You know, I used to sympathize with you. I really did. I’m well aware of the titanic mountains of BS in professional golf (like, how Annika Sorenstam wins 13 tournaments in 2002 and gets maybe a 2-line mention in Golf Digest, but that’s another issue), and that you’ve been a victim of this more than anyone. I know as well as anyone that there’s absolutely no flarkin signifigance to the “majors” anymore, and no reason they should be called “majors” in the first place, and the idea that they’re “more important” than the others (like, oh, the one Steve Perks got the win of his life on) is moronic hot air spread by clueless dolts who’ve never hit a single ball in their lives.
And of course, I know that the butthead who first coined the expression “You don’t win the silver, you lose the gold” never won a single goddam blippin’ thing. Likewise, whoever came up with “Second place is the first loser” probably never even finished in the top 20.
You’re a great player when you want to be, and it’s entirely the fault of the astonishingly tunnel-visioned, “god”-creating media that you’ve never gotten your due.
But GEEZ, man, WHAT THE FREAK possessed you to make that brain-dead crack about Tiger Woods’ equipment? Sheesh, I don’t even want to know what orifice you pulled that out of. Why don’t you just go ahead and say it, “I’m sick of all you suck-ups covering him twenty-four-goddam-seven when there’s an entire PGA field you’ve ignored, including me.” At least it’s honest, and there’s a good chance someone will sympathize with you.
What you should’ve done (well before the Buick Invitational) is got down on your hands and knees and apologized profusely and admitted that you were high on fumes when you made up that trash talk from another planet. As it is, we had to sit through day after day after day of talking heads beating that early Rodman Award entry to death. Good lord, Ernie Els has been doing a Secretariat-at-the-Belmont-Stakes number, and all I’ve been hearing for the past week was “Is Tiger’s equipment inferor? We don’t think it’s inferior. Could it be inferior? Does he want it to be inferior?”
Bringing us to the actual tournament. You know, considering how your crack pretty much killed any possibility of any other golfer on the planet getting any press for the entire frickin’ tournament, the least you could do was give him a challenge. And after talking big, everyone was obviously looking to you to back it up. So what happens? Oh, of course, YOU ACCOMPLISH JACK SQUAT IN THE FINAL ROUND!! Goddammit! You are aware, of course, that this is exactly why Greg Norman (who has won more championships than you can even dream of) is considered to be the biggest joke ever to play the game, right? If you, oh, took advantage of your “superior” equipment and played a solid game…and the course didn’t look like a US Open monster to me, bub…you would’ve won, and that would’ve been a huge, huge boost to your credibility, to say nothing of the blessed relief those of us who are sick of Tiger coverage would’ve had. If you tied him at -16 but got killed in the playoff, that still would’ve given him a scare, and you’d have some redemption. Hell, if you finished -13 (that’s three under from where you started today, hardly an impossibility), that could’ve started up the “Mickelson always finishes second” blathering again, which STILL would’ve been a massive improvement over rolling over and dying!
Screw winning a major. You are parsecs away from that. Right now your top priority should be avoiding embarrassing brain-dead comments, making birdies, and getting in contention to win anything. You are the frickin’ laughingstock of the league right now, and worse, you’re not going to get a whole lot of sympathy from people like me, who are just sick, sick, SICK of all the coverage and all the news and everything in the goddam universe being about Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, TigerTigerTigerTIGERTIGERTIGERTIGERTIGERTIGER, which of course will explode exponentially now that he’s actually won the Buick Invitational and the Golf Channel has officially called him a god and he’s proven that He Can Win Anything Anytime Anywhere No Matter How Long The Layoff. (I am now rooting for him to never win anything else ever again, ever, which shows you how bad it is.)
Unfair? Of course it’s unfair. In fact, it’s ridiculous that someone with 21 wins (and a whole lot more 2nd and 3rd place finishes, which no one ever bothers to keep track of, of course) can be seen as a whipping boy and someone who will never win anything important. But flopping in a tournament you had to win is no one’s fault but your own. I just hope you realize when you see Tiger continuously rammed down your throat for the next 30 years or so, you had a chance to, just for one brief, shining moment, interrupt that flow and make yourself a factor again, and you freaking blew it.
