Even in a highly divided nation, we can all agree that golf is boring to watch. Until now.
When Phil Mickelson announced this week that he was taking a break from the sport to spend more time with his money, it was widely regarded as a preemptive strike — a self-suspension of sorts, before the grand poobahs of golf did it for him.
His two sins were: 1. Teaming up with an uncivilized band of murderers and thugs in Saudi Arabia to create a new golf league, and 2. attempting to redistribute the river of cash running into the PGA’s bank account. And not in that order.
If you’re going to take a shot at the king, you better not miss, and Mickelson’s shot bounced off the cart path, went over the pine straw and through the clubhouse window. Anyone who might have had any sympathy for his coup attempt listened in horror as Mickelson, using language normally associated with Redd Foxx, ticked off every sin the Saudi peoples have committed since the Nabataeans slaughtered the Lihyanites in 65 B.C.
But he went on to say that all this violent mayhem, including the murder and dismemberment of a Washington Post journalist, could be excused because of the Saudis’ willingness to take a shot at the PGA and its “obnoxious greed.”
This is scarcely a paraphrase, it’s pretty much exactly how he put it. A little raw maybe, but you understand his point: What’s a little torture and savagery if you can stick it to some tycoon sitting on the beach at Fisher Island drinking a gin fizz?
We all love Phil, but this had to be the greatest “What was he thinking?” moment in sports since Jim Marshall ran the football into the wrong end zone. And as for Phil’s new golf league, he couldn’t have lost allies faster if he’d invaded Ukraine.
Fellow pro Rory McIlroy said Phil’s position was “naive, selfish, egotistical, ignorant, surprising, disappointing and sad.” But other than that …
Another golfer tartly noted that Phil might not be the best person to toss about the word “greed.”
The blessing of extreme talent always seems to come with a side order of a loose screw. Throw in copious amounts of cash, and hilarity or tragedy are almost surely to result.
So you do something that requires an apology. No, scratch that. You do something that requires something that sounds like an apology, but really isn’t.
The most disappointing apologies are the brief, “this is not who I am” or “I’m sorry if I offended anyone” sort, that have little in the way of entertainment value.
Fortunately, we can expect more from a professional like Mickelson, and boy did he deliver. Not only did he hit the “not who I am,” “sorry if I offended” daily double, he stuck the landing on a full quadruple Lutz of “I didn’t say what I said, but if I did say what I said, I’m right, I just said it wrong,” a deeply hedged apology that went on and on with every imaginable parse and dodge of one who just doesn’t understand why the rest of the world finds it so difficult to come around to his way of thinking.
“I used words I sincerely regret that do not reflect my true feelings or intentions,” he said. “It was reckless, I offended people, and I am deeply sorry for my choice of words.”
Yeah, yeah, no. It’s not really the choice of words, old sport. If, instead of crude profanity, you had chosen “Forsooth thine must sup with yon barbarians to assuage ye inequities of man,” you’re still tapping into blood money to stick it to you enemies.
The issue isn’t how you choose your words, it’s how you choose your friends.
Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Mickelson’s coup attempt against PGA garners no sympathy