All posts in Golf

Rory McIlroy won the U.S. Open yesterday, following up a disappointing Master’s performance by kicking the butt of this country’s premier (and super-hyped) golf tournament. Rory finished at an Open-record -17, accompanied as he was by hours of breathless lovefest comments from commentators, and even an NBC-produced promo that basically nominated him for Eagle Scout and unnaturalized U.S. president.

(Also, whomever is responsible for the “Rory, Rory, Hallelujah” headline? Fired.)

I’m not even kidding. Did you watch it? I mean, the guy is a cutie and seems to have his wits about him, but the last time I saw a list of super-positive adjectives strewn across a screen with voiceovers, it was February and Bob Costas was sitting in a fake Vancouver living room. There’s Rory in a funny wig, looking, what was it, “grounded”? There’s Rory admitting he said that bitchass thing about Tiger. There’s Rory doing the good work (which is indeed good, no snark here about that) in Haiti. There’s Rory admitting his Master’s run sucked.

Oh, media. OH MEDIA.

Anyway. The thing I’m on about now is Tiger. And what I mean by this is that I am sick and tired of every time someone wins something around here, somebody else is the story. What is with that, American media and people? Tiger Woods torched his marriage and his career (at least in the short-term) and also Tiger is what, now? 35? Tiger is not a phenom anymore. Tiger is a really good golfer who is aging and who has played mind games with basically everyone in his orbit. When that happens? It lands on you. It’s inescapable, unless you’re like, Jay Leno, who still has a lucrative job and a nightly tv time slot and I don’t understand that at all.

Anyway. What I’m reading now is that, wow, that McIlroy kid did a great job, but I sure wish he’d played Tiger. I sure wish Tiger was out there. It would have made things so much more exciting.

Snooze. I may be going into inappropriate mama bear and judgmental harpy mode simultaneously here, but I don’t even enjoy watching Tiger play golf anymore. It’s all the press conferences and the whining and “Oh, my knee!”

Minus the press conferences it’s a lot like an average day at the mall with my grandma, may she rest in peace.

Yes, I know. Men want competition. They want chest-banging and the young man (who can’t possibly be this good right? Can’t. Possibly. Be. This. Good.) to go head-to-head with the aging sex fiend who’s extremely handy with a golf club and apparently dextrous in myriad other ways, and about that I am just not enthused.

I like the looks of Rory McIlroy, basically. I’m not about to go all NBC-promo crazy about him, because if there’s one thing I can learn it’s a lesson. And whereas I am not entirely cynical about humanity, does everyone remember the Tiger worship of years past gone awry, when he just seemed to be an amazing golfer with a nice life and a supreme mentor of a dad and a swing, oh my lands, a swing? And then he turned out to be a little, or actually way more freaky than your average Wide World of Sports (yes, I know that was ABC) clip would have had us believe? I mean, my golf-addict father threw a golf shoe at the tv a couple of years ago when Tiger popped up post-scandal, so disappointed was he. A SHOE. And my father is not a family values preacher, put it that way.

I’m not about to put Rory McIlroy on any kind of pedestal, because oh how the mighty golfers (and football players, and cyclists, and…) fall. But what I’m also not going to do is say that his win today at the Open was any less valuable or exciting just because Tiger Woods was off icing his knee and maybe dirty texting a girl or six and not there to play him. That was a pretty great field of golfers out there, and if they couldn’t close to catch Rory? That’s still pretty cool.

Tiger? Whatever. To every golfer there is a season. I may be a big jerk, but I’m still kind of hoping his reaping is over.