I went to sleep Friday night with my golf world in working order. I woke up Saturday morning and it was upside down. Granted, I don't understand the rule book, but as a casual golfer I just need to know that hitting the ball into the lake three times affords me a free hole to just butcher at will. "I DON'T NEED A DROP AREA! I KNOW I CAN HIT IT ACROSS THIS THING. GIVE ME ANOTHER BALL."
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| You can't double eagle with a 4-wood without ignoring the rule book Gene. |
More importantly, this knowledge affords me peace of mind that once a year when I tune into The Masters. I can rest assured that everything is taken care of and all of the rulings are crystal clear to those in charge. All that is left is to sit back and enjoy a figurative level playing field for all of the golfers on the literal unlevel playing field.
But Tiger's beautifully struck yet unlucky shot on 15 Friday changed everything. More directly, the officials' inability to handle the situation changed everything. And even more directly, when even my own dad was puzzled by what happened my golf world turned completely upside down. My dad was born on a golf course and is my walking rule book for whenever I hit a ball into the lake for the third time.
If he can't sort out the details and explain them to me in weekend hackers' terminology, well...it's all been a sham. We've been bamboozled! The whole mess is a complete farce.
On one hand I'm revoking every penalty stroke I've ever taken. On the other, I know I'm not a scratch golfer. As any body of water that I have ever tried to hit a dimpled ball over can surely attest.
Today's Ingredients
- I mean, check out the exchange in this piece between Luke Glover, an official and Bernhard Langer.
- “Bernhard asked, ‘What if this whole area was covered with leaves, does that mean it would be unplayable?’” Glover recalled, “and at that point (the official) said it was OK to go ahead and play it.” Wow.
- There's something very Divinci Codesque about today's Curious Index. At least in terms of how Run Home Jack brings the news of Dave Didion's new job.
- As we talked about earlier, today marks an important period for Georgia recruiting. Kimberly updates us on a top tight end.
- Is there anything more underhanded and pollen-filled than spring shenanigans? Blutarsky found some Clempson players undercover at the GDay game. Unknowingly, I returned the favor this past weekend.
- Good news on the diamond, Tyler says the Dawgs are not eliminated from the SEC Tournament. The bad news is that we may not be able to say that much longer.
- Women's tennis....SEC champs! And the men, having sewn up the regular season title last week, head to Oxford for the tourney as the #1 seed.
- Greg discovered some NFL draft prospects acting like they're an 1980's rock band or something.
- Lastly, things are really getting weird at Florida coaching meetings. you have to give Joker the edge here, but this is quality Instagrammmming by Pease.
With something as archaic as The Renowned and Royal Rules of Golf being reduced to just a collection of odd suggestions - When addressing your ball, wink twice with your right eye if you intend to play a fade and three times with your left if you intend to Bubba that ball to death! - I decided to dig a little deeper into the Official and Outlandish Blogging Handbook: a guide to make your internetting smartter. What I discovered was both exotic and expertly simple. Turns out, I've broken every commandment with which this weblogging world was founded upon.
- Don't ever write about Auburn doing ANYthing wrong. Because when they're wrong, they're also right. It's senseless to point out ANYthing even remotely contradictory to this point.
Aniston is always looking to drive up Google
page ranks. God bless her body of work. - ANYtime you type the word "solidarity" it must be underlined. ANY. Time.
- Adding pictures of scantily clad women is strongly encouraged. This improves Google ratings for your site. Especially if the picture has little to nothing to do with the blog's topic.
- Al Gore invented the internet, but Houston Nutt recruited him to do it. So he deserves at least an asterisk reference somewhere in each post. Preferably after a semi-nude picture of Lennay Kekua.
- Excesssssive typppping doesn't cause carpal tunnnnnel. Chewing gummm while typpppping causes carpppal tunnnnel.
- Whenever you click the spell check button before posting a computer generated electronic mail message is sent to your third grade teacher. She'd like a word with you before recess.
- Stealing content from other websites is neither encouraged or discouraged. While the internet was founded by incredibly smart and driven people, it is maintained and managed by lazy folks with cheese dust on their t-shirts. Majority rules. Solidarity.
- Shoes are optional at all times. But pants are strictly forbidden at ANY time.
- The word ANY must always be in all caps, and preferably followed at the end of the sentence with multiple (more than three but less than twenty two) exclamation points!!!! !
- When your blog achieves its own Wiki page, stop and start over again. You've clearly done something wrong. Or maybe too incredibly awesome.
Bernie
