The Reaction: A duo of Ignorant Dolts score par for The Masters

By J. Thomas Duffy

Oh my!

Such piety today.

We've been behind on the monitoring of Ignorant Dolts lately, as, during the recent Healthcare Reform debacle, it was going off like a dump truck, stuck in reverse.

So, we just happen to turn the volume up a tiny bit this morning and, it as "BEEP ... BEEP... BEEP ... BEEP... BEEP ... BEEP ..."

Today starts the Master's Golf Tournament, so stepping up first to grab his Ignorant Dolt Crown and Sceptre, is, none, other, than the chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club, Billy Payne;

In an uncharacteristic bit of theater alien to the Augusta National culture, Payne, without prodding, singled out Tiger Woods in a harsh rebuke, saying the world’s top-ranked golfer did not live up to role model expectations and had “disappointed all of us, and more importantly, our kids and our grandkids.”

Reading from a statement, Payne added: “His future will never again be measured only by his performance against par, but measured by the sincerity of his effort to change. I hope he now realizes that every kid he passes on the course wants his swing, but would settle for his smile.”

Say What?

Unless there's a clause in the contract, that says you have to be clean-as-a-whistle to play the Masters (as opposed to having the skill), Mr. Billy Payne should just STFU!

And it is particularly odious of Payne to be going around throwing mud on anyone.

The Masters, the venerated Augusta National Golf Club, didn't have an African-American in their tournament until 1975.

And, a few this morning, have already pointed out the irony of Payne's Ignorant Doltness, as Augusta continues to ban allowing woman members.

Dave Brockington, over on Lawyers, Guns and Money;

Shorter NYT: the Chairman of the prestigious country club located in Georgia that somehow still doesn’t admit women in the year 2010 rebuked some guy for disrespecting women rather than being a role model for our children and grandchildren.

And, Sandy Levinson, over on Balkinization, rips Payne a new one;

This is touching--perhaps Mr. Payne's great-grandfather pleaded with Shoeless Joe Jackson to "say it isn't so"--but I confess to feeling that Mr. Payne's outrage might better be directed at many of his fellow Club members, described by the Times as "chief executives from many of the country’s biggest corporations and investment banks as well as business leaders worldwide." And, of course, every single one of his fellow members is male, since Augusta National is notorious for being a bastion of sexism. But Mr. Payne is apparently shocked and outraged that Mr. Woods, along with being possibly the greatest golfer of all time, was, off the golf course, fucking lots of women other than his wife. But there is, to put it mildly, no similar outrage directed at his fellow Club members, i.e., the heads of "the country's biggest corporations and investment banks," who have, for many years, not only have been totally oblivious to the insult of maintaining Augusta National as an all-male institution, but have also been fucking their employers (metaphorically, of course, though, one suspects, in at least some cases, quite literally) and, in the case of the investment bankers especially, fucking the entire American (and worldwide public) amd using their ill-gotten gains to pay whatever it costs to maintain one's membership at August National Golf Club.

Ahh, but the Ignorant Dolt stage is a bit crowded today, as Thomas Boswell, of the Washington Post, insisted he wasn't going to be denied entry to our Ignorant Dolt roster.

In his column today, he argues that Tiger Woods, for the fact of committing adultery, doesn't deserve to win the Masters.

AUGUSTA, GA. If Tiger Woods wins the Masters on Sunday after all the damage he's done to golf, I plan to rob a bank on Monday; maybe then I'll win a Pulitzer Prize.

[snip]

We know that bad things happen to good people. We cope with it. But when great things happen to people who have acted badly, especially if the bonanza comes fast and arrives ringed with robes of glory, don't we have to draw the line? I'm forgiving, but my brain hasn't turned into pimento cheese. If Woods has a tap-in to win the Masters, I hope his conscience helps him yip it and lip it. Win any other week. But not here. Not now.

[snip]

Still, a Woods win would be an awful fit among our great "comebacks" in sports. Such a victory would feel like vindication of oblivious self-centeredness. What a perverse lesson. On the bright side, it might kill the term "role model" for a generation.

Damage he's done to golf?

Unless Tiger was, in addition to dozens of mistresses, was running around to the golf courses of the country, and fucking the holes on the course, I don't see any damage.

If it wasn't for Tiger Woods, golf could very well be regulated to the Versus Network, or worse, on some other high number cable channel, squeezed in between blocks of infomercials.

It's the age-old canard of sports athletes having the burdensome job of having to be "role-models" on top of everything they do.

Babe Ruth ate hot dogs, drank beer, and hit the shit out of the ball.

Live with it.

I, personally, don't know anyone, family, friends, coworkers, their children, etc, that has every looked up to an athlete as a "role-model".

This role-model thing is meme of the media, as they huff-and-puff over it, all the while repetitiously writing about it, running it on a loop, all in the name of building ratings, selling ads and making money.

Scandals sell, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Masters gets it's highest-ever television ratings this year.

You want disappointment Payne, or damage Boswell?

Maybe, considering the attack on Woods, at the opening of this tournament, that he decides on a "Fuck You", and pulls out.

What story, then, will dominate - some nobody winning the tournament, or Tiger Woods?

Perhaps Boswell, you can share that pimento cheese out of your brain, with Payne, as the two of you cry into your beers at the 19th hole.

So, drop the pious bullshit, Mr. Payne, and Mr. Boswell, and get your sorry asses up here to pick up our Ignorant Dolt loot.

Bonus Riffs

Zandar: The Dumbest Game Ever Played

mistermix: Not Worthy

Top Ten Cloves: Possible Reasons Tiger Woods Is Coming Back To Golf In The Masters