a tradition for your grandmother

April 18, 2015
Glof 

iii. “A tradition like no other” (continued from here)

                                                                      Picking up where I left off:

     It would be an overstatement to say I hate The Masters golf tournament; but I watch it with the sound off. Several reasons, all of which have to do with insurance, in this case insuring I don’t hear eight times per hour that this is “a tradition like no other” though a tradition that began just over 80 years ago (1934). The PGA began in 1916; the U.S. Open began in 1895; the British Open began in 1860. Hell, the Australian Open, which by all rights should be the fourth major, began in 1904.

      Still, it is The Masters that is “a tradition like no other.” And that is true, in at least this sense: it is the smuggest, stuffed-shirtiest, least spontaneous, and most anal-retentive sporting event on the planet.

Not Augusta National*

     Even as the play swirls this way and that way around them – because this is golf; there’s nothing wrong with the golf in this tournament: while it is true that the field is the shallowest of all the majors, good players play the course, Augusta National, which is interesting enough, good players are playing because they want to win – but even as the play moves about them, the announcers read a script. There are words they can say – and they must say “tradition” or “historic” at least once every thirteen minutes of air time. And, there are words they cannot say.

     Not just the usual rascals: damn, shit, holy maloly, or the eff-word. Words like: bottle, beer; choke and poke; whirligig and woman. Jack Whitaker, CBS lead announcer for the event was bounced from the broadcast team for referring to the august gallery as “a mob scene.” Gary McCord was booted in 1993 for referring to the tournament’s slick greens as “bikini waxed.”

This isn’t Notre Dame de Paris (1345); it’s a sporting event – it’s an entertainment event – even if it’s held in some rich guys’ backyard in a gated community. The Masters needs to take itself far less seriously than it does.

     I said in my previous post that I watched it with the sound off; if I could speed up the action and view it under a black light, I would. Liven it up all those dead colors.

     Add a few zanies, painted torsos, pratfalls, pies in faces, lit farts, hoochie-coochie girls (bikini-waxed), guys juggling basketballs and chain saws. Then it would be a tradition like no other.

 

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     * Goofy Golf in Fort Walton Beach, FL