Golf needs a token Michael Phelps
Let me start this off with a money-back guarantee - right now there is at least one card-carrying member of the PGA Tour that’s wacky on the goof balls. I guarantee it.
I bring this up due to the Michael Phelps fiasco. Phelps, who won 100,000 gold medals in the last Olympics, was recently photographed, bong in hand, admittedly smoking marijuana. And the national media just freakin’ lost it. You’d have thought that Phelps had been photographed committing a random act of genocide, such was the disappointment expressed by many sports writers.
And yes, I am, in fact, the same writer who wrote about his travails with alcohol and advised John Daly to seek help. But this is a whole different ballgame. A 23-year-old celebrity athlete taking a hit from a bong doesn’t even compare to a 40-something golfer fighting his demons. And you can talk about “gateway drugs” all you like, but the list starts and ends with alcohol. That’s the gateway nearly everyone walks through at one time or another, and it’s generally celebrated, not demonized.
But the ridiculous reaction given to Phelps’ perils with pot is what brings me back to golf. Because if there aren’t at least several pro golfers out there who have put on the old lab coat and experimented with the demon weed, then I’ll eat my 1-iron (and finally put it to some use.) Seriously, if you think they haven’t, you’re, well, probably high.
And seeing the press Phelps is getting, maybe it’s time for at least one of these golfheads to come out of the smoky closet and admit to it. Especially since both the PGA and LPGA tours are experiencing massive youth movements. Golf needs a younger demographic probably more than any sport on the planet, and young guns like Villegas, McIlroy, Creamer, Wie and A. Kim are the type of athletes who can give it to them.
And if one of them admitted to occasionally visiting the pipe, do you think it would hurt their rep or their advertising potential? It would actually enhance it. Trust me, ratings in non-Tiger events would go sky high.
So for the men of the PGA Tour and the women of the LPGA, now is the time for one of you to come clean, as it were. Because you know I speak the truth. Where there’s golf, there’s grass.
–WKW
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13 comments
Although tournament ratings may improve because of a golfer's perceived "hip" value, I cannot believe that, overall, drugs are good for any sport. Celebrities have an obligation to the youth to maintain a squeaky-clean exterior.
You should take the time to visit a court room where narcotics cases are being adjudicated. Listen to the testimony and admissions of the defendants.
I guarantee that each and every one of them will admit that their careers of smoking, injecting, and/or inhaling addictive narcotics began with the so-called "recreational" use of marijuana.
Alex USMC 1969-73
And next time you accuse me of making everything political, please refer to your above comment.
Michael Phelps incurred a three-month suspension for his indiscretion. He also lost his lucrative endorsement with Kellogg's for his ill-advised flaunting of convention.
It seems that corporate America hasn't yet adopted the tolerance toward marijuana use that you liberals would like to see. Here's hoping that they never do.
Alex USMC 1969-73
Smoking of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, etc. is to me an abomination, something I've never done in all my 65+ years. I applaud the efforts to proscribe that disgusting habit.
It's great that all indoor smoking in public places has been banned in my home state of Illinois.
However, I think it's a bit of a stretch to include anti-smoking provisions in a so-called stimulus bill.
The failure of the 18th amendment has been well-documented. Perhaps the day will come when reefer will become legal, and it's being banned will be exposed as another failure. Until that day comes, parents and teachers should discourage its use as well as that of cigarettes and alcohol, especially "binge" drinking.
Your Comrade Kiel introduced politics to this thread. I merely responded in kind.
Alex USMC 1969-73
You're correct in your critique of "flaunt" versus "flout."
But you're dead wrong that the young guns wouldn't risk their reputations or advertising potentials by crowing about their drug usage. Michael Phelps is a glaring example of exactly that premise.
And Willie, do you really want to start comparing vocabularies with your correspondents?
Alex USMC 1969-73
Since Phelps is an American icon, the recipient of more accolades and endorsements than the rest of our Olympians combined, he should have known better.
But if the American public are to take your praise of cannabis seriously, why encourage people like A. Kim, Camilo, McElroy, Paula, and Bubbles to fess up to proudly using the illegal weed? Very few of the general public are familiar with these people.
Why not get the great man himself, Tiger Woods, to glorify the beneficial effects of marijuana?
Surely you can't believe that Tiger, growing up in Southern California and for two years walking the hallowed halls of Stanford, hasn't tried a few hits on the bong?
Forget the young guns, encourage the mature gun, Tiger Woods, to reveal his secret to success, his affair with Mary Warner.
Alex USMC 1969-73
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