Sunday, July 19, 2009

A quiet Sunday.

Tom Watson is a couple of months away from being 60 years old (his 61st birthday, but let's not quibble about semantics) and today he had a chance to, as the media folk say, make history. He was the third round leader of The [British] Open at Turnberry. If he won, he'd get that Claret Jug and the undying gratitude of AARP members who own a set of golf clubs. They'd be out at the local club on Monday thinking that they had a chance. Pity.
He lost, of course. He had to. Stuff like that doesn't happen in reality. It happens on television, and the network built the thing up to the point of nausea - thanks Mike Tirico - to where anybody who beat him would be viewed as Lex Luthor. Well, Stewart Cink is Lex Luthor. Check Tirico's seat for a yellow stain.
Television created a monster - as it often does. Since Tiger missed the cut, they fell into a pile of gold with this Tom Watson deal, and they played it for all it was worth. Right up until the end, when ESPNs Rick Reilly, the guy who is supposed to have "perspective" said that it's nice that Cink won, but Watson still gets to go home with the hot wife. What the F is that supposed to mean? Proving that just because network television hires a guy, it doesn't necessarily mean he has perspective. They must have used the word perspective ten times, then went to Reilly, who was supposed to tell us all what we saw and how we were supposed to evaluate it. They try to wrap up the coverage with somebody who is supposed to be able to place the event into a context and convey it to the viewers. Then, we're supposed to say, "Right. I never saw it that way." But Reilly tells us what we already figured out, and for whatever they're paying him, I'd say he's overpaid. Then, Tirico thanks him and says the word perspective a couple of times and kisses his ass - because that's what they pay him to do.
“It was almost,” Watson said. “The dream almost came true.” Yes, it would have been nice, but what it ultimately said was that the old guy eventually gets overtaken and beaten by the younger guy, just like in almost every situation in every walk of life. Face it.
"Almost", for old people, is a win.

2 comments:

Firestarter5 said...

Tommy still went home with around $750,000.00 2nd place seems OK to me

Anthony said...

I bet he'd give up the money for the trophy and the title.