Frank Hannigan and Sabbatini v. Faldo

So Frank Hannigan writes an excellent article discussing exactly how much golf "coverage" has devolved with ESPN and NBC leading the charge. The article is here at Golf Observer. Hannigan, along with Phil Mushnick at the New York Post point out how vacuous and Tiger-philic golf commentators from ESPN through Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller have become at trying to get garbage past the listener. Phil's piece is here.

So Rory Sabbatini and Nick Faldo had a HUGE dustup at the TPC over pace of play. This one got personal, with Faldo making a brutal sexual innuendo. Basically, Sabbatini, who left Ben Crane in the lurch last year at the Booz Allen, got paired with Faldo - who hinted over the air last year that if paired with Sabbatini he would deliberately play slow.

Editorial: Bad form, Nick. Like it or not, people ape what they see on TV. You are just the direct cause of a bunch of beer swilling casual golfing lunkheads deliberately slow-playing their opponents just to stick it to them. You are also directly responsible for bad sportmanship.

So during the course of a five and a half hour round, the notoriously slow Faldo (who blamed a lost ball on ten by Camillo Villegas) and Sabbatini got "put on the clock." Mercifully, nobody got penalized.

next day, after a visit to the local mart that sells screened T-shirts, sabbatini pulls a lunkhead move and dreses his wife in a T-shirt that reads "Keep up." Not exactly sublte or classy. Apparently, something got lost intranslation from America to England...either that or Faldo is dyslexic. Faldo made a brutal swipe at sabbatini's sexuality. One wonders if "Your mother wears army boots" is forthcoming.

Of course, since Tim Finchem has no control over the players and no will to act to punish anybody with more star power than him, I'll bet Faldo won't get fined. Hats off to Tom Kirkendall at Houston's Clear Thinkers for writing the details. Here is the story.

Hats off also to Shack and Thompson who also ran stories. Hey. Finchem. This is the PGA Tour, not the bloody Durham Bulls vs. Toledo Mudhens. Bag their heads together for the good of the game.