Crack=Golf

For all of Jemele Hill's embarrassment regarding her indulging Godwin's Law I think we can all agree Hitlergate was merely a careless slip of the tongue. One of my pet peeves in life is people going out of their way to be offended, and I don't think anyone could truly believe Hill is a closet anti-semite, she's just stupid. But think about what might be genuinely offensive. Maybe like, a whole column instead of just a throwaway line. And maybe not like Hitler, who sure, killed a lot of people, but something that has ruined millions upon millions of lives, and continues to do so to this day...like drug abuse.

Scoop Jackson has made a career out of insulting your intelligence and damaging his credibility with his storied history of predictions;

-L.A. will beat Boston because Kobe is "thirsty" (where his fascination with drug abuse again raises its head)
-Kevin Garnett is not validated by this championship
-TJ Ford and Jose Calderon make a good partnership and shouldn't be split
-Kobe can't win MVP
-fuck you, Cubs and Sox
-and finally, my personal favourite, Shaq will power the Suns to a title, or at least a Finals appearance

But after failing so frequently, Scoop is taking a different tact - being outright offensive.

Why I will never play golf

I've got a friend named Ray. He came up to me the other week and said, "I want you to play in this golf tournament."

Here we go.

the audacious prick!

Now, Ray and I have been friends for years, traveled the world together on assignments. He knows that I don't do golf. Never have, never about to. We've had this conversation before, but still, he asks. The tournament was for a good cause, a fundraiser for someone we both know. He threw in the variable that the tournament wouldn't take place until a year from now, which gave me time to "learn" how to play. He even offered to purchase me a set of irons and pay for driving lessons so that I could at least "every now and then hit the ball close to the green."

The optimism.

this "Ray" character just won't let up, will he? Optimism isn't half of it, it's pure arrogance on his part to assume that you, a longtime friend, would help him out with the promotion of a charity event. I mean, you're a busy man! And helping out a charity is not only very stressful and difficult, but also occupies a tremendous amount of time. It's not like some afternoon of golfing, Jesus Christ, enough Ray!

Everything Ray shot at me I shot down. Even the sentimental aspect of what the tournament is about didn't shift my stance. I will tell you as I told him, "I'll give the foundation $10,000 before I pick up a golf club and try to raise them $200."

no, no, you're not a complete douchebag, not at all.

And when he asked why (for the 28th time) I explained to him (for the 28th time) why I treat the game of golf the same way The New Yorker should satire: I stay away from it. Far, far, far, far … far away.

topical. Perhaps we shouldn't be throwing stones in the glass house that you are about to build here.

There are four things in life I refuse to do: Crack, video games, MySpace and golf. I've seen the damage all can do, how they can destroy people's lives. And of the four of them, golf, in my opinion, is easily the most addictive -- the one that would ruin my life the quickest if I ever touched a 9-iron.

I know what you're thinking "Jimmy, don't do this, he's just poking fun". But first of all, that's all Hill did and she was raked over the coals. Hell, that's all anyone does these days and they pay with their first born's blood. And secondly, he does this through the whole column. This is the first of many references to drug abuse, a very serious issue, maybe the most serious. If you had a son that died of a crack cocaine overdose how do you feel right now? Compared to Myspace, video games and golf. Scoop also says he's more afraid of the ramifications of picking up a 9-iron than a crack pipe. That's offensive, even if it is a joke, and he takes it way, way further.

How it happens, I don't know. But I've seen it. All of us have. We've seen friends or family members reach a certain age, pick up some clubs, and never come back. They're gone, walking zombies. The game gets into their system like meth.

I've seen people, friends of friends, on meth. They look thoroughly unprepared for a gallavant on the front nine, I'll tell you that Scoop. Drug reference #2.

Their eyes, walk and language change. They start talking in handicaps. Closets become full of Callaway caps and Titleist polos. They go to Hilton Head and Scottsdale for vacation instead of Amsterdam and Brazil. They disappear weekends at a time.

hilarious. Just for any readers that have had Scoop's problem of distinguishing between meth addicts and golfers, here's a quick peek.Meth addict...Golfer. One more time? Meth addict...Golfer.

We all down? No, Scoop, you're having difficulty?

I've watched dudes lose $100,000-a-year jobs because they missed too many days and hours at work, stuck on the golf course. I've seen dudes succeed through drug, alcohol, sex and gambling rehab programs, but golfers can't stop golfing.

A friend of mine was fired from his job for habitual tardiness. He couldn't get to work by 9 a.m. but never missed a 5:30 a.m. tee time. Why? He couldn't answer. But with his first unemployment check, he bought a set of TaylorMade clubs.

I asked another friend, whose wife left him because he spent, in her own words, "every waking moment of his life that he wasn't at work on that damn golf course," how he could justify choosing golf over his family (they had two kids). His response: "Golf balls don't talk back." His wife got the house, both cars, custody of the kids, half of his income and 401K, alimony and child support. The last time I talked to him, to see how he was doing, he was screaming with joy into the phone, "I just played Pebble Beach!!!!"

this is the thing about this article. It's relentless, the point is to compare drugs to golf. It's not some silly little bad joke, it's systematic. This is the point of the article, I'm not cherry picking at all. Golf is some horrible ailment that's ruining lives, dividing families, crippling the economy, destroying the very fabric of American society. With these real life, very grave examples, Scoop officially crosses the line and even though this was never funny, it becomes offensive. Like - I lost my job because I compared a sport with the highest participation rate in the world to drug abuse...repeatedly...on a sports website - offensive.

I've seen young, multimillionaire athletes enter professional sports and do nothing with their spare time (outside of hitting the strip clubs) except spend hours upon hours locked up in exquisite hotel rooms in front of wall-mounted flat screens addicted to everything from Madden to Vice City. I've seen older, mega-millionaire athletes put those joysticks down, pick up a set of Honmas and spend more time on golf courses than they did trying to perfect the sport they were born to play.

It seems like every professional athlete gets hooked on golf. It takes over their lives. Even pro golfers are not immune because they seem to be the only pro athletes who don't retire. When I asked Craig Bowen, a former PGA instructor and now sales director for Electric Golf Organizer Inc., what professional golfers do for recreation, he said, "They die."

it's also corrupting our youth.

How morbid. You literally could replace "golf" with "narcotics" everywhere in this article and it would read exactly the same. I know it's supposed to be a joke (at least, I think I do, each passing sentence casts doubt on that assumption), but not only is it not funny, it has such a sombre tone, cites real life, devastating examples, cites not one, but two different specific drugs...I literally cannot believe this got approved by the editorial staff at ESPN.

Don't confuse this with what you might think is the obvious. To the contrary, I love watching golf. Have for decades. Even before Tiger entered the sport, I followed it. Just won't play.

no, no, you're not a complete douchebag, not at all. Part #2.

My best friend, a dude I grew up with, godfather to my youngest, he plays. Serious. He started playing golf with his old man around the age of 8, and over the past 25 years has hit consistently in the low 70s. For 25 years he tried to get me to come out and hit with him. It's never happened. He finally stopped asking five years ago.

Scoop Jackson, in addition to his many, many character flaws, is also a terrible friend.

The attempts continue. My godbrother; my cousin; my college roommate's best friend; Ray. None golfed when they were growing up, but now treat the sport like Tatum O'Neal does street narcotics. They're Pookies, Marion Berrys. They can't stop. They're why I run from golf. They are why I'll never play.

drug reference #3.

In fairness, you are probably asking, "What made me like this?"

no, to repeat, I'm asking how the hell this was published by ESPN.

I once saw this guy in Chicago when I was a kid. It was one of those typically vicious mid-winter afternoons: 10 inches of snow on the ground, temp minus-15, minus-35 with wind chill. He was waiting in his car for his wife to get off work. I was also in the car, waiting for my Moms, who worked with the man's wife. After about 5 minutes, he stepped out of the heated Volvo, dressed in full Eskimo gear with a Bears skullcap pulled down over his ears. He closed the door of his car, left the motor running, took two steps away from the car, put his left hand slightly over his right and began to imaginarily work on his short game. The man didn't even have a club in his hand! That's when I said to myself, "Self, anything that can make a man do that, you need to stay the hell away from."

So far I have. The reality is, how long will the power of golf allow me to continue?

on a personal note, I have done this very thing, the invisible golf swing, basically caught it off my father, and I only play golf about once a year. Usually with my Dad. It's a really nice father/son bonding moment. He's gotten too old to play cricket (our favourite sport) so a net session is out of the question but it's a great, manly thing to do and a great, fun afternoon. To quote Bill Hicks comment on the social evil that is golf...

"I know it’s not a very popular idea, you dont hear it very often anymore, but its the truth! I have played golf before and ah….. I had a real great time. Didn’t murder anybody, didn’t rob anybody, didn’t rape anybody, didn’t beat anybody, didn’t lose one fucking job, laughed my ass off, and went about my day…Sorry!"