Thursday 17 July 2008

Johnny (Don't) B Goode

Mankind has created some mind-numbing pastimes in its short time but top of the list, A number 1 has to be Golf.
The Open Championship has started at Royal Birkdale and the TV schedules switch to watching men hit a ball and then walk 300 yards to hit the ball again. Viewers can either watch this over and over again or they can bang their head against the coffee table hard enough for unconsciousness to release them from the boredom.
Tiger Woods isn't present but let's be honest, he may be one of the best golfers ever to pull on a ridiculously embarrassing jumper but he was never going to miss a putt and in frustration wrap his putter around his caddies neck was he. But my new-found favourite golfer John Daly just might.
Obviously no stranger to the buffet table, the hard drinking and chain smoking Daly has the physique of a well fed hippopotamus and is known to throw tantrums that a particularly irksome two year old would be proud of.
Three stays in the Betty Ford clinic, four marriages and a refusal to visit the gym because he can't smoke in them makes me instantly warm to the man. Throw in the time that he gambled away $1.5m in one month on Las Vegas slot machines after winning half that amount at a tournament and you are almost willing Daly to be there at the end, standing on the podium and jubilantly holding up the pot. Hopefully half drunk and with a Benson & Hedges wedged in the side of his mouth although according to those in the know, his odds of winning are longer than a Taliban's beard.
Sport needs it colourful characters and heavens knows golf needs the likes of John Daly knocking about if only to save me having to re-varnish the coffee table.

1 comment:

Aaron said...

God I hate golf!

Everyone around here plays it all the time for business, and I just can't stand it. Seriously, what is fun about hitting a little ball around for hours while you skirt allergy attack after allergy attack? Oh an you've gotta buy clubs for like $500 and pay $40 bucks or so just to torture yourself for a few hours.

Someone's gotta come up with something else.