So I was up yesterday morning watching Adam Scott choke away his chance at winning his first major with four bogeys in the last four holes of play in a manner that was equal parts horrifying and heart-breaking. It then occurred to me that of all the people who had been heavy favorites to win the British Open who in the world picked Ernie Els? Els of course was three strokes behind the leader, Adam Scott, when he finished up his round and was the sole beneficiary of Adam Scotts personal tragedy. For that matter who picked Adam Scott?
I spend a lot of time watching ESPN. Way too much time, in fact I actually spent a full 12 hours watching that infernal channel a couple of times this summer, only moving to eat or relieve myself. This is because I’m hopelessly addicted to sports, I have the summer off from school, and ESPN is my only sports channel. I digress, during one of my ESPN watching marathons, I watched the greatest block of sports television not actually involving sporting events. Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable, Around the Horn, and Pardon the Interruption. This is of course what ESPN is, a group of talking heads obsessed with force feeding you their opinions in a manner not at all unlike a french cook force feeding a duck to make foie gras. All of the sports writers on all the various shows began to pick who they thought could win the British Open. Most everyone said Lee Westwood, some said Tiger, and others even said Phil Mickelson or Luke Donald. No one said anything about Adam Scott or Ernie Els.
Why do we do this? How could they possibly know? Out of the hundred golfers (I don’t exactly I didn’t count) that enter the tournament is there any way of really knowing? No there isn’t. My theory is that Tiger changed how we all did this. Once upon a time handicapping a golf tournament was as simple as picking between Tiger and the field. It’s not that easy anymore but, I sports caster and writers feel that they must pick someone. For what? None of them are right because it’s improbable. Ernie Els didn’t play well enough to get invited to the Masters. Unless you knew Ernie personally there would be no way of knowing that he had re-worked his game and that all the work would pay off on Sunday when he won his fourth career major.
There is no need for any of these. It is beyond pointless and is just downright silly. It’s just hard to believe that talented people waste their time with that. Don’t you even get me started on how they do NASCAR . . .
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