…… The Masters ……

Ah yes, it’s Springtime in the Rockies, I’ve got high def TV, and I can sit back and watch the Weather Channel on the Golf Channel talking about The Masters. This year looks a little unsettled weather wise. Mother Nature and golf are not always the best of friends. Money and status just can’t buy blue sky’s.

For as long as I can remember The Masters has been kind of an intro to spring, and with the introduction of Tiger in 1997, this is the twenty year anniversary of his first of four wins, it became even more entertaining. To me, it’s sad Tiger, once again, is physically unable to play. It was so fun to watch Earl Woods, a big, rough looking black guy, sitting among the rich members, saying, “ that’s my son tearing up your dog track, how do rich guys like that!” Or I think he wanted to say that. They tried to Tiger proof the course, I’ve always wondered why they never Jack proofed it, but Tiger won a couple more anyway.

Although The Masters is a sporting event, there has always been an aura of elitism. I never thought much about it until, race, women’s rights, and white men with a shit load of money became talking points over the last twenty years. There has always been a philanthropic aspect to all of professional golf, and I’m sure a lot of people have been helped along the way, but The Master’s has always been over the top in every way possible, good and bad. Snooty, control freak, extremely rich dudes, in their green jackets, members of a very exclusive club, opening their pristine, very private grounds, to the unwashed, hard working, common man. And we just eat it up, like the egg salad on crustless bread.

So will I watch? Of course I will, but this year I will be wondering how many of those green jackets, how many of the participants, how many of the spectators, voted for, you know who. Golf has become political, maybe it always was! And now, you and I are paying for weekend golf trips to Florida for president double bogey on Air Force 1, and this all goes on like nothing’s changed. I can tell you for sure, nobody in a green jacket is going to stand up and call a penalty on themselves for this fiasco we find ourselves in. I would love it if Earl Woods was still alive, and Tiger was still Tiger, so he could look at some green jacket and say. “Watch my son tear up your dog track, again!”