I found while writing this paper was an
obsession with a golfers golf clubs and how this dynamic developed into a full blown obsession.
1. I found that a mental disorder is the cause of an obsession.
2. An obsession can manifest in many different ways
On way it can manifest is by attaching to an object which is what Nick has done.
3. OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is what Nick is said to have because he is
fixated on a single set of objects.
5. These set of elements of an obsession gives the reader some background on how an
obsession can manifest and affect a person. The reader also learns that an obsession is not always
a bad thing.
C. There can be anything that will cause an obsession but in this case with Nick it was the
first time that he saw his golf clubs. Nicks obsession with his clubs is a very common obsession.
I think some people might be thinking how an obsession forms in the brain.
1. His OCD for cleaning his clubs
2. How he makes sure that they all look the same and that they are in their right spots in
his bag.
3. Genetics make a mental disorder more common in children when their family members
have one.
5. All of these causes explain how Nick has a mental disorder. Cleaning his clubs nonstop
show me that he is OCD about how clean his clubs need to be. Each and every club has to be in
the same stop no matter what or he gets upset this is also a sign that he is obsessed with his clubs.
The fact that he has this OCD means that his parents are likely to have some sort of OCD.
III. While reading this paper the reader should understand how a relationship between a
person and an object can be more than just loving of an object. A golfer loves his golf clubs more
that some people love each other. It is an obsession that we are okay with and we do just about
anything to keep them looking good. A golfers relationship with his clubs is their version of a
committed relationship that will last a life time.









Relationships are not only between two human beings, but rather a when two objects,
human or not, interact with each other to create something. In this case, a golfer interacts with his
golf clubs to create a bond that is stronger than almost anything else in the world. A golfers best
friend is not the golfer he golfs with the most, it is his golf clubs. The relationship between a
golfer and his golf clubs start from the first time the golfer sees his clubs and it grows from there.
The golfer becomes obsessed with his clubs and thats how the relationship grows even stronger.
This individual golfer becomes so attached to his clubs he will risk losing a ball if it means he
will save his clubs from being in danger. While reading this paper, the reader should start to
understand the underlying causes of this relationship and how the relationship can turn into a
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
A best friend is one person in your life that you can trust with everything. Most people
only have one best friend, but a golfer has 14 best friends. The bond between a golfer and their
golf clubs is like nothing else. You trust your clubs to hit any shot you want them to hit and they
help you shoot the lowest score possible. People on the outside world of golf look at golf clubs
as an inanimate object that cannot feel or show emotion but golfers see them as another part of
their body of a partner. Professional golfers have huge endorsement deals that require them to
play a certain brand of clubs, balls and wear the certain brand of clothing. Tiger Woods, the
worlds best golfer, signed a deal with Nike. He has played with Nike clubs and balls for a vast
majority of his professional career. He has come to love his clubs and does not like to play with
other clubs because they are not his own clubs. They were built just for him and no one else.
Being around golf for a very long time, I can understand how he feels about his clubs. Even
though he does not have an endorsement deal with a certain company, he still loves his clubs
very much and stick to a certain brand of ball. My friend, Nick, has been told that it looks like he
is in a relationship with his golf clubs. To Nick, he has feelings towards his clubs; he loves them
and takes very good care of them. One day this summer I went out to play a round with him and
my goal was to find out what kind of relationship Nick has with his clubs, or to see if he just has
a huge obsession with his golf clubs.
While I was talking with Nick one day this summer, he was telling me how much he
loves his clubs. As I sat there, I started thinking about how much it seems like he loves his clubs
more than any other person. While we were sitting there I asked him, So are you like dating
your clubs? Because it seems like you are by the way you treat them and how you take such
good care of them. He laughed and looked at me funny while saying, No, they are just golf
clubs. You cant be in a relationship with them, they dont have feelings. (Hocker 2014) After
he said that, I thought to myself, just because something doesnt have feelings doesnt mean you
cant love them or be in a relationship with them. I set out to see if he treats his clubs just like
any guy would treat a girl or if he is just very obsessed with his clubs.
Watching Nick with his golf clubs made me see many things that showed he did similar
things someone would do if they were in a relationship with an actual person. A few days ago,
while we both were out playing golf, I was watching Nick hit a ball out of a wooded area where
there were many trees. Once he finished his swing, his clubs glanced off of a tree and broke a
branch. He quickly looked at the head on his club to see if anything had happened to it. He was
so concerned about his club that he did not even pay attention to where his ball had gone. Paying
this much attention to something that you didnt care about or was just another object wouldnt
happen. After seeing this, I laughed and shook my head. I said to him, Nick you really do love
your clubs, you should just marry them. Nick cares about his clubs so much he is willing to
lose a golf ball or a tournament taking care of his clubs after he hits a tree with them. By doing
this, it leads me, and other people that see him, to think that he is in a relationship with his golf
clubs because of how much he loves and takes care of his clubs. To other people it looks like
Nick is just very obsessed with his clubs and it would crush him if they somehow got broken.
Even though Nicks clubs are a very popular brand, his clubs are built for him and they
are totally different from another person with the same brand. Nicks clubs are specifically built
for him and his preferences. To the average golfer it may look like every club is the same but
there can be many things that cause a club to be different. It could be weighted differently or
have a different type of shaft in it. Each golfer likes a different set of parts that make up a whole
club. Nicks clubs are what he likes and, just like in a relationship, you have to find something
that you like and can get used to for a while.
Having a best friend or a girlfriend that is a person is considered to be normal, but when
you have an endorsement deal for golf clubs, they become your best friends. Golfers best
friends are not even human. They do not even talk. A golfers best friends are his golf clubs and
there is a relationship between them that is like no other. Tiger Woods signed a huge
endorsement deal with Nike Golf and this requires him to play all Nike equipment and wear Nike
appeal. (Golf Week, 2013) Even if a golfer does not have an endorsement deal with a brand, the
golfer still sticks to a certain brand because he has come to trust and love that brand. He has
played with that brand for a good portion of his life and he feels a sense of comfort with them.
The relationship between a set of clubs and a golfer is more like a person to person relationship
then anyone would know because there are many similar interactions. The relationship has its
good and bad days just like a normal person to person relationship would have. I have found that
even though it may look like a guy who just likes his clubs, it is actually more like a true
relationship just like there is between two people. A golfer can be in two relationships at the
same time and it is not looked at as a bad thing. He is just in love with his clubs as well as his
actual girlfriend.
An obsession can manifest in many different ways and one of those ways is love. For a
golfer, it is shown through the love of game and his clubs. The outside world sees a golfers love
for his clubs and the game as extreme but to the golfer it seems very normal. An obsession can
be defined as many things and can be seen as a good and a bad thing. An obsession can come to
light through almost anything, not just golf. Theres a few ways that it can manifest and one way
is an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). People all over the world have been obsessed with
many different things throughout history and just one of them is golf and their golf clubs. While
an obsession can be a good or a bad thing, there comes a point where the obsession is over the
top and that can cause major problems in a persons life.
Golfing can be a huge obsession for some people. For me and a few of my friends, it is an
obsession. Almost every part of our day is about golf, we work at a golf course, we play golf a
lot, and when we are home we watch golf. We have a huge obsession with the game of golf. The
friends that we have think that we are overly obsessed with the game of golf and think that we
are spending too much time and money on golf. Obsession is a very broad term but there are
actually only a few things that can be called an obsession.
The domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc. is the
denotative meaning of an obsession. (Dictionary.com, 2014) When the general public thinks of
an obsession they see it as a person that cannot stop thinking about something. There can be
good things that come from obsessions and there can also be bad things that come from an
obsession but the general public sees all of them as being bad. An example of a good thing that
can come from an obsession is, cleaning a room or an area. The person with this obsession has an
urge to clean everything in the specific area and a clean area is always a good thing. Many
people do not see the good in obsessions because the bad obsessions are always the ones to get
the focus. In golf there can be many good obsessions but there can also be some bad one just like
in everyday life. My friend Nick has many good obsessions. One of his obsessions is with his
golf clubs. He cleans them after every round and after every shot he hits. This is a good
obsession to have because it helps with his game. He also has a few bad obsessions that hurt him
with his swing. Just like with everything else in his life, he works hard to cut down on his bad
obsessions and to keep his good obsessions from getting out of control.
Having an obsession is not always a bad thing but when that obsession starts to get out of
hand and is all that a person can think of and then it is starting to be a problem. At this point the
person is deemed to have a mental issue. One mental issue that can come from this is Obsessive-
Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This is a type of anxiety disorder that causes people to have
repetitive thoughts and behaviors. This disorder can manifest in many ways, and a few of them in
the golf world are cleaning your clubs after every shot so that they look brand new again. When
this starts it causes that person to focus all of their attention on just one thing and it causes this
person to forget about everything else in their life.
While an obsession can be a good, it also can be a bad thing. Theres a point in a persons
life where an obsession is to dramatic and it causes them to lose friends and focus everything on
that one specific topic. An obsession can come in many different ways and is expressed
differently in different people. An OCD is just one way that an obsession can manifest and be
seen by the public. In golf, an obsession can be expressed by excessive cleaning of the clubs or
different routines a golfer will do before he hits his shot. Golf is a great sport to play, but every
golfer knows that to really enjoy playing golf you have to know when to stop playing and keep it
from controlling your entire life.
For every obsession over something there is always a reason behind it. In the case
of Nick, it was the first time that he was his clubs brand new the created his obsession. Nick is
not the only person that this has happened to. An obsession is not always a bad thing to have but
when it starts taking over someones life or the person starts to do things that are unappreciated
then it becomes a problem. Studies have shown that an obsession is not just an individual thing
but that it can be passed genetically as well. The psychological cause of this is most likely in the
mind and it triggers the person to focus on how something was and then from there on forward,
they want it to be exactly how it was the first time they saw it. For everything in life there is an
explanation for and an obsession is no different than anything else.
While I was with Nick, and looking at his relationship with his golf clubs(,) I noticed that
every time he got a club dirty or if it had a blade of grass on it he would clean it off. Nick would
take all the time he had to make sure that his clubs were perfectly clean before he put them away.
Cleaning his clubs is not a bad obsession to have but if the obsession ever becomes stronger then
there might be a problem. In the article by Mark Frances Cohen, there was a man that was
obsessed with one of the female works there but it started to turn bad when the person who was
obsessed started getting angry at another male worker because he thought that worker was
ruining his chances with the female employee. This turned ugly because it was never controlled
or taken care of. Nick, on the other hand, has control over his obsession and knows not to let it
get out of control.
The majority of America is just the same as Nick when it comes to an obsession.
Many people see something they like and they want everything to be exactly like that. They will
do anything to make sure that what they have or what they are doing is the same as the first time.
This obsession is classified as on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This is a very common thing
for people to have and McIngvale said, I want people to know that those of us who suffer with
OCD are not freaks. OCD is a mental illness. We don't have to be ashamed, and we don't have to
suffer in silence. A lot of people in the United States see people with an obsession as freaks but
its a mental illness and it can be treated. OCD is a brain disorder that creates problems with
processing of information. People who have OCD say they have unwanted thoughts and some
even say they keep counting and checking to make sure things are perfect. (What Does OCD
Look Like?)
Genetics have started becoming a huge step and finding out the causes of diseases
and illnesses in the recent years but what many people dont know is that an obsession can be
passed through genetics as well. A study was preformed to find if there was a link between OCD
in parents and their children. They took four affected family members to see if they could find a
gene that each one of them had that unaffected members did not have. After many other studies
were preformed they found similar results. They found a gene that fit what they were looking for
and from there on three more studies were published. (Grados, Marco, and Holly C. Wilcox)
These studies show me that an obsession is not just a person being fixated on one subject or idea
but that it is a mental issue and the person cannot help from being obsessed with it.
Everything in life, including obsession, has some explanation to them. Studies
have shown that people have been dealing with obsessions for a very long time and Nick is not
the first and will not be the last person I will know with an obsession. The psychological cause of
an obsession is most likely the person seeing something one way and loving it so much that they
want to make sure that it is the same every time. Studies have found that OCD and obsessions
are not just a social disorder but, in fact, are a mental issue that is treatable and is very common
in todays world. Every obsession has a reason why it continues today, you just have to go back
in the persons past to find where it started.
Now that the relationship is more clearly understood and the reader knows how the
relationship started, they should feel more knowledgeable about what causes relationships like
these to progress and get stronger as time goes on. From the first time Nick saw his clubs to
when he cleans them vigorously and how he makes sure that every club is in its right spot. A
relationship is more than just two humans interacting together, it can be between anything. I have
found that the relationship grows from a small beginning and it forms an obsession. That
obsession grows and leads to a deeper relationship that manifests into many different ways; one
of these ways is an obsession that turns into an OCD. These are normal for people to have but
most people do not recognize them. Hopefully now that readers know what to look for they can
see the many relationships that they have with objects in their daily lives that resembles this
relationship.





Work Cited Page
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Talks About." N.p., 2014. Web. 29 May 2014. <http://rpsagsu.svsu.edu/ebsco-w-
a/ehost/detail?sid=217bf23b-3c92-40a6-8c28-
dd62465c91b8%40sessionmgr4001&vid=1&hid=4104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbG
l2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ufh&AN=7721455>.
Grados, Marco, and Holly C. Wilcox. "Genetics of Obsessive-compulsive Disorder: A Research
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Hocker, Nick. "Relationship between Your Clubs and You." Personal interview. 13 May 2014
Obsession." Dictionary.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 June 2014.
"Tiger Woods Signs New Endorsement Deal with Nike." GolfWeek. Associated Press, 17 July
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"What Does OCD Look Like?" PR Newswire 4 Apr. 2006: n. pag. Academic OneFile. Web. 30
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