New York is an interesting place, filled with lots of people that are extremely impressed with the fact that they live in New York, while simultaneously and secretly wanting to move.

Throughout the five boroughs, however, New York is a great place and the people aren’t nearly as rude as they have been stereotyped. If New Yorkers have one major shared flaw, it’s this – they are champions when it comes to mocking one’s failures.

So Tallgrass Golf Club caddie Eugene Palumbo should have known he was in for it when he lost twice to a woman at a tournament at the Long Island club.

At Tallgrass, they then went the extra mile to insure that Palumbo felt the full sting of his failure. There was public ridicule questioning his manhood, followed by a full report on Palumbo’s failings in the club’s newsletter.

From Newsday: “In its complaint, the EEOC said that a club manager distributed and posted two newsletters about Palumbo’s fairway misfortunes with suggestions that he spend his summer vacation in a gay community and provide “lap dances” for “the boys.”

Palumbo complained about the treatment, and was summarily fired.

None of this impressed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission very much, as they ordered Tallgrass to pay Palumbo the equivalent of 700 years of salary for a caddie – $34,000.

In the end, this isn’t so much a free speech issue, as an issue of New Yorkers gone mad with ribbing someone. It happens daily there and sometimes litigation is the only thing that snaps them back to reality.

On the plus side, this ruling should in no way infringe upon a male golfer’s right to scream “Alice!” at himself after leaving a five-foot putt three feet short.

But you just know that somewhere out there, Tiger Woods is watching all of this and thinking “Wow, what a bunch of spazzes.”

–WKW