I would like to say a tribute was inevitable, but considering how painful the "Golf Boys" video was and how it mercifully escaped our collective consciousness (not before 1.8 million views), it is with great regret that I ask you: is this tribute a spoof or an admiring tribute? Honestly, I can't tell. I must be getting old.
Think what I could’ve done with all that time. Learned French. Piano. I’d be playing Chopin now if it weren’t for golf. Playing Chopin for Julie Delpy. But instead I wasted my life on this game. It looked so easy. The ball just sits there. Any idiot could do it. But every instinct I had was wrong. You’re supposed to hit the ball down to make it go up. That’s absurd. I want to hit it up to make it go up. When I try to hit down, it’s like I’m splitting a log with an axe. All I do is chop up the course. And then there’s this one: the easier you swing, the farther the ball goes. How can that be? So you hit down to make it go up and swing easy to make it go far?
It was the 1992 Champions Tour event at Rancho Park, then known as the Senior Tour and the tournament title was the Security Pacific Classic. I was looping for DeWitt Weaver, a super guy and long hitter. Before we teed off in the first round, about five drops of rain fell and DeWitt sent me to the car to get an elaborately designed, heavy plastic tarp that covered the entire cart, complete with loose flaps covering the entry point to the seating area. Needless to say, as it was my first caddying gig in a professional event, trying to put this silly thing on one of Rancho's dated carts just 15 minutes before the tee time was not fun.
Anyway, DeWitt finally got the heavy white plastic cover on and while the rain never materialized, I had to contend with this plastic thing throughout the front nine while he walked the fairways. I could not strap the clubs on the back, so I was constantly getting in and out of the cart, trying not to get the clubs tangled in the cover flap. After we finished play on the seventh hole, I was driving the cart up the hill toward the eighth tee behind defending champion John Brodie. As he parked and got out to hit his tee ball, my foot got tangled in the door cover portion of the plastic cover and I could not hit the brake. I nearly ran over the football legend.
Thankfully, he just thought I was a bad cart driver and no one really seemed to notice, but I'd managed to block out memories of the day I almost killed John Brodie. Until today, watching this European Ladies Tour posted video...
Thanks to Pete Finch for Tweeting this hole-in-one caught on tape. I particularly like how the ball misses the stakes keeping golfers from damaging turf and then slingshots right for the hole. Nice camera work too.
Tate, who is a co-captain of the high school's golf team, was out on the course during the announcement, but spoke to a Connecticut Post reporter in the driveway of his Waverly Road home Saturday afternoon.
"I heard there was some kind of decision, but I didn't really know what was happening," said Tate as he kicked a clod of dirt. "I'm feeling great. I'm glad the correct decision was finally made. But I also feel bad that Dr. Smith was put in this position. I understand she has to maintain a position as a disciplinarian. It's not the policy that needs to be changed, it's the punishment."
The Golf Channel writing team took a crack at the Kentucky Derby and sadly, overlooked the obvious favorite and horse for the ages, Shackleford. New Golf Channel man Jason Sobel writes:
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning Drive, is co-host of The Ringer's ShackHouse is the author of eleven books.