Published: December 14, 2009 06:07 pm      

STUMPTALK: Are there any golf groupies in Cumberland County?

Every day now, a gorgeous new female golf groupie appears saying she’s been with Tiger Woods. I wonder, is it him with his good looks and billions or is it the golf? After all, Bill Gates also has billions and is not a bad looking guy. Of course he doesn’t have Tiger’s running back/wide receiver physique, but he’s not all that bad, and I’ve heard that money, power and intelligence can attract a certain kind of attractive, if somewhat nerdy, groupie. Nonetheless, we haven’t heard anything about Bill Gates and women other than his wife. So it must be the golf that attracts so many pretty women to Tiger.

Road signs say that Cumberland County is the Golf Capital of Tennessee. I wonder why that is. I didn’t move here for the golf. I’ve tried golf only a few times, after which I decided that my mental health would be better if I didn’t play. For those who haven’t tried, golf is probably the hardest game there is to play well. Lots of people, mostly men, hack around pretending to like the game. And I know they are pretending because if I did anything that badly, I would need professional acting lessons to convince anyone that I liked it.

What people, especially men, really like about golf is the 19th hole. That’s where golfers gather after playing eighteen holes to talk about, actually to lie about, the game. Depending on the course or the club, 19th holes can be pretty nice. They serve booze and food, but mostly booze, which gives men a great opportunity to complain about the course, their slices, their hooks, yips and bad lies (where the balls land not untruths). Yips causes golfers to send balls into the water, the woods, or onto the interstate, and to miss putts (Miss Putts is not a golf instructor). According to them, yips is a temporary condition from which good golfers recover. (Yeah, right.) Other athletes get yips. For example, a few years back second baseman Chuck Knoblauch suddenly lost his ability to make throws to first base. That was a real case of yips, but most yips cases are really excuses for bad play, that is, lack of playing skill. “Boy, I couldn’t catch a break today. Every one of my drives faded right (sliced).” (Truth is, his drives do that all the time, but no one says anything because he will buy a round when it’s his turn and sometimes when it isn’t.)

On second thought maybe it’s not just Tiger’s golf that attracts the groupies. Otherwise I would see them at the 19th hole. There, you see men only lying about their lies, or worse. Women of all sorts avoid that company. I did see a beautiful woman associated with golf, but that was in a movie. That was Renee Russo in Tin Cup with Kevin Costner. Costner played the part of a driving range pro who gave lessons and Russo was his student.

Now Kevin Costner probably has to avoid groupies, but he’s a good looking guy who has made millions in the movies. He’s really not a golf pro, although he likes to make movies about sports and sports figures. He played a major league pitcher in For the Love of the Game and a baseball aficionado in Field of Dreams.

Thinking about Tiger, it occurs to me that golf can be dangerous for married men who philander. After all, his house has every kind of golf club and we know a golf club can be a potent weapon even when wielded by someone with little golfing skill.

After Tiger’s accident, I heard fire and rescue departments might add golf clubs to their rescue equipment. It seems that golf clubs are good for breaking windows in Cadillac Escalades when one wants to extricate someone who has had an accident. Fire departments will put golf clubs in with the Jaws of Life.

Tiger should be happy that he plays golf, however. What if he were a competitive shooter?