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Robert Bicknell
Source: Vietnam News
Tit for Tat
According to an article in Australia’s The Age newspaper,
Australasian PGA Tour chief executive Andrew Georgiou, a man from a legal
background and an outsider to golf, said PGA touring professionals are
boring and need to "sex up" their image to attract new viewers.
Georgiou said "We want to see people wear clothes like Aaron Baddeley
wears. He's got his personality. Everyone (else) wears the Titleist cap or
the Hogan shirt and it's all so homogenous that no one can relate to these
blokes. You watch them on television and you as a person can't relate to
them."
Georgiou knows that his stance goes against some of the finer
traditions of a very traditional game, but traditions that limited the way
golf could be marketed should be reviewed, using the examples of the
collarless shirts worn by Tiger Woods and Norman at last year's British
Open. Technically, the shirts are illegal. "I think, 'Who cares?' " he
said. "If it looks respectable and maintains the image of the sport, who
cares?"
In other words, Georgiou cares nothing for the traditions of the game
and is only looking to make a quick buck.
Sports have always been at the mercy of overzealous promoters who would
sacrifice their own mothers to make a quick profit, so traditions of the
game are but a small bunker in a promoters fairway to riches to these
guys.
A great example of what happens when you try to "sex up" a sport’s
image is the latest Super Bowl fiasco where MTV’s- produced the halftime
show resulted in Janet Jackson providing a literal demonstration of the
term "Boob Tube."
Tiger Woods no-collar shirt is not only "technically illegal", it is
the first step towards trashing the traditional dress codes of the game. I
have no problem with wearing a high-neck shirt on cold days, but Tiger’s
shirt is closer to a fancy t-shirt than anything worn in golf, but the
marketing "geniuses" will have you believe that it is a classy garment.
Tennis used to be a "classy" kind of game, until the "geniuses" decided
to "sex up" the sport by claiming that the "all whites" dress codes were
boring. I seem to remember that these are the same kind of jackasses who
claimed that "Coca Cola" was boring and needed to change it’s taste…
Now we have tennis clothing that resembles what street punks would wear
…baggy hip-hop shorts, shirts with no collars (and sometimes without
sleeves), hair beads littering the court... What could possibly be next,
political slogans on ripped tee shirts?
Is this the future for golf?
Its bad enough that equipment manufacturers stomp all over the
technical limits of what is "legal" just to make a profit. I envision that
sooner or later, manufacturers will try to put guidance control chips and
manoeuvring jets in golf balls to "make the game more enjoyable" for
players too lazy to improve their swing through hours of practice.
The world-wide trend of "dumbing down the tests instead of encouraging
people to study harder," sucks and results in widespread mediocrity.
People scream about equality – when it works in their favour, such as
women being allowed to play on the men’s Tour, but they also scream that
men shouldn’t play on the ladies Tour.
Sorry, but I am of the belief that everyone is equal in every way,
shape or form. If you fail a test then you shouldn’t demand easier tests,
but rather that you should study harder.
Women on the PGA Tour is fine by me IF they go through Q-school just
like everybody else. Otherwise, save the mixed gender events for "silly
season" where it won’t take money out of the pockets of players who earned
a spot in the field.
As I’ve said a million times, Golf is more than a game, it’s a test of
character and sadly, nowadays, people demonstrate that their character is
more suited to taking the easy way out.
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