Q&A With Dan Jenkins
Published by Doubleday, the novel features a new "Sports Magazine" writer so bored with the PGA Tour he heads for the LPGA Tour where life is a lot more exciting. There's no shortage of smoking, drinking, wise-cracking and commentary (the politics lean hard right). Gary Van Sickle noted in this golf.com review, "it’s great to see that Jenkins still has his fastball. He ranks with the best and most influential sportswriters of the 20th century."
Before leaving to cover next week's U.S. Open for Golf Digest, Dan answered a few questions via email.
GS: The Sports Magazine's Jack Brannon is the main dude in The Franchise Babe. He's twice divorced and smokes more than the Universal Studios back lot. So what's happened to the great Jim Tom Pinch of You Gotta Play Hurt and your last two golf novels?
DJ: Jim Tom was Jack's guru and idol. He mentions it. I needed a young guy for this one. Jim Tom's getting up there.
GS: The opening quote from Bryan Forbes and some early comments give the impression you aren't going to go easy on the media in this one. Your take on the state of golf coverage?
DJ: I'm not real fond of golf coverage, or the current state of the media. Nobody ever asks the right follow-up question anymore, nobody has a sense of history, nobody wants to "caretake" a sport, young people think golf started with Tiger Woods, for Christ sake. "Babe" hits on some of this.
GS: Do you really prefer watching the LPGA over the PGA Tour these days?
DJ: I don't much like to watch golf anywhere any longer, except in the majors. I do follow the LPGA closer than the PGA Tour on the net, and watch it occasionally, because they've turned cute on us, there's some hot babes out there who also play golf, they aren't too spoiled yet. Yeah, they lack for quotes, but so do the guys. The men's tour sucks. Everybody drives it 340 and shoots 63. I've never heard of half their names, and don't care to know them until they get back to me with two majors. My fee for talking to Tiger Woods is going up every day. I've tried for 10 years to get a one-on-one with him---and can't. Why? Because Mark Steinberg says, "We have nothing to gain."
Can you imagine what the men's tour would look like if Tiger and Phil both suffered career-ending injuries? I'll tell you. It would look like what it looks like today when they aren't in the field. It would increase interest in polo.
GS: In skipping a few pages ahead I saw that the commissioner is someone named Marsha Wilson who has a thing for businesspeak. What do you make of all the real LPGA Commish and her branding obsession?DJ: The real LPGA commish did a few stupid things at first, but she seems to have survived. I've never met her, so the fiction commish is exactly that. Fiction. But obviously inspired by the real one.
GS: Besides Feherty, anyone else you like listening to on a televised golf tournament?
DJ: I rarely listen to golf on TV. I still think Miller is good. I like what he does because the pros hate it. Feherty is a very funny guy in person, but I don't hear him enough on the air to have a comment.
GS: Who makes you want to heave one of your old typewriters at the screen?
DJ: I would need hundreds of typewriters to throw at the screen if I watch golf regularly. Every time some slug said that was a great shot when it was ordinary and that somebody was a great player when he hasn't won shit, and every time somebody said what a great golf course it was when the Tour has ruined it and set it up to be a pushover.
GS: It's about time for a Tiger-Phil showdown at a major. Maybe Torrey Pines?
DJ: The best thing about the majors is that they're important no matter what. Of course they make more sense when Jack Fleck doesn't win, but they're still historic and important. I don't give a shit whether Tiger recovers form his knee or not, frankly. You'd think he was the only guy who ever had a knee, a baby, or a dead father. Which, I suppose, is another comment on today's media.
GS: Are you excited about visiting California, where we treat smokers like lepers?
DJ: I would be more excited about going to California if I was 20 years younger and sitting in the Polo Lounge.
GS: Does the Masters still start on the back nine Sunday?
DJ: The Masters will always start on the back nine Sunday because I said so.
Monday, June 2, 2008 at 11:52 PM
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Reader Comments (17)
You've gotten old, Dan.
Great interview Geoff. I'm jeolous. Shared quite a few smokes with Jenkins in the press tent back in the olden days. For me, it was like lighting up with Hemingway. Seriously, this guy's body of work is just remarkable.
Interesting take on the golf courses...that the "tour sets them up to be a pushover."
Jenkins hums a familiar tune in his disdain for the modern bomber pro and hepped up equipment, but that comment on the courses is against the usual grain of the anti-equipment crowd, who usually decry the set ups as overly difficult.
Or do I have it wrong? Comments from any of you listers out there?
I do differ from Dan on the setup of Tour courses. They've definitely gone in the opposite direction of late and most are trying to figure out why that middle ground between pushover and over-the-top is so elusive.
Now I have another book to read, Dan, just for you I promise to read it while a tour event is on the tube and the sound is off!!!
P.S. I am not a crackpot."