Billy Blake Would Be So Proud

I confess to not being able to tell the difference between Ernie Els and Daniel Ellsberg, though I've been in the Pentagon often enough to appreciate the distaste in which the latter holds it. And not always without reason. But that's for another day and not this one.

Because on the one before this one, that is, yesterday, I planted my butt in a comfy chair and watched hours upon hours of professional men's golf on NBC-technically on the Golf Channel on NBC (and no, I have no idea what it means except that's what it said in the lower right hand corner of the screen). I make that distinction because there are women golfers as well, called Ladies, even though the guys aren't called Gentlemen, so I don't know what that's about.

I agree with Mark Twain on the merits and majesty of golf and  I'm not sure sometimes he's being overly charitable with the pleasantness of the walk, but I watched yesterday because the only name I've ever been able to recognize in the last two decades or more of this sport, Tiger Woods, was rockin' the house. I know nothing about clubs, shoes, balls, except it takes a set to do what these guys do for a living and then say it's a sport, but then again, they probably spend more time on their feet than pro baseball players and I don't even want to talk about professional football "warriors."  

I marveled at the lushness of the greens, the depth of the roughs, regretted the only thing missing from the sand traps were little dust storms and prayed for sea monsters in the water traps-but only because it gets a little bit boring otherwise. Guy in spiffy outfit puts ball on teeny-tiny ball stand stares at it, and looks downrange and stares at it some more and looks downrange even some more after that (lather rinse, repeat through at least one set of TV commercials for Deutsche Bank, some kind of a golf ball that travels transcontinental distances when struck and a set of golf clubs that will survive a nuclear attack, giving the cockroaches something to do or eat in the aftermath and afterglow).

Seriously-it takes like half a day to play a round of this sport and these are the good players! But in the midst of the mundane, the minuscule and the mediocre, we had four days of The Tiger. It seems he's back-though one swallow does not a spring make nor one weekend a return to form. That's why God made Sportscenter as we'll learn all this week.
-bill kenny