THE
HUMOR
COLUMN
|
© 2005 Brian Hodges - Please do not remove the copyright from this essay
I’ve
written about this country’s golf
epidemic before. At the time, I was more of a golfing pacifist.
While I disagreed with the
lifestyle, I was content to just live and let putt. You know what they say: “Hate the golf. Love the golfer.” Plus I’m
a person who wears my heart and opinions way out there on the cufflink
anyway, so my friends understood never to use the words “Eighteen
Holes” in my presence unless they were describing a gunshot victim. I had no reservations about leaving the room
mid-sentence to go play hide-and-seek with the five-year-olds. But I
just spent an entire week confined to a TV compound doing video
support at the U.S. Open where everybody around me was living, breathing
and working golf. It was
enough to turn my passive-aggressive dislike into mad, psychotic,
make you want to pummel the next person who says the word “Tiger”
hatred. These people had never met me and just assumed
that I, like they, must love this mind-numbingly boring activity. They knew all the players’ names and dropped
them into most every conversation, no matter that I continually
told them that unless the person’s name also means “large predatory
cat,” I have no clue (or desire to know) who you’re talking about.
My credentials
gave me access to the entire course, so I spent the bulk of my downtime
reading and writing in the shade, oblivious to the muffled applause
and muted cheers a hundred feet behind me. But on the last day, a couple other techs with
nothing to do walked past me saying, “Hey Tiger’s coming this way. Wanna go watch?” I obliged more out of mild celebrity worship than any fleeting interest
in how he was actually doing. We
walked out of the compound to the tenth green and observed Tiger
play a single hole. Though
I personally found myself observing a Filipino woman wearing a see
through dress with no panties more than I did Mr. Woods.
I would have whistled, but they frown upon things like that
– the USGA I mean, not feminists.
What
is this nonsense about complete silence on the golf course?
Those fans and wannabes can prattle on about their boring
pastime at the bar, in the office, during church, in the middle
of a movie, making love to their wife, and sitting next to me on
the plane while I’m trying to sleep – but as long as they’re actually
inside the competing grounds they have to shut up about it all? Apparently even professional golfers don’t
want to hear all that pointless drivel. What
do they need quiet for anyway? These golfers have forever and a commercial
break to line up their shot, check the grade of the green, practice
their putt, ask the caddy the Yankees score, pick up their ball,
put down a penny, check the grade of the green again, pick their
penny back up, put down the ball so their corporate sponsor’s logo
is visible, make a long distance phone call, check the grade of
the green from a different angle… Come on! Even basketball
players, with thousands of screaming fans waving foam fingers at
them, only have twenty-four seconds to make a shot. Watching
Tiger waste ten valuable minutes of my time, I formulated a new
mission in life. First I
will become obscenely rich. Rich
to the point where I don’t even fight parking tickets anymore. Then I will travel the world, attending every
major golfing event just to heckle the players. As soon as Tiger or some other hotshot in plaid knickers spends
more than ninety seconds swinging their crooked stick around without
actually moving their balls, I will stand up on my cart and shout
(proudly and righteously mind you), “JUST HIT THE F---ING THING!” I’ll keep bailing myself out with piles of cash and keep coming
back until they start posting my picture at the gate. Until that day golf fans, let’s make things easier on both of us and just don’t talk to me. |
don’t like golf.