The Sports Curmudgeon

Much as I would prefer not to do it, I have to write about golf today. There was neither a stunning victory nor a monumental collapse to talk about over the weekend. In fact, if you gave me truth serum I would have to admit that I have no idea what tournament happened this weekend nor any idea who won or lost whatever Titanic struggle unfolded on the PGA links. No, I need to write about Tripp Isenhouer and his alleged killing of a hawk on a golf course.

Let me set the stage here by dismissing Trip Isenhour as a force majeure in the PGA world of golf. This is a man about to turn 40 years old who had been on the PGA Tour for three of the last four years and is now playing on the Nationwide Tour. Ben Hogan’s place in golfing history is in no danger…

According to court papers, Isenhour was filming a segment for something called Shoot Like A Pro when he became angry at the distraction caused by the squawking of a red-shouldered hawk. Reportedly, he hit balls at it while it was far off in a tree and when the bird flew to a nearer tree, Isenhour again took aim and hit the bird with a golf ball and killed it.

Allow me to assume for a moment here that things are as they are reported - - mainly because there was video equipment running at the time and Mr. Isenhour has not tried to deny that any of this ever happened. If this is true, then Tripp Isenhour is slightly – but only slightly – above Michael Vick on the scale of humans who do despicable things to animals. Let’s get a couple of things straight here:

1. Tripp Isenhour – like all of his professional golf prima donna colleagues – has exactly no entitlement to abject silence every time they look down at the ground and see a white spheroid on a background of green or tan. The PGA employs crowd control goons to hold up signs to create silence while these pampered prisses hit their shots, but when these spoiled brats cannot even shoot an instructional video because a creature of Mother Nature deigns to make a noise, then those spoiled brats all need to be called out for what they are - - spoiled brats.

2. Absent this event, the odds against Tripp Isenhour making it into the news for his golf prowess any time this year were more than 100-1.

3. Had this been Tiger Woods who was similarly “interrupted” and enraged, he would not have killed the bird. Woods would have sent his caddy off to catch the bird and throttle it and toss it into the nearest water hazard.

Perhaps the time has come for fans to suggest to the PGA that abject silence during a golf swing is not a birthright nor is it essential to the continuation of Western Civilization as we have come to know it. Even better, maybe they should put Mr. Isenhour in the stocks about 300 yards out on a golf fairway and let other tour pros hit balls at him - - to see if that raises his awareness of what he did in any way.

Meanwhile, I do not want to let the animal rights goofs off the hook too easily here. These folks have been on the fringes of the sports news for a while now since Michael Vick took his final “perp-walk” and they needed to find a way to get their monotonous message in our faces yet again. When this happened last week, they lost not a single moment petitioning the PGA to “to condemn animal cruelty in wake of Nationwide Tour golfer’s killing of a hawk with golf ball.” How feckless and meaningless is that – except as a way to get your name and the name of your organization in the newspapers. Of course the PGA will condemn animal cruelty - - and so will I. However, animal rights activists and I will probably part company should we think about a joint trip down that path; I have no problem with killing and eating animals; most animal rights activists do; that is a gulf that is not going to be spanned.

By the way, is Dave Winfield hoping that no one puts his name in juxtaposition with this story? Sorry, I just did that…

Since I am talking about a minor sport here, – golf – let me keep on that minor sport vector and talk about pro rassling for a moment. The “event of the year” – Wrestlemania – will be happening in the next few weeks in Orlando Florida and boxer, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., will be part of the card “fighting” someone known as “The Big Show”. Pardon me, but I thought The Big Show was canceled when Keith Olbermann left ESPN and no longer did SportsCenter with Dan Patrick…

One report has Mayweather making $20M for this one appearance in this one show. I admit that I am guessing here, but I suspect that the accountants who did this deal are the same ones who did the $250M deal between MLS and David Beckham for Beckham to play soccer in MLS games. Two important words here: Not … Likely.

In boxing news, The Guardian reported in London that Evander Holyfield is pondering an offer from Mike Tyson to meet again for the third time. Will someone give me a break here? Does the winner get to fight Rocky Marciano?

I mentioned above the David Beckham/MLS contract that was so fraudulently portrayed as a payment to him for playing soccer in the US. Well, perhaps the MLS has matured to the point where not every aging and over-the-hill top shelf soccer player is needed in MLS. Celestine Babayaro was on the Nigerian Olympic team in 1996 and just a few months ago was playing for Newcastle United in the English Premiere League. He came to play for the LA Galaxy – alongside Beckham – and the Galaxy sent him packing. Maybe the level of competency in MLS is on the steep-rise portion of the curve…

In another minor sport/niche sport, I ran across this description of a sporting event and did not even understand the vocabulary. The sport is surfing and here is a “play-by-play” of sorts:

“It was a close duel for much of the 35-minute, best-two-waves final, with Slater [the winner of this event] posting an 8.67 out of a possible 10 to lead, then watching his rival slash a right-hander to the beach for a 9.33 to move in front.

”But if a statement was made, it was by Slater. During a 9.27 ride that would put him ahead to stay, he bashed the lip and spun a reverse, then rode backward on his swallowtail, fins first, for at least 15 yards before spinning back around amid cheers from the beach.”

Say what? Here is the only thing I think I know from the above prose: The winner probably did not fall off his surfboard and require a rescue by the lifeguards on duty.

Finally, some things just go together - - like peanut butter and chocolate. Other things just do not go together - - like mustard and milk. And sometimes when you put two things in juxtaposition, you find yourself drawing strange conclusions - - as did Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Anyone up for the Chugiak 500?

“Just imagine the possibilities if NASCAR ever took over the Iditarod:

“No more of those 1,150-mile overland marathons — just 200 laps ’round and ’round on the icy, high-banked Shaktoolik Supersledway.

“Malamutes and huskies bred with longer right legs for the constant left-hand turns.

“Side-by-side bumping, known as ‘trading fur.’

“Pit stops for a splash of Alpo and new right-side dogs.

“Yellow caution flags for, uh, dog debris on the track.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…