2006 wish list: A PGA Tour player with something to say

As we enter 2006, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that golf needs one thing more than anything else: a competent bad boy.

John Daly had the title for a while, but he’s gone way too mainstream. They could find Daly passed out naked with a brigade of hookers at the first tee of the U.S. Open this year, and everyone would laugh it off. “Oh that John, isn’t he colorful. Grip it and rip it, eh John?”

At least the LPGA has their bevy of bodacious babies to keep an eye on. But really, how controversial do you expect Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel to be? These are the corporate kids, and they will likely keep their mind on golf and selling whatever products they’re told to sell.

We do get to see Creamer in a bathing suit now and again. But in this post-Britney Spears world, it’s not like she’s breaking any new ground or anything. Mostly our best bet with the young LPGA stars is to wait until one or more of them go Jennifer Capriati on us, but that just seems morbid.

The PGA doesn’t even have the flesh factor going for it. Not that we’d want it to, mind you. Craig Stadler in a thong would likely only appeal to the seriously fetishistic.

The Europeans have guys like Darren Clarke who’s willing to say whatever comes to mind and is funny. Unfortunately, in 2005, studies have shown that 98 percent of all sentences used by U.S. PGA players included the phrase “my ‘A’ game.”

Now I’m not saying the PGA Tour needs to bring out a few tattooed ex-convicts to roam the course and occasionally beat down an official with a wedge (though that would be fantastic). What I am saying is that a little color won’t kill them.

Golf used to have guys like Sam Snead and Lee Trevino wandering around, producing great quips that showed they weren’t overly impressed with themselves.

“Columbus went around the world in 1492. That isn’t a lot of strokes when you consider the course,” Trevino is quoted as saying.

At very least, the PGA Tour needs someone like Mac O’Grady to come back. Someone anti-establishment who would have the courage and outright stupidity to use old forged Hogan irons and persimmon woods to qualify for a major tournament. Someone who gets there their own way and then spends the rest of the time flipping off the establishment.

Nowadays, either PGA golfers are produced in some farm on Amish land, or they prefer to act that way. Or everyone’s too terrified to have too much personality and risk the endorsement dollars.

Here’s hoping someone out there starts risking it. Talk religion, politics, space travel or whatever. Just stop talking about your ‘A’ game.

–WKW