Tue, May 12, 2009
Quiet, I'm Napping—11:04 AM
We had [the] TPC in town this weekend, which I always like to watch on TV because sometimes you can see my house from the blimp shots – plus it's a course I've walked a few times (including Practice Day last Tuesday) and played many times on the Golden Tee arcade game. Actually, I will watch golf any weekend if it happens to be on when I sit down, because it looks fucking incredible in hi-def.
Anyway, I hate to be an old fogey [He's lying.], but watching golf is really being ruined that guy who yells "Get in the hole!" every time anyone drives a ball (or, because he's so hilarious, even when they pitch out of the trees onto the fairway). It's not one guy, of course; it's hundreds of guys but all of them are That Guy. My fellow fogeys blame Tiger for this, the way Shooter McGavin clucks his tongue at Happy's fans in Happy Gilmore, and I'm sure Tiger's younger demographic is part of it, but so is the general assholization of our culture – everybody's more of a dick now. I swear I remember whole years of moviegoing without hearing anyone talk in the theatre. I don't want to get into that "everything's worse than it used to be" rant, how airports are too loud and NUMB3RS was better before they added Sophina Brown and started putting spoilers before every commercial break. I'll embrace fogeyhood in some areas (damn Twitter to hell!) but it's still too early for me to go full-bore. I just think in this case a solution might be within our reach.
For instance, why isn't yelling on a golf course grounds for ejection (or at the very least, tasering)? There are plenty of extra volunteers standing around – let's put them to work. I doubt the ticket sales would take much of a hit, because for every guy who wants to be a jackass, there are two guys who would attend if not for all the jackasses. The entire younger demographic is not like That Guy, I promise you. (Now, I admit, the beer sales might take a tumble, but isn't a little civility worth that cost?) In fact, I'm curious why Tiger and a few other prominent, fan-favorite golfers don't go public: "If you're the type of person who yells 'Get in the hole!' on the golf course, I don't want you as a fan. And if you're next to someone like that at an event, tell him for me that I think he's an asshole." Something has to be done, because in general I'm all for assholization – free speech is an important thing, and lots of times it's fun to be an asshole – but when it's the type of assholery that gets on my nerves? Well, that's going too far.
Brandon — Wed, 5/13/09 10:07am
Wasn't it EA Sports PGA Tour Golf or something like that? Unless you've also played TPC on Golden Tee, in which case, look who's the jackass now! (Answer: me.)
Bee Boy — Wed, 5/13/09 11:23am
Oh I have no freakin' idea. I just thought I remembered Golden Tee being the one you had to call around town to find, and a Google Image search turned up some machines that looked familiar, so I went for it.
I've said it before: the onebee experience would be markedly better for all involved if I had the budget for a fact-checking staff.
Bee Boy — Wed, 5/13/09 11:23am
Case in point: an exhaustive search of onebee and e-mail proves that I have never actually said that before.
Brandon — Wed, 5/13/09 11:46am
But you did put it on those T-shirts you gave as gifts for Christmas 2004. (Wordiest. T-shirt. Ever.)
Bee Boy — Wed, 5/12/10 12:27pm
Thanks, Wayback Machine feature!
This year at [the] TPC, they actually tasered a guy for being an asshole. That's real, tangible growth. If Deepwater Horizon is Obama's Katrina (?), this is his Baywatch Nights.
(In other news, shame on Dana Gould – he was supposed to keep me entertained forever, and I should never again have found myself turning to my own Wayback Machine to dredge up five minutes' worth of reading material when I needed it.)
Joe Mulder — Thu, 5/13/10 1:40pm
Let's keep growing, America!