Now that I've listened to the endcap, I can speak directly to some of those points.
Dave, it's not surprising that the reference to golf pulls you out of the story. As you probably know, all the first drafts of the story were oral to entertain his children. He only set paper to pen once Christopher started correcting his details regarding cloak and tassel colors between tellings. Stuff in the beginning of the book starts much more light and juvenile before getting much more mature and serious by the end. The golf bit in the first chapter was just Tolkien wanting to make a pun on the name Fingolfin to amuse his children. I don't remember whether Fingolfin was plucked from Tolkien's stable of names to be an early version of Gandalf's or Thorin's name. By publication, Fingolfin was returned to the Silmarillion, Thorin and Gandalf received their much better final names, but the golf pun remained.
That said, I can totally see hobbits playing golf. It's a great structured way to take a walk with good company. I just expect there would be some sort of meal break every three holes or so.
