I was talking to a man today who had an explanation for Rory McIlroy not being nominated Sportsperson of the Year – pipped to the post by Lewis Hamilton, I gather. This man said it was because Rory had declared for Ireland in some golf thingy or other. I heard Rory on the radio this morning and he was more than gracious about having come second place and how honoured he felt, etc. My informant told me that Rory had been tutored in how to be gracious, because there were big bucks involved – world image and all that. In fact, I’m told Rory’s brand (whatever that is) is more popular than the brands – Bose and Nike – he represents.
Am I sorry Rory was pipped to the post? Not even remotely. Golf bores me rigid (one of these games where you can do nothing to affect your opponent’s performance), I stopped caring about Sportsman of the Year when I was thirteen (and yes, it was called Sportsman back then) and the idea of comparing skill in driving cars against hitting balls strikes me as one of the most pointless exercises imaginable.
What, would you say, does someone from a developing country or someone squashed into the Gaza Strip make of our values, where we debate whether one multimillionaire famous for hitting halls with a stick doesn’t get a prize and a man famous for driving a car at highly dangerous speeds gets a prize? No wonder people go insane and invite execution by taking a Sydney café’s clientele hostage.
remember watchin when the scot andy murray won wimbledon and the commentator said just after he lifted the cup “surely he’ll win sports personality of the year now” actually think he did that year so safe to say personality has little to do with it
God I think you’re right, Michael – it is ‘Personality’, not ‘Person’. That makes it more hilarious….
My thoughts to a tee.
Some good points.I suspect the biggest point is the fact that the BBC covers so few sports now.
Yep ..i could never figure out how , when or where driving a car became a “sport”. Does that mean that we are all wee sportsmen ?…Now on the other hand, my dear uncle Paddy, late of this parish, approached the game of golf with the attitude of a Zen Master…that wee white ball sitting in that bright green landscape had him hypnotised …Mind you , he enjoyed that old G and T at the end of the game too.!!!
‘One of these games where you can do nothing to affect your opponent’s performance’.
Oh how innocent you are, Jude, or maybe as you admit, you’ve no interest in the game.
The old football adage ‘play the ball, not the man’ can be reversed in your regular Saturday forbad (four mates playing together) and tactics worthy of a world class poker game are regularly employed.
A golfer I know boasted some time ago: ‘If I come home after my Saturday game and no one has called me a bastard, I think I have wasted my day’.
Tutored in how to be gracious? Or maybe he was just being gracious!
Indeed you could be right, gio. Some are born to graciousness, some have graciousness thrust upon them…I forget the rest.
Jude,
My husband loves both sports. But golf is his passion. Golf requires practise practise practise. As they say in the golf world, “Drive for show, and putt for dough”. GOLF Gentlemen only ladies forbidden.
Norma
I’d have assumed you were his passion, Norma…
Norma – You’re somewhat out of date on the golf scene, or maybe your husband has been keeping secrets from you, but full membership has been available to ladies for some years now.
Rory did win NI SPOTY and said that he was proud to represent “our wee country”….methinks he is not overly comfortable with representing Ireland at the Olympics as he has made clear where his allegiances lie.
Too right. I suspect electing to play for Ireland has nothing to do with anything on this island and more about pragmatism and keeping irish Americans sweet.
In a sense Rory McIlroy is both well and badly named.
Like they say about New York he’s so good, they named him twice. As Perkie’s inner leprechaun tells him that ‘Rory’ is distilled from ‘Rua Ri’ or, the Red-haired King.
Then there’s the derivation of ‘McIlroy’ which both echoes and contradicts the first name: ‘Mac Giolla Rua’, or, the Son of the Red-haired Serf. In golfing parlance, for serf, read caddy.
So, next up to the tee, is …….put your hands together,folks, for……..The Red-haired King and Son of the Red-haired Caddy.
Which sounds rather like there’s no room for anybody else if this is to be a two ball.
Curiously enough, the first mention of the surname on parchment is in ‘Analacha na gCeithre Maistri’/ The Annals of the Four Masters.
Is there something of an omen here? Of the four Majors the only one that Redser still has to win is, erm, the Masters.
The only time Redser and Perkie found themselves in close proximity was in 2008 at the first tee of the Shanghai Golf Course for the Asian Open. Redser had just turned professional and so managed to attract a gallery of, erm, two. The other half of which was a golfing anorak from NZ who knew everything there was to know about Redser’s sporting pedigree.
Apart from the factoid that his uncle had played in the Armagh forward line in a league final. Which nugget Perkie’s inner annalist was only too chuffed to offload. Much to the puzzlement of an underwhelmed NZ golf anorak.
When Redser fluffed his off-the-green chip Perkie, who had just turned talisman, felt maybe he was just not cut out after all to fulfill that particular role in the Hollywood starlet’s entourage to be. And so decided to indulge in a spot of duty dereliction. For the record, Redser, erm, read that first green well and saved his bogey. He hasn’t looked back since.
The maestro from the Land of the Red Hand looks set never to be ever in the red.
From Shangers Perkie went on to meander down to Singers, aka, Singapore. In 2010 or thereabouts he had fixed on the fabled bar, The Penny Black, as his local. From that converted godown on Boat Quay he liked to park himself on a wicker chair and take a cool pint of Red Speckled Hen ale hostage. Just no avoiding that colour.
It was the plum place from which to watch the bum boats drift lazily by even while contemplating a former arse parker on the same wicker chair. One, Nick Leeson, the hedge fund futurologist who broke the bank of Mrs. Saxe-Coburg-Gotta, Baring’s. Leaving a lot of derivatives, erm, red-faced and, yes, in the red.
A drink never went down the hatch there without a toast being proposed as follows: to the greatest Rogue Trader of them all ! (Or, ought that read, Rouge Trader?).
N. Leeson of course went on to scale even dizzier financial heights: to become Treasurer of Galway United FC. The same club which had as its then Uachtaran, one Michael D. Higgins. Who sadly, in turn, has perhaps not quite done as well since.
This particular afternoon, in steamy Singapore, a parched Perkie was in for a bit of a jolt: he found his usual wicker chair taken. Indeed, the entire Penny Black Bar had been commandeered for the purposes of conducting a Press Conference for Petrol Heads, both stormy and calm.
To preview the Singapore Grand Prix. In the middle of the media scrum could be spotted, just about, the man of the mo, one Lewis Hamilton, current world champ and future softener of Redser’s cough. Another sportsman aptly named.
Perkie’s inner leprechaun immediately saw the silver l. and determined to strike while the anvil was both hot and steamy. Time to tell Hammo he had a transport system in Dublin named in his honour, the Luas. Which is hagupit in Filipino, and speed in the Q’s English.
Alas, a phalanx of mean-looking bouncers were in situ. Who looked as if they chewed nuts and bolts in place of bubble gum (which is banned in Singapore) and whose rodent-eyed glances rotated in a clockwise fashion: righty-tighty, lefty-loosie. And had every appearance of being derivatives of those Sumi guards who watched over the P.O.W. camp in Singapore which spawned King Rat.
A deflated Perkie was eventually compelled to admit deflate and so, retreat. Taking his disappointment out in the process by committing the capital offence of golliering his faded pink ball of Wriggley’s on to the pristine Singapore sidewalk.
-Take that !
It wasn’t till last night that he felt Redser’s pain.
Possibly your best yet , mighty Perk…….
Jude,
Golf is his hobbie, which he is passionate about. I am his life…….
Good man Rory!.Why am I not surprised that a native of Holywood would talk about “our wee country”.! Holywood catholic = “Larne Taig ,only posher!
I used to watch that show years ago, I remember being devastated when George Best lost out to princess Anne, maybe that`s why I have detested royalty ever since. It was always good to see a bit of football, especially in Euro/World Cup year but something tells me the BBC wouldn`t have spent much time on England`s woeful performances in Brazil. I have no time for Rory or Andy or Lewis. Fair play to those who do, we can`t all like the same things.
Jude you have admitted before your hatred for golf, so on this subject I think your opinion is a little bias. Lets put it another way Lewis won the world championship something that happens every year using a car that gives him an unfair advantage over the opposition meaning he really only has one competitor and the rest make up the numbers. Rory won 2 majors in one year something that is pretty rare throw in his age and it is something that has only been replicated twice in the history of the sport. I think it is quite clear who has achieved more in the last 12 months. To be fair the BBC sports personality has been a joke for a long time now didnt Zara Phillips even win it one year lol.
I bet Lewis could get round the 18 holes faster than Rory as well…
The game itself is a perfectly enjoyable activity. It requires skill dedication psychological strength and physical fitness. All the things we admire in any sports person.
The problem is the trappings that surround it. The blazers, the clubbish buffers the sexism, the money, the whiff of class snobbery. Like tennis it is run or seems to be run by people we don’t really identify with, though played by people from all walks of life.
That I think is Jude’s problem with golf.
I am sure it has nothing to do with Rory’s having once been less than sound on the constitutional issue.
I ppromise you, Gio, if Rory ripped off the mask and revealed a tricolour t-shrt while screaming “Tiocfaidh ár lá!” I still would find the game boring and him a polite and deeply boring young man…
Jude
I forgot, of course, to mention the famous incident when you were reprimanded for wearing your duncher in the clubhouse.
I think you never really recovered from that trauma.
As a result the fairways of Ireland will forever be deprived of your athletic grace.