[Editors note: I’m not sure starting out the New Year with one of Jigger’s ran..uh, opinion pieces, is the smartest thing to do. But during his convalescence from the sugar-free-gum-incident he was reading up on current events and he came across something that, as a mouthy terrier, really struck home, and he has been griping about it ever since. In an effort to get him to shut up I have agreed to let him gripe in print, in the hope that this will put an end to it, and he will move on to something else. Like maybe squirrels. That’s a permanent pet peeve ( ha ha, pet. Get it? ). Anyway. When injury ended Tigers season back in June, his caddy, Steve Williams, went home to New Zealand. Where lately he got into a bit of hot water. See here. Here is Lorne Rubenstein’s take on things. And here is a wrap up of commentary on Geoff Shackelford’s site. So after all of that, here is Jigger’s opinion of the whole thing. At the end of which I will tell you what FIGJAM stands for. ]
So Stevie is at a charity event down there in New Zealand and he makes a few comments. Down at the bottom of the world they tend to feel a little left out of things so he was probably trying to make the hometown crowd feel better by getting a little personal. So he said what he thinks. Big deal. I do it all the time. Y’all all know exactly how I feel about the cat. And squirrels. And those damn coyotes. He probably thought that way down there no one would really be paying any attention. And they wouldn’t have if it weren’t for two things. First off, nothing else going on. World of golf is dead right now but all those golf writers have to do something to get paid. So they scour the inter-webs looking for something, anything, golf related to write about. They jumped all over a few off hand comments made by a guy at the bottom of the world. If he had made those comments during the British Open the writers would have been so busy covering the goings on in England they never would have noticed what Stevie said. Bad timing on Stevie’s part.
Second off, Golf Coverage Is Boring. Seriously. All gentlemanly and polite. No one EVER says ANYTHING bad about ANYONE. They’re a bunch of guys, who see each other every day for weeks on end. They can’t all like each other all the time. You know there have to be some of them that don’t get along. You know they have to have habits that just bug the heck out of each other. You know there has to be a few personalities that just plain clash. But would any of them ever admit that? Oh nooooooo. It’s always sunshine and rainbows. And every once and while when someone does let a halfway interesting comment slip out they are immediately jumped on. It’s like the tour is full of a bunch of zombies or robots or the Borg or something. Give me a trash talking football player, or a nice fight in a hockey game any day. At least you know how they really feel. And the trash talk has to be really bad, or it has to be a bench-clearing brawl, before it makes news. A coupla relatively mild comments by what is basically an equipment manager, wouldn’t register on anybodies radar for any sport except boring old golf. They set them selves up for this kind of thing is what I’m saying. No body pays attention to what they say during the season. Even here at The Household they skip right through any coverage that has anybody talking, commentator or player. Who cares what they say any more. Just shut up and show them hitting the ball. And then when the dead season hits the writers are so desperate for something to say that when a guy tells a little bit of truth it gets blown all out of whack. If they would let a real opinion escape every now and then this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.
So here’s what I think they should do. Get rid of Nick Faldo and bring Stevie on as The Golf Channel regular guy. Let him tell what really goes in the locker room. What the players really think about Phil (and Nick, come to that), and ‘in-the-hole’ yelling spectators, and Ian Poulters obnoxious outfits, and squirrels. Stupid fence crawling, nut throwing, chattering-will-they-ever-shut-up squirrels. Now there’s something everyone has an opinion on. Speaking of which, gotta go. Looks like Nibby has one of the little monsters treed. Cat’s good for something anyway.
[Standard disclaimer: The opinions of this particular poster are his and his alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of the owner of this blog. Oh, and FIGJAM stands for F*** I’m Good, Just Ask Me. ]
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