"Oh yeah that's a classic! The 20x6 line has really turned MegaPutt around in recent years. Myself, I can't get enough of anything SportStick comes up with, I got walls of their clubs at home."
The idea's that a conversation gets redirected, not just stopped outright like it would with a reply of "I don't watch sports."
DISCLAIMER: I don't know how golf works beyond what Wii Golf taught me, and that was years ago.
In a world of pedants it wouldn't but the same way short genre fiction and multi volume biographies get lumped together in "reading" any sport is enough to give you a couple of sports related conversational gambits.
I worked in a bar for a long time. I love playing basketball, and I'm the best pool player in my area (and the bar was full of pool players).
That never sufficed for knowing about football. People want to talk football.
They like talking pool with me too, and it's not like I was cast out of the social circle over it--but most sports conversations, in my experience, start out very specifically.
"Who you like in the SEC this year?"
"You been watching this cheating stuff with Belichick?"
Don't know who Belichick is? You're not going to fudge a conversation, most likely.
"Hey, who's your pick in the superbowl?" "I like to golf!"