ELV note: We used to love golf. Grew up on the game. Played all the time in the eighties and nineties. Once sported a solid 9-10 handicap. Once shot an 84 at Pebble Beach (an honest 84), where we played the four toughest holes on the course (8-9-10-11) in one over par. But something has happened to the world’s greatest game over the past ten years and we hardly touch our sticks anymore. And with the exception of the four majors (and the Ryder Cup), we couldn’t care less about the game. This guy’s hyperbolic, profane, prolific prose explains why….sort of.

PS: Why is ELV posting an anti-golf rant on his restaurant website? Because he’s ELV that’s why! Where the unexpected can always be expected!

THE HATERS GUIDE TO GOLF

By Seymour Dubsdread

Eldrick “Tiger” Woods

Why don’t you take some of your money and buy yourself a personality?

The biggest jerk in sports, by the length of a three-shot par 5. Mike Lupica once wrote: “Most professional jocks are assholes pretending to be nice guys.” Woods doesn’t even pretend. But you’ll never hear this from the flacks and whores in the golf media — who are so far up Woods’ ass they couldn’t see daylight from the 7^th tee at Pebble Beach at high noon. Woods is such a sullen, surly dick, he could make Ben Hogan look like Chi Chi Rodriguez. He doesn’t tip (just ask anyone in Vegas), because he “doesn’t carry cash.” Really Eldrick? Really? Methinks a few dozen call girls would testify otherwise. He’s an asshole to anyone and everyone who isn’t either sucking his cock or lining his pockets, and the worst interview since Lou Reed (another amoral douche, we might add). Hapless announcer looking like a Christian staring at a lion: “Gosh Tiger, your 74 today puts you on the cut bubble, what happened out there?” Woods: “I didn’t hit it too good (followed by silent glare).” Meanwhile, back in the booth, some producer is creaming in his pants because they actually got 30 seconds with Tiger Woods! Woods has done more to hurt the game of golf than polyester pants. Forget his love of Vegas skanks. Hell, that was the only thing that ever humanized him for some of us. What he’s systematically done since 1997 is demoralize and de-humanize a sport that needs all the personality it can get. Fuck you Tiger Woods. Fuck your golf game, your surliness, and your-bought-and-paid-for-soul. And the next time some sycophantic, dickwad announcer says what a “great job” Earl “Where’s The Money?” Woods did in raising him, someone needs to stick a belly putter up the guy’s rectum (or pry his jaws off of Tiger’s cock). Who gives a fuck? How wrong could you be cocksucker??? Give him the fucking trophy when he wins, or revel in schadenfreude when he fucks up, then go talk to someone else with something to say. Like Woodie Austin. Or Paul Goydos.

The Masters

White people like exclusivity. Rich, southern white people really like exclusivity. White, rich golfers love exclusivity so much they’ll enslave themselves to an unattainable country club.

“Watching the Masters on CBS is like attending church service. Announcers speak in hushed, pious tones, as if to convince us that something of great meaning and historical importance is taking place. What we are actually watching is grown men hitting little balls with sticks.” – Tom Gilmore

The Bland Leading the Bland

Golf has always been a sport for tight-asses, but Tim Finchem makes David Stern look like Lenny Bruce.

Do you remember when golfers had personalities? How about ambition? How about something to say other than “I overcooked that cut-fade on the 14^th.”? Neither do we. Golf is now so controlled by corporate and p.r. interests, no one wants to upset the gravy train by actually acting like a human being. In this respect Tim “The Tiny Bureaucrat” Finchem has done his job. He’s turned a hundred and fifty of the world’s best players into automatons who do nothing but hit golf balls and try to act humble whenever they’re getting paid $32,000 for last place in the Poulan Fat Cat Weedeater Open. Rich white people generally love it when other rich white people are being paid extraordinary sums for doing nothing of consequence, so no one complains, but the interview tent at any professional golf championship is about as interesting as a Monday night Mormon social (hello Johnny Miller!). At least Johnny will call a spade a spade during a tournament (although we doubt he’s ever seen one on a golf course).

The Golf Channel

A different way to practice your stroke.

To truly appreciate all that is loathsome about the modern game of golf, you have to watch the Golf Channel. It’s a 24 hour blowjob to a sport in need of a spanking.

But that’s not the real sin of the Golf Channel. What makes it so loathsome isn’t its 30 minute commercials pretending to be travel shows like GolfNow, or fake competition shows like Big Break. What makes it so despicable is the false hope it gives that you might actually find an attractive woman on a golf course. Lauren Thompson? In a foursome? Are you fucking kidding me? Win McMurry… actually playing golf? When monkeys fly out of my butt. The next venal sin of Golf Channel is foisting the faux folksy David Feherty on those unfamiliar with his greasy-haired, forced fabulist persona. Hey David, iron your fucking clothes and wash your fucking hair and maybe I’ll pretend to listen to you when I’m not practicing my stroke to freeze frames of Lauren and Win.

Brandel Chamblee

I hate you Brandel Chamblee. I hate your perfect fucking hair, your perfect fucking suits and the fact that your fucking neckties cost more than my car payment. You probably have a perfect fucking wife and a perfect fucking house right next to some perfect fucking golf course where you can roll out of bed and shoot a 72 from the tips any day of the week. And I’m not buying that soft, lilting fucking Southern gentlemen act either. Deep down you’re a Tiger Woods douchebag…you just never won enough tournaments to be able to act like one. Most of all I hate you because you get paid to do nothing all day but sit on your well-fed, Southern frat boy ass, and talk about golf all day before going home and eating some perfect, fucking fried chicken before making love to your perfect fucking wife. Go to hell Brandel Chamblee, and get off my fucking television screen!

Frank Nobilo

It’s kind of hard to hate an Italian with an English accent, so we’ll give the Nob-ster a pass…for now. Plus, it’s pretty obvious he loathes Chamblee as much as we do…and would ram a gap wedge down his throat if he could get away with it…so go in peace Frank.

The Presidents Cup/FedEx Cup

The only cup that counts is the Ryder.

The Presidents Cup is a made-for-TV, slickly packaged whore of a ginned up team competition that only exists because the PGA overlords couldn’t stand the fact that the Ryder Cup is: 1) Better; 2) More competitive; 3) Not controlled by them; and 4) Doesn’t pay them anything.

The Fed-X Cup is nothing more than a ginned up, rich-getting-richer event that exists only so Tim Finchem can roll around naked in a swimming pool of cash that banks and expensive car companies throw at him in hopes people will watch their commercials for a month after the real season actually comes to an end for the best players (with the PGA). If you look up “playing with the house’s money” in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of an asshole (Woods) or a guy who needs to grow some hair (Furyk) holding the FedEx cup (just another tacky trophy, really) and with a slightly quizzical look on their face wondering how they’re going to spend the millions they just won for playing in tournaments no one but a greedy little huckster gives a shit about.

Lee Trevino said that pressure in golf isn’t putting for a major championship, but putting for a $20 nassau with five bucks in your pocket, You want to make these bullshit events interesting? Make these spoiled brats put their own money on the line. You want to know why American players get their asses handed to them by the Europeans every two years? Because real competition is still the stock in trade of the European tour. While Tiger and Phil and their cronies are flying around in their corporate jets — filming commercials and playing for obscene money being thrown at them by Big Pharm, bailed out banks and overpriced car companies — guys with names you’ve never heard of are honing their skills on tougher courses in tough competition across the pond. You want to see pressure golf? Watch the Ryder Cup, where no money changes hands, and pride and the respect of your peers is all you’re playing for. Don’t believe me? Ask Mark Calcavecchia. Better yet, walk up to him and whisper “1991 Ryder Cup” in his ear. Can you think of a single, memorable President’s/FedEx Cup event, victory or collapse? The prosecution rests. Both “cups” are such meretricious sport-fucks, I wouldn’t watch either of them if Win and Lauren announced them in bikinis while massaging their breasts.

Bald guys

Grow a pair and some hair.

Whassup with all the follicle-challenged players? Stewart Cink, Steve Stricker, Matt Kuchar, Jonathon Byrd, Jim Furyk, Thomas Bjorn, et al…With their caps on, they look like athletes; take ‘em off and you’d swear you’re watching the Arthritis Open. The Golf Channel has their own bald dude (Tim Rosaforte) just to make sure the Sun City crowd doesn’t feel left out. You make a gazillion dollars a year for fuck’s sake. Go buy yourself some fucking hair.

Mullets

It takes a lifetime of practice to look this bad.

The only thing worse than a bunch of 35 year old guys who look 60 when they remove their hats, is a bunch of 40 year olds trying to look like 20 year olds….in 1993! Mickelson, Watson, Snedeker, Mahan….I’m talking to you. Get a fucking haircut fer chrissakes. Those languid locks aren’t getting you laid anymore and they sure don’t help you win tournaments. And while you’re at it, get some fashion sense. Phil in white pants looks like something Ahab should be hunting. And someone needs to tell Bubba “Sling Blade” Watson, he looks like an escapee from a mental hospital with his buttoned-up shirts.

“Play it as it lies” is one of the fundamental dictates of golf.  The other is “Wear it if it clashes.” – Henry Beard, Golfing, 1985

Koreans

The gals from Seoul have none.

Who gives two shits if Shi Hyun Ahn is higher on the money list than Hee-Won Han? Or if Meena Lee just outplayed Seon Hwa Lee? And why in chrissakes is everyone named Park or Pak or Kim? Jeong Jang…or is it Soo Yun Kang(?) could shoot a goddamned 64 every fucking round and no one outside of a ten mile radius of Seoul would give a bulgogi. You know what Koreans are good at? Barbecuing fucking meat, that’s what. Stick to your kalbi and leave my white girls alone! Fucking kimchee eaters. They’re the worst thing for golf since….

Northern Ireland

What the fuck is going on here?

You know who three of the world’s top golfers are? A pint-sized, jug-eared country bumpkin who’s done nothing but hit a little white ball for his entire life; a short fat dude who looks like a overstuffed banger mashed into his undersized sweaters; and an even fatter dude who looked like he was 55 on his 26^th birthday. Dumbo Rory McIroy probably gets more ginger tail in a week than a host of Jerzy guids gets in a month in Ocean City, so we’ll give him that, but Graeme McDowell doesn’t even know how to spell his first name, and Darren Clarke looks like he ought to be repairing your muffler. Know where they all come from? A fart of a country on the north shore of the Emerald Isle, heretofore better known for car bombs and the world’s worst cooking. What the fuck is going on here? Golf is such a screwed up sport, for all we know its next superstar is being hatched in Kyrgystan.

Infeasibly Long Courses/Equipment Controversies

Like a nuclear arms race, equipment/course escalation is leading to mutually assured destruction.

The average driving distance on tour is now 291 yards. When Slammin’ Sammy Snead played, his 275 yarders were considered bombs. Twenty years ago, only a handful of pros ever hit it past 300. Drivers now have heads on them the size of shovels that weigh less than a ping pong ball. The juiced balls and trampoline-like club surfaces that are supposed to make the game more fun for the average player have instead been exploited by the best players to bring former tough courses to their knees and make for tracks that are longer than Melville. Hence, in a classic case of the law of unintended consequences, what started out to make something easier (for the 15 handicapper) has ended up making everything harder for everyone but the best players — who now hit eight iron second shots to 500 yard par 4s without breaking a sweat. Instead of concentrating on making golf playable to all – instead of just the pros — golf’s governing bodies spend endless hours and millions of dollars fretting and fighting over square grooves and other nonsense. Memo to the USGA: No one but about 200 spoiled millionaires (and their toadies) gives a flying fuck about what the grooves are like on their fucking pitching wedge. Memo to Tim Finchem: No one gives a shit about your Land of the Giants, TPC courses and other tracks built to “test” the pros. You want to test the pros? Make them hit actual shots…not just  balls-out bombing it down the fairway and then short-ironing into greens more accepting than a Tiger-whore’s vagina.

Golf Myths

Golf is“good for business.” You know how much business gets conducted on golf courses in America? Zero, zilch, not a penny or a deal…ever. Do you have any idea how many tax write-offs of country club memberships and golf rounds occur because of this lie? Incalculable. The big lie that golf is good for business has been perpetrated for decades (pretty much the whole 20^th Century) by businessmen, lawyers, doctors, accountants and other fat cats who want to get out of their office while getting their office to pay for it.

Golf is fun. Golf isn’t fun. It’s hard. Real hard. You have to play it all the time to get good enough to actually enjoy it, and even then you will run up against your physical limitations no matter how much you play or practice. Truer words were never spoken than: “Golf is like a love affair. It’s no fun if you don’t take it seriously and it’ll break your heart if you do.” Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking golf is fun. You want fun, play softball.

Magazines and TV shows will improve your game. Never, in the history of the world, has anyone’s golf game been improved by watching or reading something. The only way to get even passably good at golf is to play it…a lot….and get lessons from a PGA pro.

If I played a lot, I could go on Tour. Wrong again, dillweed. You hear this a lot from low handicappers, club champions, and everyday hustlers around good courses. There’s a reason they’re playing in the member-guest and our good friend Woody Austin (176^th on the money list) gets to play for million dollar purses. And the reason is: Woody, or Alex Prugh (189^th) or Billy Mayfair (139^th) or anyone of around 1,000 players in the world hit it better, stronger, longer and more consistently than you arrogant bastards do. That, and they see a golf course like Michelangelo did a block of marble…as something to be carved up. The rest of us are ecstatic when we string a few pars or a couple of birdies together; the pros expect such things, or better, on every fucking hole.

You can learn something from watching the pros. Watching Peter Kostis dissect the swing of a 6’4” loose-limbed string beans like Dustin Johnson and Nick Watney can tell me volumes about how I should approach my tee-to-green game, right? Sure dumbass. Just like having an architect describe a building will help me design my own home. Peter Kostis and his goddamned Biz Hub camera need to be shoved up Gary McCord’s ass.

The author has been following the PGA Tour since 1966. He also once shared a smoke with Tom Watson, and played a pro-am round with Raymond Floyd — who didn’t bother speaking or looking at anyone for four straight hours.

No game designed to be played with the aid of personal servants by right-handed men who can’t even bring along their dogs can be entirely good for the soul. – Bruce McCall, “The Case Against Golf,” Esquire

Yeah, after each of my downhill putts. – Homero Blancas, asked if he had any uphill putts

(Re-printed with permission)