Standing By Your Man

“Stand by your man, give him two arms to cling to and something warm to come to when nights are cold and lonely…” Tammy Wynette

Lying among the glass shards on the floor of the Cadillac Escalade was a book entitled, “Get a Grip On Physics.” Apparently the two arms that once held her man had a pretty firm grip on what appeared to be a # 8 iron. And physics, being what it is, took over from there, as the car careened through a neighbor’s yard, violating the neighbor’s bushes and hedges, destroying a fire hydrant and coming to its final rest against a tree.

She sprinted through the rough, finding her man sprawled in the bushes, bleeding, moaning and complaining of the “double-cross” shot. Whereupon, as yet unreported by the media, the woman got proper “alignment” and teed off anew, apparently mistaking the man’s head for the women’s tee. Of course, it was 2:00 AM, and the woman, a blonde, had a very high handicap and was inexperienced in the “bare lie” shot, her husband’s favorite. Therefore, she took several mulligans as she made her way through the “hazards” to the green.

What green could she have possibly been heading to at this hour? Why, the green of the $90 million annual endorsements being received by her man from corporate sponsors of golfer gods. And the man was such a god.

Skilled in foursome play, the golfer god specialized in the knock-down shot, using an open face driver for proper alignment to keep the ball in play and from out of bounds. Some complained he had been offered too many “gimmes” that accounted for so many Aces on (and off) the course. Pure speculation.

But what is not now speculation is the aftermath of settling these late-night golf scores. Of course, the only right and proper course is to take a man’s age-old excuse of denial, denial, denial of all Cupidity (oops, culpability)…except for the cell texts that made air shots out of the stroke. What’s left? Why, confessing to the overused excuse of “transgressions.” (A new golf term?) With that he joins a long list of other gods of sports, politics and celebrity status captured in similar situations.

The drama continues to unfold, distracting our attention from Congress…some blame Obama for the distraction…follow the money!

At our dinner table last night, the short fellow from Georgia Tech blurted out that it was the woman’s fault….claimed the wife was not “meeting his needs.” The table fell silent. Before the subject could be changed, his wife, a demure lady, grabbed him by the neck and shouted, “If I’d heard such a comment from your lips earlier in life, you’d have been childless forever!” The entire restaurant fell silent at that outburst. Dinner went downhill from there. The Tech man shrank into his chair, sorta like the whole Tech campus did after last Saturday’s game.

But who is to blame for this “transgression,’” this tainting of a public icon? Not the god himself, for he came out swinging his club, claiming “private sins need no public confession.” While it has been reported only in hushed whispers, Nike has disavowed the backspin liability by claiming its logo, “Just Do It, ” was misinterpreted.

PepsiCo, another sponsor, may have contributed with corporate slogans, like: “Why You Doggin’ Me?, Drink Pepsi, Get Stuff” and “Gotta Have More.” Or take the Gatorade Tiger, which boasts “Sport is what you make it.” No one recalls which the golfer god was muttering when he was found, although one witness said he did hear something about a “bump and run shot.” He refused further commentary.

The whole sorry mess will probably never be solved, and voyeuristic golfing idolaters will debate the issue ad nauseam. I would only offer up a simple definition of one of a golfer’s bag of tricks (excuse me, “sticks”), the venerable wood driver: “A type of club where the head is generally bulbous in shape—so named because the head was usually made of wood.”

Maybe Tammy was married to a golfer once, and sums it up best in these words: “Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman, giving all your love to just one man. You’ll have bad times, he’ll have good times, doing things that you don’t understand…stand by your man.”

May I leave you with this thought? Be careful of the god you stand by and be sure HE does not have feet of clay. But what do I know? I don’t even play golf!

Bud Hearn
December 3, 2009