Cardboard Pugs. And Kevin Reynolds.

A couple of years ago I asked my friends to come up with suggestions to ‘spice up’ golf.  I don’t play golf, I don’t watch golf, I don’t understand golf.  For me, it’s a turgid, drawn-out, snobbish horrendous affair played by overweight middle-aged men who think ambling across a ridiculously manicured lawn somehow constitutes a form of exercise.  Of course, that’s only my opinion, but it’s the right one.  My suggestion for improvement was ‘Drunk Golf’, which I’d pay to see.  Imagine an angry and increasingly emotional Colin Montgomerie…  I also liked ‘Speed Golf’, which would see golfers given 60 minutes to complete the course.  My wife’s suggestion was combine this one with ‘Naked Golf’ which frankly put nightmarish images in my head for months afterwards.  Just think for a moment of a naked John Daly hurtling desperately down the fairway, sweat cascading off his corpulent folds as he starts to panic on the 17^th.  Now try and sleep tonight.

Funnily enough, it’s that last idea which gets to the heart of my hatred of golf.  It’s not the ludicrous clothes, the obscenely vast expanse of land it consumes, or the huge payouts for something I refuse to acknowledge as a real sport.  No, my problem is much more shallow than all that.  Golfers are ugly.  Horrible to look at.  Faces like cardboard pugs left out in a shower of piss.  The fact that Tiger Woods ever got into the lady trouble he did is only testament to the fact that money is the greatest lubricant.

Ugliness doesn’t seem to be an issue with snowboarders for some reason.  I’m a bit hooked on the Winter Olympics at the moment, and the snowboard slopestyle has been a real joy.  It’s fun, quick, immensely cool and very video-gamey, and the competitors are beautiful enough to make my tears themselves weep.  And that’s just the men.

There’s also something joyous about watching a sport you don’t understand, and the Winter Olympics are full of ‘em!  I don’t know a triple salchow from a double toe-loop and I enjoy figure-skating all the more because of it.  I love how ludicrously camp it all is, from the glam costumes to the looks on the skaters’ faces as they try and emote their way through their routines.  Most of all, I love how dangerous most of the sports are.  I’ve fallen on ice and it goddamn hurts.  Hurtling down an ice slide on a tea tray at 140kph is just insane, and I have nothing but respect for those gallant idiots.  Apart from the ones doing curling.  They’re just idiots. 

Oh, and I have to point out that my link between athletic ability and good looks doesn’t always ring true.  Just look up Kevin Reynolds, the Canadian figure skater, who has a face so hypnotically bizarre I can’t stop watching him.