I love the game of golf.
I really do, and that’s why this PGA-LIV merger it’s so hard for me.
I will never be able to watch pro golf on TV again because when I look at these players now, I no longer see them as masters of their game. I see them as pawns and sell-outs in a billion-dollar deal to make people with shady ethics richer and dangerously powerful.
I hate these greedy mofos, both the players and the backers, for sullying a game that, in its essence, is a metaphor for life itself.
Whenever I have played golf, I’ve imagined that the game is my life.
The club represents my abilities. I have several of them, and I have to deploy the right one for the situation.
The ball represents my desires, my hopes, and where I want to go.
The goal is a small hole far off in the distance, which I can barely see, and sometimes not see at all because it’s hidden around a bend.
The course is my lifespan, riddled with ups and downs, water traps, deserts, high grass, and dense forests of trees.
The game involves trying to launch my small ball (my desire) into a tiny hole (a tiny success) over a vast course (my total lifespan).
In order to do this, I must get quiet. I must concentrate. I must muster my physical skills, study the lay of the land, and not get ahead of myself.
I must do this hole after hole, shot after shot, without losing hope or equanimity.
I can play my game alone or with others, but we all play our own game in our own way, just as we all live our own lives and die our own deaths.
It’s a game invented by shepherds on long, boring watches out on the mews with their sheep.
To bide the time, they placed a stone on the ground and whacked it with their crooks. Then walked to where it landed and launched it again. They decided the ultimate destination for the stone ahead of time, and when they got there, they counted how many whacks it took and then tried to see if they could do it in fewer whacks the next time.
No caddies, no carts, no cigars, no beer.
(Unbelievable.)
I also love the language of golf. How an announcer can whisper: That was a courageous putt, and everyone knows that “courageous” was the perfect adjective for what just happened.
I’ve played the game myself, so I know how difficult it is to do what the pros make look easy.
I understand why the fans need to be quiet while shots are lined up and executed. It’s a game where you need to be completely in the moment, which is part of why it is an excruciatingly hard game to play.
I also know that pro golfers get paid a lot of money, and I don’t begrudge them a penny of it. There’s a lot of money to be made on the backs of all professional athletes, so the people who play the game need to get a major chunk of that change.
And I don’t begrudge the backers and venue developers who make a shit ton of money by making it possible for millions of people who love watching any sport to do so.
But I do begrudge —and begrudge is putting it mildly, any professional who knows their paycheck comes smeared with blood from a person who has no ethical qualms about chopping up a person into little pieces for writing something they didn’t like.
Shame on you.
Shame on all of you for this loathsome deal. But especially Jay Monahan, for being such a back-stabbing, greedy sell-out.
Pth.
Inspiration Location 