Bill named the Bills.

Yesterday I wrote about the oddity of The Cleveland Browns name and their mascot (after my wife pointed it out to me).

Today I highlight one more odd National Football League name choice:

The Buffalo Bills.

Before I did some research, I was under the impression that the Bills were named after Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody. Though the Bills have occasionally used the image of Bill Cody in their team’s iconography, this is not the origin of the name, nor does the team promote any affiliation with Cody today.

The Bills were named after a previous Buffalo Bills team in the now-defunct All-American Football Conference. That Buffalo Bills team ultimately merged with the Cleveland Browns in 1950 (of course), leaving the name available for the current iteration of the team. 

That original AAFC Buffalo Bills team was named for a young male bison, which is commonly referred to as a “Billy.” The name was chosen via a contest run by the team that was won by a man named Bill Keenan.

Did you follow that?

The Buffalo Bills were named by a guy named Bill who suggested the name Bills.

Bill suggested Bills.

No one thought that this choice might have been slightly self serving?

My wife is right. A pantone chip would’ve been a better mascot for the Cleveland Browns.

The Patriots play the Cleveland Browns today.

I mentioned this to my wife last night. She said, “The Browns? I’ve never heard of them. What a stupid name.”

I was surprised that she’d never heard of the Browns. She’s not a huge football fan, but she tends to know as much as the casual fan. Then again, the Browns haven’t won a meaningful game in decades, so they aren’t mentioned very often in casual circles.

Addressing the team’s name, I said, “Actually, the team is named after their first head coach, Paul Brown. And their greatest player of all time happens to be Jim Brown.”

“So what’s their mascot?” she asked. “A pantone chip?”

I’d never thought about it before, but she’s right. It’s a fairly stupid name for a football team. And it’s actually the team’s second choice of name. They were originally named The Cleveland Panthers, but another team in another football league claimed the rights to the name first, forcing the owners to choose a new name.

And Elysha is right. They chose poorly.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the greatness of their first head coach, Paul Brown, and the honor that the team’s name bestows upon him, but in the end, the team is named after a color. And an unpopular color, too. No one’s favorite color is brown. It’s the color that’s least often used in a box of crayons.

It’s the color of dirt.

Even worse, the Brown’s uniforms are more orange than brown.

As if to emphasize the stupidity of the name, it turns out that the Cleveland Brown’s on-again, off-again mascot is The Brownie Elf.

Brownies are elves from British folklore that are said to inhabit houses and aid in chores. They don’t like to be seen and will only work at night, traditionally in exchange for small gifts of food. Among food, they especially enjoy porridge and honey.

No wonder The Cleveland Browns have never made it to the Super Bowl. It turns out that a pantone chip might’ve been a better mascot after all.

My children ruined my Patriots game day perfection.

Attending Sunday’s Patriots-Steelers game was pretty great. In addition to an outstanding game, our tailgate party was about a dozen strong, including a couple friends who I hadn’t seen in a while. While we watched the early games on a television connected to the car, we dined on burgers and dogs and played some low stakes poker.

Then the Patriots hung 55 points on the Steelers, making it a perfect end to a perfect day.

Except that while I was enjoying myself in Foxboro, I was missing moments like this back home in Connecticut:

  

My friend and fellow season ticket holder asked me to sell about half of our games this year to defer costs, and while I’ve been a little sad about missing some of them (including the last second comeback against New Orleans), moments like this more than make up for staying home and watching a couple more games on the television instead of inside the stadium.

I admire this violent, malicious man.

On a good day, former New England Patriots and current Washington Redskins safety Brandon Meriweather is a hard-nosed, hard hitting football player.

Those days seem few and far between. More often, Meriweather is a dirty player with a disregard for the safety of his opponents. During his tenure in New England, I watched him make purposeful helmet-to-helmet contact with opponents on several occasions, even after the player’s forward progress had been stopped.

He’s also known for hitting players after the whistle and hitting them out of bound with great frequency.

Meriweather has been fined at least four times over the last four years for hits to the head, with fines totaling more than $100,000, and he has been penalized countless times in games for unnecessary roughness.

Based upon the way he plays the game, it would seem that Brandon Meriweather is not a nice man.

But when Chicago Bear’s receiver Brandon Marshall criticized Meriweather after last week’s game for two penalties and a suspension for leading with his helmet, Meriweather responded with this:

"Listen, everybody’s got their opinion of things, you know. Everybody’s got their opinion. He feels like, you know, I need to be kicked out of the league. I feel like, people who beat their girlfriends should be kicked out of the league too.

"You tell me who you’d rather have: Somebody who plays aggressive on the field, or somebody who beats up their girlfriend. Everybody’s got their opinion. That’s mine. He’s got his."

Meriwether was criticizing Marshall for his role in a domestic abuse case involving his then ex-girlfriend back in 2008. Marshall was eventually found not guilty of the crime and was later arrested but not charged in a separate, similar incident. Even though Marshall is innocent of all charges, I can’t help but admire Meriweather for his comments.

The NFL is full of men who commit the kinds of violent crimes for which Meriweather criticized Marshall, and yet they often remain on the field, earning millions of dollars, and rarely are they criticized by their fellow player.

Check that: They are never criticized by their fellow players.

Unfortunately, in this instance Meriweather chose to criticize someone who has not been convicted of a crime, but two separate arrests for domestic abuse is troubling at best, and a reasonable person might call it a pattern.

In all, 31 NFL players have been arrested since the 2013 Super Bowl, including three for domestic abuse.

All three are currently on NFL rosters.

While I support the idea of innocent until proven guilty (perhaps more than most given my background), I also admire the fact that Meriweather is willing to criticize a fellow player for his off-field behavior.

It simply never happens.

And while it would’ve been better for Meriweather to criticize Marshall at the time of the incident rather than in self-defense, it’s a start.

Meriweather is right. If given the choice, I’d much prefer to watch an aggressive player as opposed to a player with a history of domestic abuse.

Unfortunately, Meriweather is more than simply aggressive. He is often malicious and dangerous. While he is admittedly the lesser of two evils when  compared to a man who hits a woman, I’m not sure if either man belongs on the field on Sundays.

If you’re critical of the National Football League, I understand completely. If you’re smug while doing so, you deserve to be kicked through a goal post.

Journalist Fuzz Hogan has decided to stop watching football this season. He cites head injuries, the the use of performance enhancing drugs and the way in which the NFL contributes to corruption in college football as his reasons for forgoing the game.

I have no problem with someone deciding that football is too violent to continue watching. The data on head injuries alone makes the danger clear, and if a football fan decides to stop supporting that violence, I understand completely.

I also have no problem with anyone who decides to stop watching football because of the use of performance enhancing drugs. When the integrity of the game is questioned, then its appeal is understandably diminished.

I’m not sure if the corruption in college football would end if the NFL did not exist as Hogan suggests, but I have no problem with this reason, either. If this is what Hogan believes, his decision to stop watching professional football is admirable.

While I don’t plan to stop watching the National Football League anytime soon, I am more than willing to acknowledge that my continued interest contributes to a variety of serious health problems for the players, and that a boycott of the game would be a noble thing to do.

I just love the game too much to stop.

My dispute with Hogan is based solely in the astounding level of smugness that he exhibits when describing his football free Sundays.

He writes:  

News flash: Watching football is a time-suck. Studies have shown there’s 11 minutes of action in a game that takes three hours. So even though I’ve tried to convince myself that I can be productive during the game—checking e-mails, folding laundry, even working out—that’s still a lot of wasted time trying to not waste time.

This is not a news flash. Football fans have known this forever. Many sports, including baseball and golf, are no different. But the game’s appeal does not lie in the eleven minutes of real time play alone. It’s the moments of critical decision making, the euphoric celebrations, the instant replay, the analysis of each play, the gamesmanship, the strategy and the conversation and camaraderie that fans enjoy between the plays. While Hogan is correct about the eleven minutes of play, his use of the phrase “New flash” and the underlying implication that he is dispensing new information on football fans make him sound like a smug jackass.  

Hogan then goes on to describe his football-free Sunday: 

So instead, on the NFL’s opening Sunday afternoon I cooked dinner—a real dinner, with different dishes and a complicated recipe. I helped the kids with homework, with the attention span to actually help. I found out how the other third lives … the third that doesn’t watch the NFL. It was enjoyable.

What a smug jackass. A real dinner? My wife made grilled cheese sandwiches with apples and bacon last night. We actually picked the apples last week just prior to the Patriots-Saints game. It is one of my favorite dinners, and the whole family loved it. It took her about 15 minutes to make.

Was this not a real enough dinner for you, Mr. Hogan?

Was the lack of complicated recipes disappointing to you?

And what if we decide to order pizza for dinner on Sunday while I watch the Patriots play the Jets? Should I feel like a bad parent or an ineffective human being? 

Is that how you will think of me?

Knowing that you are making a real dinner, from a complicated recipe, while we eat pizza from a box, should I assume that the way that you are spending your time is better than mine?

And what if I choose to help my children with homework after the game? Is this not also acceptable? Is there some premium placed on homework completion during an NFL game?

Hogan then says that his football-free Sundays have allowed him to discover how the people who don’t watch the NFL live.

Has he been watching the NFL while stuffed inside a cardboard box? Did he retire to the basement and lock the door in order to watch the game? Does some moratorium exist that prevented him from asking his friends and family what they were doing while he was watching the game?    

What a stupid, ridiculous, self-serving, smug thing to say. 

I have no problem with the criticism that the National Football League receives. I have no problem with the decision to boycott the game or stop watching forever. I even have no problem with criticism directed at me for supporting this violent game.

But smugness? That’s the worse.

Sometimes even golf can be stupid

And this is one of those times. Unique golf courses and signature holes are lovely, but sometimes an idea is just too bizarre to even be considered golf, and this is one of those idea.

This also strikes me as a fairly elitist construct, perfect for the kind of jackass who likes to mention the name of his Ivy League school whenever possible.

Stupid.

Greatest touchdown call ever

Unicorns! Show ponies! Where’s the beef?

I experienced genuine euphoria yesterday. Unabashed joy. Pure, unbridled happiness. When was the last time you felt that way?

The New England Patriots won an incredible game yesterday. It was one of the most amazing comeback victories that I have ever seen, but what will be lost to the casual observer was how the comeback began when the Patriots lost the ball on a controversial fourth down play with 2 minutes and 50 seconds remaining in the game.

But all accounts, the New Orleans Saints should have been able to win the game right there and then.

Instead of running out the clock or scoring a touchdown, the Saints settled for a field goal, putting them ahead by 4. Then the Patriots got the ball back, and Tom Brady promptly threw an interception on the first play with 2 minutes and 24 seconds remaining on the clock.

Without any timeouts to stop the clock, the game should’ve been over. Again.

But the Patriots defense held, and Brady got the ball back one more time with just over a minute on the clock. That’s three possessions in a span of just under three minutes.

Then, with 10 seconds left in the game, Brady threw the game winning touchdown pass to undrafted rookie wide receiver Kenbrell Thompkins.

The moments leading up to the touchdown were an emotional roller coaster for me. The ball is dropped on the fourth down play, and I shout at the receiver for his stupidity. I hang my head in disgust. All hope is lost.

Then the defense holds the Saints to a field goal, and hope dares to rise in my belly. My eyes widen. My fists clench.

Then Brady throws a terrible interception and all hope is lost again. I drop to my knees and shout an unintelligible mix of groans and wails. “That’s it,” I declare. “Game over.”

But despite my despair, I keep watching, and the defense holds again. A glimmer of hope returns. A tiny flicker. I want to believe.  

With less than a minute on the clock and no timeouts, the team drives down the field with precision. Receivers run routes and make catches. Brady puts the ball in their hands in stride.

Then comes the touchdown.

When Thompkins caught that ball in the corner of the end zone, I leapt to my feet in euphoria. I shouted. I screamed. I jumped up and down. I pumped my fists. I scooped my daughter from the couch and swung her through the air. We danced. We cheered. My phone began dinging with messages from equally euphoric friends who were watching the game. I was out of breath by the time I sat back down on the couch, and even this morning, more than twelve hours after the victory, my heart beats a little quicker and there is joy in my soul.

I can’t help but wonder:

If you aren’t a sports fan, and if you don’t live and die with the success and failures of a particular team, do you ever have the opportunity to experience the kind of blinding euphoria that I experienced yesterday?

Are there other moments in your life that cause you to scream and cry and leap in the air and joyously embrace strangers wearing the same colors as you?

If these moments exist for the non-sports fan, when do they happen, and do they happen nearly as much as they do for someone like me?

I don’t think so.

My wife, for example, celebrated the Patriots victory with me. She was happy for the team’s success. She was pleased with the result. But when the touchdown was scored, there was only one crazy person in the house. I was the only lunatic who couldn’t stop pumping his fists and jumping up and down and shouting.   

When does someone like my wife get to experience the level of genuine euphoria that I felt yesterday afternoon?

I’m not sure that they ever do.

I’m the first to acknowledge that my love for the New England Patriots is irrational. It is a geographically-based adoration for a group of a men who I don’t really know who play a sport that I don’t play myself. I cheer for these men as they attempt to win a game against a different group of men who I despise for no good reason.

It’s crazy.

But it also brings the diehard sports fan a level of joy that can be experienced in so few other ways.

I get that chance every Sunday during football season.

It’s crazy. It’s irrational. But I pity those who don’t get to experience it for themselves.

The Patriots are proof-positive that perspective is hard, if not impossible

A friend and fellow Patriots season ticket holder sent this to me yesterday in one of the weekly email exchanges that we have prior to every game.

I thought it summed things up perfectly:

Tom Brady’s career record as a starting QB now stands at 139-39, making him the first quarterback in NFL history to be 100 games over .500.

In fact only twelve quarterbacks in NFL history have even won as many as 100 games. Pretty amazing – it’s the equivalent of going 13-3 for 10 straight seasons.

Think about all the wins we’ve witnessed, many firsthand, and yet the losses are burned into our memories like they only happened yesterday.

    

Siri on the NFL and MLB

I was on my way home from a sports bar after watching the New England Patriots beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

My wife was in the kitchen, making dinner, and wanted to know who had won the game. She turned to her iPhone and asked Siri for the score.

I loved Siri’s responses:

 

I also loved Siri’s report on the Giants versus Panthers game, as well as her answer to the question, “What is your favorite NFL team?”

 

When I asked her if she liked the New York Yankees, her answer was just about perfect:

If Bobby Riggs intentionally lost to Billie Jean King in The Battle of the Sexes, it matters. The truth always matters.

ESPN recently ran a feature story about the allegation that Bobby Riggs intentionally lost the famous 1973 Battle of the Sexes match against Billie Jean.

I’ve read the piece and then listened to the writer discuss it on a podcast.

Am I convinced that it’s true?

No. But I think there’s a possibility that it’s true.

Amanda Marcotte of Slate responded to the piece with one of her own entitled Did Bobby Riggs Throw His Match Against Billie Jean King? It Doesn’t Matter.

I can’t imagine a more ridiculous title or a worse premise.

Of course it matters. The truth always matters. Even when the truth may damage your cause or harm your narrative, it should always be sought.

In this case, however, the discovery that Riggs threw the match would not change the course or the perception of feminism in any way. In fact, I would argue that Marcotte’s piece does far more damage to feminism than the revelation that Bobby Riggs may have intentionally lost to Billie Jean King. It lends credence and weight to something that is no longer relevant. It implies that the feminist narrative is still dependent on King’s defeat of Riggs, even while she claims that the truth about the match “doesn’t matter.”  

Marcotte’s initial argument is that even if it were true that Riggs threw the match, it wouldn’t matter. Just because male athletes can jump higher and run faster than female athletes doesn’t mean that women should be paid less for the same work that men do or be any less entitled to affordable daycare.

Of course this is true. We all know this to be true. Even the most ardent, angry sexist would be hard pressed to argue that women should be paid less than men because they can’t jump as high. At no time in the history of the universe has this claim been made by even the most idiotic sexist. 

You don’t earn points for stating the obvious.

But it’s Marcotte’s ridiculous knee-jerk reaction to these allegations about an event that took place 40 years ago that risks lending credibility to something that should have absolutely to bearing on feminism at all. 

Is the feminist narrative really so dependent upon a 55 year-old retired professional tennis player losing a match to a 30 year-old female professional at the top of her game?

I hope not.

And has it been forgotten that this same 55 year-old retiree had already defeated 28 year-old Margaret Court, the #1 ranked women’s tennis player in the world at the time, just four months earlier?

In truth, The Battle of the Sexes was was hardly a feminist victory. At best it was a tie, and if you factor in age, it’s hard to argue that Riggs’ loss was a boost for feminism at all.  

Marcotte goes on to predict that after reading this ESPN story:

Every single embittered, sexist man in the country—every Fox viewer, every Limbaugh fan, every visitor to Ask Men—is going to eagerly forward this story to every guy he knows, chortling triumphantly that this finally proves that women are in fact the weaker sex.

Does she really believe that there are hordes of embittered, sexist men in this country still stinging over a tennis match that was played more than forty years ago?

Even if there were men still looking for vindication as Marcotte seems to believe, don’t you think they would’ve already found solace in the age disparity between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs? Riggs was more than a quarter-century older than his female opponents, and he defeated one of them (and according to the tennis rankings at the time, the better one) easily.

Marcotte is crazy if she thinks this potential revelation would even be a blip on the sexist radar.  

I realize that Marcotte’s intention was to say that this tennis match has no bearing on feminism today, and she is right. It doesn’t.

But to assume that sexist men are still angry about this match is ridiculous.

To state that the truth behind the Battle of the Sexes doesn’t matter is equally silly. 

This pint-sized hockey fan makes your average fantasy football player look like a joke.

I have such respect for this little girl. The passion that she possesses for her favorite hockey player is beyond impressive. She makes the fantasy football  fanatics of the world look like little boys playing with Pokémon cards on the playground. 

Even her request for food at the end of the video is perfect. This little girl truly understands how to love and embrace a sport.

She’s probably about three or four years older than my son, but if I could arrange a marriage between the two of them, I would seriously consider it. And I think he’d thank me for it later.

He could do a whole hell of a lot worse than this little girl. 

Thrilled (and possibly giddy as a schoolgirl) for a friend

ESPN's "This Is SportsCenter" is among the handful of classic sports ad campaigns of all time. Launched in 1995 by Wieden and Kennedy, the campaign—originally inspired by the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap—has become a cult hit for anyone who follows sports on ESPN.

“Have you seen the latest ‘This is SportsCenter’ commercial?” has been a refrain often heard amongst me and my friends for years.

The most recent “This is SportsCenter” commercial may be my favorite of all time. It features tennis champion Rafael Nadal, but more importantly, it features my friend and SportsCenter anchor Bram Weinstein.

Knowing Bram’s humble, low key nature, I’m probably more excited about his appearance in this commercial than he is. For me, these commercials have been a fixture in my life for almost 20 years. They have been a source of hilarity and genius. Only the best and brightest have had the opportunity to appear in them.

Perhaps when you’re immersed in the industry, these commercials seem slightly less glamorous and awe-inspiring, but for someone like me on the outside, the idea that a friend could one day appear in one of these commercials is absolutely thrilling. Unbelievable, really. 

And he’s great in it, too.

So close to joy!

Can you believe this? So close to losing. So close to deserved heartbreak.

So close to unbelievably joyous schadenfreude.

Some golf shots are too good to be true

I’ve seen some strange things on the golf course. I have made more than one shot in my time that seemed impossible. I have unintentionally bent golf balls around objects at impossible angles. I hit myself in the head with a golf ball last year. I have struck water fowl.

But I’ve never seen anything as cool as this happen on a golf course. 

Baseball pitchers are cowards. All of them.

Last night Red Sox pitcher Ryan Dempster threw four consecutive pitches at Alex Rodriguez. The first nearly hit him in the legs. The next two were tight inside. The fourth finally hit him in the elbow and ribs.

These pitches were intentional. No one debates this. Obviously Dempster is not pleased with Rodriguez’s use of performance enhancing drugs. Even as a Yankees fan, I am not pleased. I’d prefer that Rodriquez be banned from baseball permanently, and I’d like to see every other PHD user banned for life, Yankees included/

I’m also not so naïve as to forget that beloved Red Sox slugger David Ortiz was also busted for steroid not that long ago.

But here’s the thing about last night’s incident and incidents similar to it:

Baseball pitchers are cowards. All of them. Even my beloved Yankees.

Long ago, it became acceptable for a pitcher to throw a ball at an opposing batter for any number of ridiculous reasons. Sometimes it’s in retaliation for a previously plunked batter, even if the previous incident was clearly accidental. Sometimes pitchers hit batters because they don’t like the way the batter trotted around the bases after a homerun or the length of time a batter spent admiring a homerun ball. Sometimes pitchers are upset because the batter stole a base when his team was leading by four runs or the batter hit too many homeruns in a single game or the batter said something unacceptable to the media.

Pitchers stand 60 feet away from their nearly defenseless victims and throw a rock-hard ball 80-90 miles per hour at their legs, backs, elbows and shoulders. Sometimes their aim is not true and they hit a head.

Like a said: They are all a bunch of cowards.

Can you imagine if this happened outside a baseball game?

My neighbor is offended by something I say or do, and in retaliation, he throws a rock at my knees from behind his backyard fence.

Or my colleague is displeased with the way I’m boasting about a recent performance review, so in retaliation, he throws a shoe at me from across the room.

These things don’t happen in the real world, not only because these actions would seem stupid, childish and possibly criminal, but because the real world is not populated with nearly as many cowards as you can find in a major league bullpen.

Is there anything less honorable than throwing a ball at a man who is forced to stand in a small, chalk-outlined box and wait for it to happen?

And then if the batter retaliates by charging the mound to fight the coward who just threw a ball at him, the batter is thrown from the game and possibly fined for his actions.

In baseball, you’re punished for acting like a man and attempting to at least fight fair.

Last night Alex Rodriguez got the last laugh by hitting the game-winning homerun. There’s no better revenge than winning, and sadly, there is no other revenge available to Rodriguez, since he is not a pitcher.

Leave it to the Red Sox to make Alex Rodriguez, the most hated man in baseball (and justifiably so), appear sympathetic, at least for a moment.

Network television turns a baseball fan into the butt of a joke. Is this okay?

I’m torn.

On the one hand, I love this video. There is nothing better than watching a muscle-bound man struggle with someone so inconsequential.

All those hours spent lifting iron has apparently done this gorilla no good.

But on the other hand, this also strikes me as akin to the cowards who take surreptitious photographs of strangers and post them on social media in order to mock them.

I suppose that when you enter a major league baseball park, you acknowledge that your image may appear on television, but I’m not sure that this acknowledgement extends to being made the butt of a joke that will be viewed by millions of people in real time and online. 

What if he had been picking his nose? Or arguing with his wife? Or crying after receiving word that his dog had died?

Would it be okay then?

I feel for this guy. He was just trying to help.

Still, it’s hilarious.

Even I haven’t made this golf shot yet.

I’ve made some terrible golf shots in the past five years.

I’ve hit a duck. I’ve somehow turned my ball 90 degrees and landed it in a drainpipe. I hit my tee shot onto an adjacent green while guys were in the midst of putting. I literally hit the broadside of a barn once.

Last year I hit myself with my own shot.

Even with my litany of embarrassing golf shots, I’ve never hit a golf ball into a restroom, as this pro did while on the European tour.

Sunday, however, was a good day. For just the second time in my life, I beat one of my three main rivals on the golf course by one shot, employing advice received on this blog in order to extract myself from a bunker on the penultimate hole in order to secure my victory.

I even made an inadvisable, near impossible shot from the edge of a pond, through a patch of tall grass, and onto the opposite bank in order to avoid taking a penalty.

For a few moments yesterday, I felt like a real golfer.

I’ve started taking notes on the rounds of golf that I play this year with an eye to a possible, albeit slender memoir. Something along the lines of Carl Hiaasen's THE DOWNHILL LIE: A HACKERS RETURN TO A RUINOUS SPORT.

I liked the book a lot, but Hiaasen wasn’t a hacker. He wasn’t PGA material, but he was a solid golfer before and after his return to the game.

I am a bad golfer. Legitimately poor.

The initial vision for my book would an account of my six month quest to defeat one of my three main rivals on the golf course before the end of the golfing season.

But my plan was foiled yesterday when my victory came on the second round that I played this year.

I’m not complaining, even though it disturbs my planned narrative flow a bit. A victory is always a good thing. An at least I’ve beaten this particular rival once before. It was a great day for me, but not my ultimate golfing moment.

For that to happen, I would have to beat Tom, the unfairly named nemesis and villain of the book.

Tom is my the white whale. He remains at sea, waiting for my harpoon.

Small victories on the golf course

Professional golfer Lee Westwood missed the ball completely at last weekend’s Player’s Championship.

Yes, he had to hit a tree in order to miss, but still, he missed the ball.

He may be exponentially better than me at every facet of the game, but I haven’t missed the ball completely in at least three years.

I’ll take that as a victory. 

A hovercraft on a golf course: I officially live in the future.

Golf season is upon us, and I can’t wait to start playing again.

I almost always walk when I play, but if given the chance to ride this, I might never walk again.