Full Throttle

With the PGA Tour making it official - they are going to a NASCAR like Chase playoff in 2007 - a few of the drivers commented on the announcement:

Brandon Whitt, Driver, #38 DW Boogity Grill Tundra: “Will it work? I don’t know. There are a lot of differences between golf and stock car racing. I don’t think they’ve ever tried a playoff in a sport where ‘Shhh!’ was the most important word in the lingo.”

T.J. Bell Driver, #36 Heathcliff Cat Litter Chevrolet “Golf is just different. How much excitement can you generate in a sport where the announcers whisper and it’s considered impolite to boo anyone? Maybe if they threw in a few ‘gotchas’ for each golfer - you know, where the guy is standing over a putt and, like, two or three times a round you get to scream on his backswing. If ‘rubbin’ is racin” then maybe ‘gotchas are golf.’

My sentiments exactly! Excitement in golf? Bawaaahaaahaaa! Best laugh I’ve had this week.

If they want excitement in golf, Bell has the right idea but it’s not taken far enough, they need to try this:

Randomly place two land mines on each fairway. If a player’s drive hits one it’s an automatic one million dollar prize to that player. The grounds crew fills in the “divot” created and play resumes. If a player steps on a mine, well… the field just got shorter and he’ll get an memorial toast at the 19^th hole. In the unlikely event that one “lucky” golfer hits both a mine with his ball and later inh the round his foot, the million dollar check will be awarded to the John Deere Corporation for further study of greens cutting.

If both mines on one hole are taken out of play, so is the hole. The obvious objective of this type of playoff is to hit all 36 mines and remove all 18 holes prior to Sunday’s final round. In which case the golf broadcast would be substituted with 4 hours of watching Emril Lagassi kneed 200lbs of bread dough.

NASCAR, Auto Racing, Sports, PGA