Elephants--and Apparently Tiger--Never Forget.

In case you were wondering, golfers on average have the ability to remember more than other professional athletes.  Great news for golfers?  Maybe.  Honestly, I suspect the truth is not so much that golfers' memories are significantly stronger, but that the memories of other athletes are significantly impaired: A running back who spends Sundays being tackled by the human equivalent of monster trucks is unlikely to retain a superior level of mental acuity.  And how much would he want to remember anyway?  Sure, touchdowns would be pleasant enough, but those will be vastly outnumbered by reminiscences of one's face being driven into the Astroturf.  And even for the golfers, isn't this damning with faint praise?  Basketball players can revel in their abilities to leap higher than mere mortal; football players possess near superhuman strength; baseball players boast of uncanny hand-eye coordination and the capacity to masticate great quantities of tobacco.  Golfers?  They can remember that the 13th hole curves to the left. 

To The Victors Go the Spoils

Did you know that the winner of the America's Cup gets to set the rules for the competition the next time it takes place?  Well, of course you didn't!  Why would you?  My guess is that no more than about, say, one percent of the population follows yachting's premiere event.  And leave it to a "sport" tailor-made for the richest of the rich to embrace a rule whereby the rich, in effect, get richer.  Still, when they heard about this, the champions in other major sports--who, let's face it, are also members of the ultra-rich--thought it was a great idea, and they have all proposed certain rules changes of their own.

The San Francisco Giants have introduced the following adjustments to the standard baseball rules for this season.  For their home games, Giants players will have the option to use either standard wood bats or bats made out of aluminum.  Visiting teams will be required to bat with whatever loose chunks of concrete and rebar may be found around AT&T Park.  Additionally, the Giants will play all 162 games at home.

The Super-Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens have required all opposing players, in the interest of safety, to encase themselves in large blocks of memory foam.  Furthermore, Raven field goals will be worth seven points, and, in order to earn seven points for a touchdown, players on visiting teams must, after reaching the end-zone, recite from memory a Shakespearean sonnet (of Joe Flacco's choosing) in Maori.

The Miami Heat have declared that, for the finals, the San Antonio Spurs must field a team composed only of native-born American citizens, thus disqualifying Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker.  Duncan may receive dispensation to play, however, if and only if he agrees to wear wooden shoes, in keeping with the traditions of the Virgin Islands' colonial history.

Speaking of beating up on the Dutch, the 2010 World Cup champions, Spain, have decided that they will just use their hands from now on, 'cause, let's face it, that was always a stupid rule anyway.

Finally, in defense of his 2012 US Open golf championship, Webb Simpson has declared that only players with stupid first names be allowed to compete.  Many commentators feel this was a flawed strategy, as either "Tiger" or "Eldrick" certainly qualify.

Ageless Wonders (Plus, Stuff WOS Hates)

Although he came up short in the final round of the British Open, Tom Watson was the talk of the sports world this weekend. Watson, in case you don't know, is a professsional golfer. Going into today's final round at Turnberry Wells (Scotland), he held a one-stroke lead in the tournament. Had he held on to win, it would have been his sixth victory in the tournament, tying a record. More notable was that Watson was accomplishing this less than two months away from his 60th birthday.

People everywhere, golf enthusiasts or not, thrilled to this story of the ageless wonder keeping pace with--indeed, outperforming--competitors half his age. While we respect Watson's feat as much as anyone, we cannot help but see his impressive run for the claret jug as support for a hypothesis that we formulated some time ago: Golf is not a sport.

Now, wait, just wait. We do not deny the skill of professional golfers. But that's all it is: a skill, something that can be learned. What makes Tiger Woods special is not that he can shoot under par at a major golf tournament; what makes him special is that he can do it over and over and over again (with the exception of this weekend, apparently). It's really just about discipline and practice. In other words, there is nothing stopping anybody, anywhere, from beating Tiger Woods. If the Solipsist started today and practiced regularly, HE could challenge Tiger.

You may object that this is true of any sport. It isn't. Consider: Do you know anyone who plays tennis? Not a pro, just somebody who enjoys the game and is in pretty good shape. This player probably beats most competitors. But could this person outplay Roger Federer or Serena Williams? Hell, could he or she return a SERVE from either of these people? Our guess is, no. On the other hand, if you know people who play golf regularly, you would have to say that, if they went to Bethpage Black and had a great day, they could conceivably shoot as low as anyone on the professional tour. Why not?

The essence of sport is competition between players, whether individuals or teams. What makes sports interesting is watching well-matched competitors trying their best to outperform each other--trying to excel while their opponents try to keep them from excelling. And it really has very little to do with the absolute skill level of the competitors. That's why it's ultimately more interesting to watch a couple of equally-skilled amateur tennis players battle it out than it is to watch a professional golfer make a spectacular tee shot, even if that professional golfer is a member of AARP. Watching sports is fascinating; watching skill demonstrations can be interesting, but more often than not it just reminds us of grading papers.

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STUFF WOS HATES

You know what I hate? Keith Morrison! He's a television "journalist" on NBC. He's also a pseudo-literary wannabe intellectual toolbag! Who the hell does he think he is? Shakespeare? Now, I love me some real-crime TV like Dateline. But every episode narrated by that wombat makes me want to shoot myself in the head! If there were a dictionary entry for "brain-dead jack-off," his picture would be next to it! Good God! I mean, every cliche, every melodramatic metaphor, every moralistic rant, every line of his crap writing is enough to make me sick! (Ack! I just puked in my mouth!) He thinks he's some kind of master stylist, but he's more Jenny McCarthy than Cormac McCarthy, less Elmore Leonard than Elmer Fudd! You ever see a sine curve? You know how it goes uuup and dooown, uuuup and dooown? Well that's Morrison's speech pattern! Just what we need, right? An anchorman who learned his diction in trig. class! Could he BE more monotonous? My laptop has a less irritating speech pattern. Less boring, too! "TIME (rising voice) was an enemy (falling voice) for the prosecutors (leveling off)." It's not easy to lull someone to sleep with a description of a triple homicide, BUT HE MANAGES TO DO IT! It's as if Count Chocula were anchoring the nightly news! This man makes Maury Povich look like Walter Cronkite, and Walter Cronkite look like. . . .well, like God! Listen, Keith Morrison, you cereal-shilling, pseudo-vampiric, sine-curve speaking dolt: Get off the air and out of my life before I find you and punch you in your stupid ugly face!!!!

Thank you for listening.

--WOS

Better watch out for WOS, Keith

(Image from "Inside Dateline")