Whatever the case, the CT crew has been to the Wachovia Golf Championship every year and not done a single story about golf… or golfers. 

It’s not that I don’t like golf.  I’m a big fan.  I used to play all the time.  I watch whenever I can.  Andy loves and plays golf too.  This is not a “golf hater” journal. 

Let’s just say I don’t agree with everyone else in this cult. 

I think pro golfers are regular people with perhaps a physical gift who spend a lot of time being good at what they do.  And what they do is hit a ball with a stick.

Professional golfers are terrific talents and obviously great at what they do, but I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face during an interview.  I would bust out laughing no matter what they say.  Talk about pampered men who do zero real work and make a fortune.  And please don’t argue that hitting a golf ball for hours every day is tough work.  Framing houses is real work.  The fellow who fixes the lawnmowers at Quail Hollow does real work.   

Golfers (and television show hosts) don’t do real work.

Golfers are geniuses!  I’ll give them that.  They have figured out life.  They walk around some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth all day long as people politely clap for them… even when they miss.  Golfers get more sympathy than any other humans on earth.

The disabled should be so lucky.

This is how work should be for everyone.  Stink it up on a business trip and lose a big account?  Walk back into the office to polite applause and sympathy.

Say your building contractor screws up your house.  Invite him out for a walk around.  Have the neighbors gather ‘round and lightly clap their hands and shake their heads sympathetically to acknowledge his failed project.  Buck up, mister.  You’ll get it right next time!

Try this one: when you’re on an important call, have a couple old-men volunteers hold up their hands and hush the rest of the office so you can concentrate.  See how that goes over.  Nobody move please, I’m on the phone.

They (and I don’t know who “they” are) claim golfers have superior concentration.  And that Tiger Woods can concentrate like no other.  They make it sound like he can bend steel with his mind.  I’ve seen Tiger play.  People with great powers of concentration don’t get angry when they screw up.  They stay level, unaffected.  I think Tiger has lousy concentration. 

They all do.  These guys can barely think their way out of a sand box.  They’re so bad at focusing the slightest movement or noise sends them into a tizzy and watch out!  Temper, temper!  Like spoiled brats who never have to share, they snarl at the photographers or some old lady unwrapping a mint.  If they’re so great at concentrating, nothing around them should matter.

I’ve heard the arguments.  “So many things can go wrong in one golf swing.”  “The slightest twist or twitch can send the ball off course.” 

Big deal.  If you’re a professional, do your job and quit whining. 

Let me be the first to say it publicly: Golfers stink at concentrating.  They can barely concentrate long enough to complete one decent swing.  And a swing takes roughly one second.  And if they have an average day and take 72 swings, why that’s one whole minute and 12 seconds of attempted concentration a day!  Wow!  These guys really are special.

Let’s thank the dear Lord golfers aren’t brain surgeons.  72 seconds in an operating room won’t get it done.

And don’t get me started about TV people.  We’re worse than golfers.  Hang on a second.  (I’m whispering now.) Andy’s making an important video edit… I have to be really quiet and motionless.  It’s only fair.  He’s barely moved at all while I’ve been writing this journal.  My old-men volunteers have kept him behind the ropes and hushed.

Darn.  He missed it.  Oh well.  I’ll applaud anyway.  “Nice try, dude.”

Okay, I have to run to a uh, hmmm, umm… it’ll come to me… can’t think.  Someone farted and now I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do next. 

Ahhhh, how sweet!  Everyone here at Carolina Traveler Interplanetary Headquarters is standing all around me… softly clapping.  Good times.

Mike Redding