Is professional golf, as we in America have known it, headed inexorably down the path of professional tennis as we now know it? ….. and an update on UNC’s own Hannibal Lechter …. and a reminder that Man v Life is a series of small victories.
The top two names in The World Golf Rankings today are Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell. Ten out of nine of you could not pick Martin or Graeme out of a police line-up with three albino midgets, Barack Obama’s daddy, and the deep snapper for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. No doubt both are fine fellows quite capable of hitting a one-iron 250 yards onto a postage stamp or sticking a wedge onto a pane of glass …..
….. but would you pay $40 to go see either man ply his skills at your local tour stop? ….. or care to watch either fellow on your flat-screen HDTV especially if the rest of the tournament’s field was composed of equally anonymous Euros and Afrikanners of indistinguishable characteristics. In other words if professional golf loses its American dominance, as pro tennis did some time ago …. will it lose you too?
Women’s pro tennis became “those two black sisters and three dozen long-legged Ukrainians with names that sound like a cat hacking up a hair ball”. Only hard-core tennis junkies can name five of the top twenty women’s tennis players. And they can’t pronounce their names either.
Korean girls chose golf and Ukrainian girls prefer tennis. American girls, apparently, chose following the exploits of The Kardashians, Snooki, and Taylor Swift.
The only American news at a men’s tennis tournament is the weekly note: Andy Roddick Loses in Quarterfinals. American men win pro tennis tournaments as often as Clemson wins in Chapel Hill.
I’m fine with all these sports becoming truly global in nature. Let the best players win. This is not like those old cold war sports battles with East German judges and crooked basketball refs from Transylvania.
Even with Tiger pre-Thanksgiving ’09 I only watched The Majors and then just bits and pieces. 98% of PGA events are as compelling as 98% of bowl games and the NBA regular season.
God, in His infinite wisdom, created Netflix for a reason.
Everyone keeps asking me “(1) what’s goofy Ol’ Roy gonna do next; and (2) what can anyone do about it”? (1) Beats me and (2) not much.
Roy’s continuing references to “my team” and “my program” ain’t playing well across Old Well Country. Reaction to Roy’s latest Fire-Ready-Aim at UNC fans was: Oh me, oh my! Another Jayhawk sticker mess !!
Roy is aware of the VERY negative reaction. Damage control by Coach Two Rings has been strongly recommended. A quick check of the archives – Stuff Roy Probably Shouldna Said – show that damage control isn’t his strong suit. His efforts usually obliterate whatever life forms survived his initial nuclear comment. We can always hope he’ll get it right at least once.
UPDATE: On his 1/24 weekly radio show, Roy contritly declared “I shoulda kept my mouth shut ….”. Thats about as much contriteness as anyone could expect Ol’ Roy can muster. Time to move on …. until the next time.
I have recommended a custom-made Hannibal Lechter mask and lacing Roy’s Diet Coke with high-octane ritallin. My track record with suggestions to the UNC Athletic Administration is, alas, about like Andy Roddick’s in tennis tournaments.
Our electric blanket of four years was on the fritz recently. It took forever to get heated at all and then it was spotty. The immediate solution was “go to Bed, Bath & Beyond and buy a new one”. Spend about $100 and move on to whatever next speed bump awaits on Life’s highway. But something told me this was fixable. I was right! Go figure.
I removed all the bedding and googled up the user manual. We had the blanket on upside down. An upside down blanket ??? I flipped it. Then I read the instructions about how to pre-heat it. Now it’s snug as the proverbial bug in a rug ….. there are quite embarrassing life lessons aplenty in that whole situation. I’m the last person to ever advocate take a deep breath and read the instructions but it worked this once.
PLEASE don’t make the mistake of saying “the Super Bowl is in Dallas” or even “…. in Dallas-Ft Worth”. The NFL in conjunction with Homeland Security will throw your logistically incorrect butt in a Turkish prison. The upcoming Super Bowl is in “North Texas”. Sounds like bickering Chamber of Commerce-types got in a snit and compromise was the order of the day.
