The Masters embodies all of my golf ambivalence. The tournament is played on an absolutely gorgeous course where I am not welcome except, perhaps, as a paying spectator. I feel both envy and disgust. The Augusta National membership list published in 2002 contains an appalling group of oil men, Wall Street con artists, and captains of failed industry. I have nothing to offer them, and they don't interest me. I can't imagine relaxing over a beer with Crawford Troy Johnson, III, the Coca-Cola king of Birmingham, and talking about rates of type II diabetes. What would Lee Raymond and I discuss? The weather? How about ExxonMobil's money paid to crackpot global warming deniers?
Clubs like Augusta exist for people with money and power to mingle with other people of money and power with expectations of gaining more money and power. Women are not invited to join because the men do not want to share. They see no benefit. There aren't enough women who can provide sufficient money or power to balance the equation.
So, I laughed when Billy Payne, Chairman of Augusta National, issued his carefully crafted critique of Tiger Woods that included:
''It is simply not the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here,'' Payne said. ''It is the fact that he disappointed all of us, and more importantly, our kids and our grandkids. Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children.''What crap! Payne as the front man for the Augusta National membership was not admonishing Tiger the golfer nor Tiger the father and husband. No. The big boys were upset with Tiger Woods the corporate entity. He was, for many, a meal ticket who, like Fredo Corleone, had been disloyal to the Family. The Men of Augusta were not pleased.
Though I laugh at Billy Payne, I feel comfortable giving Tiger advice because it pertains to behavior on the golf course:
Tiger, please stop the sullen pouting and head hanging hole after hole. I care not what you do off the course, but this on course stuff is teenage behavior and a bad habit. Hogan-up. Remember, you actually get paid to play golf. Get paid a lot of money to play golf. Imagine the rest of us who work indoor jobs, sitting in offices decorated with golf calendars, looking at computers displaying golf course screen savers. We read magazines with your picture on the cover hoping that some of the magic will transfer from the printed page. Our families have no trouble selecting our birthday and Fathers' Day gifts. They hand over beautifully wrapped golf balls, a dozen at a time, for us to top into ponds, pull-hook deep into the trees, and bounce into scrubby rough labeled "Rattlesnake Habitat." We keep our clubs in our cars hoping for days when our schedule permits a long lunch at the driving range and to be prepared for sudden-onset, fair-weather, golfers' sick day disease.
So, enough with the spoiled kid behavior. In every round of golf, only 18 shots end up in the hole. The other roughly 75% (for you; a much higher percentage for average golfers) do not. That's just basic math, not some kind of tragedy, and no reason for the self-pitying reactions.
